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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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Men are physically stronger and so have the option of choosing a blue-collar of manual-labor career. Women pretty much have to do intellectual labor (or marry a rich husband) to be successful.

I thought of it the other way around: due to higher conscientiousness (in adolescence at least) and agreeableness, girls will do better at school - at least up until grad school - and this gives them the pick of what they study. Due to higher interest in people over things or ideas, plus somewhat higher Big Five Neuroticism, females tend to prefer the humanities and social sciences, as well as jobs like teaching and HR, even when these don't pay well, because they are relatively secure and very people-orientated. Insofar as women aren't smart, there are people-orientated jobs in retail, childcare etc.

This leaves everything else for men, whose choices are also influenced by the way that certain subjects and jobs become coded as "girly". Insofar as men are smart, they can end up in relatively well-paid jobs that aren't fun and which are maybe insecure. Insofar as they aren't, there are jobs where they can do better if they're strong and/or well-coordinated. If a man isn't smart or strong or well-coordinated, things start getting very tough.

I have been through grad school and its academic extensions. One interesting factor is that, as the conscientiousness gap narrows in people's late 20s, and very high agreeableness becomes less of an advantageous trait (your supervisor might even like it if you respectfully disagree with them) the competitions among men and women become more even. Obsessive interest in the subject becomes more important, which tends to be an advantage for men in thing and idea orientated subjects. For various reasons, women still have an advantage, including in the academic job market (I think partly because entry-level jobs in academia are mostly about being nice, compliant, caring, and diligent) but the hyper-productive young academics that I know are almost all male. So you end up with e.g. men publishing more and women having an easier time getting opportunities to publish.