*Soyence
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Hereās an article from Psychology Today discussing gender differences.
This article says women give slightly but statistically significant higher online reviews than.men, by a whopping 0.1 stars out of five. The results were supposedly repeated across many different countries and age groups and achieved statistical significance. The authors claim this is proof women do not like to complain as much, may self censor or are nicer. But all that fit 0.1 star difference? Obviously these things are on a spectrum, but the curves are pretty close.
The second article says myths about how make and female differs are often more because of culture and age than actual differences in processing. Brain size seems to be a factor.
Lol!
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I think it has more to do with womenās greater interest in supportiveness than avoidance of complaining. I only rarely (almost never) write reviews, but when I do it tends to be because something went very well and I feel that the provider of the positive experience deserves credit for it.
I regularly threaten to write poor reviews, but have limited attention span for passing grievances.
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In my limited experience people write reviews when things are particularly good or particularly bothersome.
People in general seem to like to complain, and this includes most of the women I know. While I agree the average woman might be slightly more supportive than the average man, this is a spectrum. Does this study imply women are just 2% more supportive?
I canāt count the number of men whoāve been supportive of me in my life.
I can count the number of women whoāve been supportive of me on one hand.
Just my experience.
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Theyāve been programmed to hate us and blame all their failures on us.
ZERO accountability.
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I have found some women very supportive and some women indifferent.
Personally, I have found men more extreme - generally both slightly more supportive, but occasionally the most difficult. There have been more difficult men than women in my life, and it isnāt close.
However, my personal experiences might not generalize.
Is this anything?
Not so much. This 2025 article (below) makes the following points:
- Fitness spaces often prioritize masculine norms, creating environments where women feel like intruders.
- Mental healthcare often employs approaches aligned with feminine communication styles, alienating many men.
- Men seek mental health treatment less often despite higher suicide rates, reflecting critical support gaps.
- Effective solutions integrate diverse needs rather than reinforcing separate systems for different genders.
There is some truth to these dated stereotypes. But I see almost as many women as men in the gym, and far more in group fitness clssses. There seem to be plenty of safe spaces for those who want them. I donāt see this as a big issue now. But women here might well disagree. Still, surely things are better in this regard now then almost any other time?
I think The Sopranos made a difference, and dozens of successful people and influencers have discussed how therapy helped them. That said, I think too much focus on self care and psychology can sometimes be detrimental as well as helpful. For the same reason you need to do -stuff in the gym to get big or fit, not just talk and read and navel gaze.
I think my base assumption is that most people are lazy. Reasons to push past laziness include vitriol and a desire to be helpful. I think men and women have similar experiences of vitriol and the need to express it. My point is only that women may have just slightly more inclination to express helpfulness.
Of course this is letter-writing weāre talking about. In terms of complaining in general? Women are probably more likely because weāre more verbal. If we think it, weāre more likely to express it. Weāre similarly more likely to say āoh, what a lovely dayā or announce that there are cows in the field theyāre passing. We just talk more.
Good therapy is more than navel-gazing. Itās support in assessing issues and deciding, so what are we going to do about it? My first non-restaurant job was in a gym, and then from there I went to a Jenny Craig weight loss center, and now Iām a psychotherapist. All very similar jobs, IMO, depending on the issue/s. A line I used doing the weight loss counseling was āof course you can do what you want to do, but if what you want to do is lose weight, then what you need to do is follow the program.ā
We work on goal-setting, healthy behaviors, etc - not that different from what I did when I sold gym memberships. If I notice one of my aging clients has an unsteady gait I point it out and we talk about ways to address it and reasons why it would be well worth the effort. If theyāre passive-aggressive, we talk about ways to alter that and reasons itās worth changing.
If I am not for myself, who is for me?
And being for my own self, what am I?
If not now, when? (Hillel the Elder)
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One of the issues I have found in doing deep work in therapy is getting stuck - the therapist validates all of the terrible things that happened to you and then you can get stuck as a victim (personal experience). Acknowledging the trauma, reparenting the wounded child (for me), and then making a plan to move forward productively was key. Making the plan didnāt always happen, and of course, once you have habituated a victim mentality, moving forward can be difficult.
Part of moving forward is accepting the responsibility, choosing to not let the issues define you, and recognizing most people donāt care about your trauma - nor should they.
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I benefited greatly from a great psychologist, as Iāve said several times on this board. There are some people who think psychotherapy is bunk, and I highly disagree.
I do think mine was unique though, and he was exactly the sort of man I needed to talk to to considering my problems and ages at which I did. I saw two others after he retired to deal with nagging issues, and didnāt benefit one bit from them. It seemed as if they couldnāt grasp what I was trying to convey to them at all. Thankfully I donāt need therapy at all these days.
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I was never passive-aggressive with my therapist. However, I had a compulsive habit of trying to make him agree with me on self-abasing thoughts that had no grounding in reality. I would say something, āI cannot achieve or have X because something is wrong with me,ā (insert some crap like not having clout, resources, family background, status, whatever), to which he would usually reply, āThatās not the caseā. Then Iād reply, āBut donāt you thinkā¦ ?,ā in a way to try to get him to agree. After some time, he would just say, āHold up. Youāre not gonna trap me. Thatās not therapy.ā
Have you ever encountered this or something similar?
Even though it has been years since I saw him, in my middle age, I have done a great deal of introspection and realized exactly why I had such thoughts. They might not have had grounding in reality, but I can pinpoint exactly where they reasonably came from.
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That is a big part.
My therapist just complemented me last week on my willing and diligent efforts, and made the analogy to my getting sober. For both, once Ive determined that āI need this to work.ā I go to it hard.
I look at it a lot like the professor/student relationship I used in college. His/her job is ro teach, clarify, etc. Mine is to learn and use it. It seems to work pretty well.
As far as the therapy working, it has to. Theres too much at stake and too many people counting on me for it to not work.
Nails it for me.
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I think psychotherapy is often of great value and would recommend anyone in crisis see a licensed therapist. If the stigma behind doing so has been reduced, this is great progress.
That is not what I am trying to say. It is possible to spend so much time and effort on analysis that not enough attention is paid to the moving forward part. It is easier to make plans than apply them. This is not a knock on therapy, better functioning, mental wellbeing and its importance, striving to improve or psychology or psychiatry in general.
I certainly donāt think it that true or helpful in 2025 to state mental health is just female and gym culture is just male, even if that was once true and some dregs remain on the wineglass.
Also consider, in practice, that most self-help advice comes from books or internet media of variable (and sometimes dubious) provenance. This, again, is not therapy as such, but it is an major approach many take when dealing with these issues these days.
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Iāve seen this quite a bit in recovery and others who use therapists.
Theyāre both very much application oriented (to me) and getting out of it what you put in.
In the 12 step rooms ārigorous honestyā and āsearching and fearless moral inventory of ourselvesā are terms that are often used. Like if one isnāt seeing the results theyād like, maybe they should dig a little deeper into the rigorous honesty part. Expose that next layer of vulnerability and impetus for the behavior behind the behavior.
*Forgot to add, this is from:
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
Highly recommend.
I do believe that Facebook started monetizing content, advertisements, algorithms, etc. in 2012, which is right at the beginning of this upward trend.
I would point blame of charts 1 and 3 directly towards social media consumption / overconsumption.
I would say that chart 2 is mostly a result of over-diagnosing of mental illness. Its a huge moneymaker for pharmaceutical companies and psychologists/psychiatrists alike.
Socially it became a form of āstatusā to have some mental deficiencyā¦ everyone participates in the victimhood Olympics, and its hard to win when thereās nothing wrong with you. Itās also much easier to blame oneās poor behavior on their diagnosis, instead of themselvesā¦ these are almost entirely āMental Health Disordersā.
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Yes.
There also are other factors (of course), but social media plays itās part.
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