Mon 17 Dec 2007
Men Are Not from Mars, Women Are Not from Venus
Posted by Frank van Hasselt under Actics.com , EthicsDo women and men live by different ethical values? I suppose the stereotypical view would be that women care more about ’soft’ values like Gentleness and Empathy, while men are more concerned with ‘hard’ values like Honour and Perseverance. So is this picture supported by the data from the Actics Community?
Not exactly… Or to be more precise: not remotely. Here are the five most popular values, arranged in alphabetical order, of one of the sexes:
- Empathy, Environmentalism, Integrity, Openness, Tolerance
And here are the five most popular values, again in alphabetical order, of the other sex:
- Empathy, Environmentalism, Integrity, Strength of Character, Tolerance
It’s not exactly what you’d call wildly divergent, is it? One tiny difference- that is all the Actics data turns up. And now for a little quiz for anyone who’s interested: which way round do you think it is? Is it women who live by Strength of Character and men who live by Openness, or vice versa?
In any case, the conclusion we can draw from all of the above is clear:
Men Are from Somewhere Between Mars and Venus- and So Are Women
But I guess that’s not exactly the sort of catchy long-live-stereotypes title (besides, the capitalization gets a bit tricky) that will catapult a book to the top of the bestseller lists.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
While it’s commendable indeed that so many choose to live by Empathy, Integrity, & not least Environmentalism, I can’t help thinking that we’re not all alike. There must be a minority out there who like the idea of “living ethically”, but are reluctant to join a chorus of “1 Billion people can’t go wrong” values.
Though I don’t use them myself - I chose to display a fresh 3 values on my profile - I can’t help feeling affinity for the much less popular among the suggested Actics values…
Confidentiality, Moderation, & Prudence anyone? (1, 4, & 3 users respectively.)
& what of Humility (at a whopping 6 users)? One user (I’ve no idea if he’s religious or gently ironic) defined it as “A happy disposition marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit that lets the meek inherit a nice Christian world.” Well, religion or not, we can all at times use a little Humility (& Moderation) when endeavouring so actively to change the world in question.