Biological women are psychologically better suited than biological men to raise and care for children.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One day
- Max argument characters
- 15,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Psychology:
The scientific study of mind and behavior.
Psychological:
Affecting, or arising in the mind; related to the mental and emotional state of a person.
Suited:
Right for a particular purpose or situation, because of having all the qualities that are needed
Burden of Proof:
Shared
Definitions
Restated definitions included in the description that CON (by default) agreed to by accepting this debate:
Psychology
The scientific study of mind and behavior.
Psychological
Affecting, or arising in the mind; related to the mental and emotional state of a person.
Suited
Right for a particular purpose or situation, because of having all the qualities that are needed
Better (Suited)
Of a more excellent or effective type or quality.
Childrearing refers to the overall process and effort involved with raising children, including the basics, like feeding them and keeping them healthy, as well as other aspects of nurturing them and teaching them how to behave.
Care
the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.
Child
a young human being below the age of puberty or the legal age of majority.
Resolution and BOP
The resolution of this debate is "Biological women are psychologically better suited than biological men to raise and care for children". To win this debate I, taking the PRO position, must prove that on average biological women have certain psychological characteristics that make them better suited to raise and care for children as compared to biological men. If CON does not prove this to be false, CON has lost the debate.
Men and women exhibit various phycological differences. These distinctions to varying degrees biologically innate and evolutionary.
I am NOT claiming or arguing that:
1) women should stay at home and raise children
2) women belong in the home
I AM arguing that on average the phycological differences between biological men and women make women better suited and equipped to raise and care for their young.
Parents are tasked with taking their youth, and developing them socially, emotionally, and hygienically. Young children need empathy, attention, and comfort. Women are on average, better suited to provide this to the young.
C1.
A large meta-analysis comparing sex differences in interests between men and women illustrates that men have a preference towards working with objects while women have a preference for working with people.
Technical manuals for 47 interest inventories were used, yielding 503,188 respondents. Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, producing a large effect size
To be better suited to raise children, must one not have an innate phycological tendency and preference to work with fellow human beings? This study illustrates that men are more interested in physical objects, and that is not to say that they dont care for people, but women have a greater tendency to do so.
C2.
Large sex-comparing cognitive studies have concluded that on average, women have more empathic thought patterns, while rational thought is more prevalent in men.
Other studies have suggested that rational thought trumps empathy in men’s brains more than in women’s brains. For instance, a 2003 article in the journal Neuroreport found that when women were asked to identify other people’s emotions, their brain activity indicated they were truly feeling the emotions they saw. Men, by contrast, showed activity in brain regions associated with rational analysis, indicating they were just identifying the emotions and considering whether they’d seen them before—a more objective position.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Young children need empathy in their lives, because they are tender, emotional, and make bad choices because they aren't socialized. A parent's job is to guide their child, into making good choices. In order to do so, they must be tolerant and understanding.
C3.
On average, women are more likely to care for their elderly parents, while less likely to abuse and abandon their young children.
they are more likely to be mentally retarded—than women; men are more likely to abuse and abandon their children, and less likely to take care of their aging parents.
This is again, not to suggest that all men abuse children, but considering the studies presented above in addition to this one, to illustrate that women have more tolerance and emotional care for children on average.
Conclusion
Women and men to varying degrees have different psychological tendencies. These differences favor women in their ability to provide emotional care and nurture children over men.
Please vote CON.
Sources
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/women_more_empathic_than_men
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/analyzing-gender-differences-in-psychology/
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/childrearing
Other definitions are from google (Oxford)
A. Providing food and feeding child in the early years before they can feed themselves
B. Providing shelter, with space to play, and avoiding threats such as fire, storms, strong electricity
C. Socialising child within the relevant culture.
D. Interacting with child, conversing.
E. Providing resources such as clothes, medicine, and education.
F. Responding to unforseen problems such as headline and depression.
G. Keep child clean, which requires changing diapers in early years, but otherwise access to shower facilities.
Therefore to provide adequate care to raise a child needs both time and money. In regards to the latter, men have traditionally had more access to financial resources in patriarchal cultures such as our own. Spare time is also dependsnt on economic circumstances. Therefore, if anything, men are better suited to raise children, on average, than women. This may not have to do with biological sex so much as with cultural gender privilege though.
In any case, I do not need to prove that men are better suited to caring for children. Rather, my opponent needs to show that women are biologically better suited than men to the tasks described above. Given that men prepare food, engage in social behaviour, build houses and aquire resources all around us, it seems on the surface that the sexes are equally suited to those tasks. I look forward to my opponent's argument therefore.
A NOTE ABOUT VOTING
if formal voting is too complex, just vote in the comments. Thanks!
- To win this debate I, as PRO, must prove the resolution.
- As this debate stands, I have proven the resolution
In any case, I do not need to prove that men are better suited to caring for children. Rather, my opponent needs to show that women are biologically better suited than men to the tasks described above.
- OBJECTION, CON claims I must prove that women are biologically better suited than men to raise children. This is false.
- The resolution states that biological women are psychologically better suited than biological men to raise and care for children. While biology and psychology are related to varying degrees, they are not synonyms, and should not be used in this way.
- I am making a specific distinction between the terms to prevent attempts of using the logical fallacy of equivocation, which occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one portion of the argument and then another.
- CON is accurate in stating he does not need to prove that men are BETTER suited than women.
- CON must, however, contend and refute the resolution by refuting evidence presented that women ARE psychologically better suited to raise children. CON once again makes a statement irrelevant to the debate.
Given that men prepare food, engage in social behavior, build houses, and acquire resources all around us, it seems on the surface that the sexes are equally suited to those tasks.
- The statement, "men engage in social behavior" is true but so do dogs and cats. The point being that CON does not explain how this is relevant.
- CON does not include anything to substantiate a psychological claim, and it is unclear as to whether he has made one. CON is unable to show how any of these claims relate to the resolution.
- CON must therefore drop this baseless argument.
- CON has presented no evidence.
- CON makes baseless points, with no substantiative meaning
- CON fails to address any of the large studies I have presented.
- CON has made no claim relevant to the resolution.
- CON drops all of my round 1 arguments
Girls are also more likely than boys to offer praise, to agree with the person they’re talking to, and to elaborate on the other person’s comments; boys, in contrast, are more likely than girls to assert their opinion and offer criticisms (Leaper & Smith, 2004). In terms of temperament, boys are slightly less able to suppress inappropriate responses and slightly more likely to blurt things out than girls (Else-Quest, Hyde, Goldsmith, & Van Hulle, 2006).
With respect to aggression, boys exhibit higher rates of unprovoked physical aggression than girls, but no difference in provoked aggression (Hyde, 2005).
I have proven that Biological women are psychologically better suited than biological men to raise and care for children.
CON fails to address any arguments made in round one.
Please vote PRO.
Sources
https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Equivocation.html
https://open.maricopa.edu/makingconflictsuckless/chapter/gender-and-conflict/
Raising and caring for children requires completing several basic tasks, which I listed in the previous round. Our society is structured around caring for the young, and so these tasks seem basic, but actually each of them involves complex psychological functioning. Buying clothes for children, for example, requires perception, memory, planning, coordination and comparison. Therefore, when I said that parenting requires time and money, I did not mean to imply that time and money would be sufficient on their own. A fern or a simple robot would not make adequate parents of human children no matter how much money and time they had. Rather, for human parents, money and time are constraints on how well they can provide for their children. It's better to be born rich than smart.
- CON argued, in round 1, that men are better suited BECAUSE they have financial resources.
Therefore to provide adequate care to raise a child needs both time and money. In regards to the latter, men have traditionally had more access to financial resources in patriarchal cultures such as our own (CON round 1)
- First CON says men are better suited to be parents because they have more money which of course is irrelevant, then CON says actions buying clothes involves aspects of psychology. What's missing here? The evidence that men have any of these aspects in greater psychological tendencies perhaps?
Also buying clothes for children really isn't all that indicative of avidly raising a child. You can buy a red shirt and not a blue one and still be a good parent
Therefore, my opponent's suggestion that managing financial resources has nothing to do with parents' psychology is simply untrue.
- OBJECTION, CON uses the straw man logical fallacy, an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument. let's revisit round 1:
In regards to the latter, men have traditionally had more access to financial resources in patriarchal cultures such as our own. (CON round 1)
- And my round 2 response:
CON seems to be arguing whether men or women are better suited to raise children regarding things like "financial resources and patriarchal cultures," which has nothing to do with whether they are psychologically better suited, a mistake on his part. (PRO round 2)
- CON has shown no evidence that men are better at managing resources than women
- In fact, research shows that women are generally better at managing financial resources than men.
Compared to men, women tend to be more cautious. Women are a bit more considered in their approach when taking risks and when profiled, tend to be more risk averse. Women weigh up pros and cons and are more thoughtful about potential costs. As a gender, women tend to take fewer risks and when this translates to managing money women are not as likely to lose their savings in risky, or higher risk, settings.
According to a recent BMO poll, men are more likely to get into debt. About 33 per cent of the male respondents had more than $100,000 in debt as opposed to only 22 per cent of women.
- While CON argues a strawman position, the argument they make of it is still incorrect. How amusing.
Several of the tasks, such as obtaining resources for the family, have traditionally been better performed by men than women.
But this gap doesn’t take into account the fact that on average, men work more hours than women. According to U.S. census data, men spend an average of 41.0 hours per week at their jobs, while women work an average of 36.3 hours per week.
Mothers with children younger than 18 were more likely than fathers to say they needed to reduce their work hours, felt like they couldn’t give full effort at work, and turned down a promotion because they were balancing work and parenting responsibilities.
- Men work more hours than women
- Women are more likely to take time off work to parent
Pro argues that women like to work with other people and because children are also people, women must therefore like raising children.
- OBJECTION, strawman.
- I argued that women prefer working with people and men prefer working with objects.
- I never said because of this "women must therefore like raising children" this is a complete strawman, but I will assume CON made a mistake just to be charitable.
54 percent of mothers with children under the age of 18 say they would rather be at home than in the office, and only 40 percent of mothers with young children say they are employed because they prefer to be.
CON fails to even touch this argument.
In any case, the idea that women are empathetic while men are rational is an old-fashioned stereotype.
Pro's own source concluded that “almost all humans, regardless of sex, have the basic ability to cultivate empathy”.
Without further explanation, this seems counterintuitive - surely, a rational parent would be best placed to teach good decision making
Experts agree that empathy is an important tool for children to have in their emotional toolbox. Empathy is important because it can help people build connection, regulate emotion, and promote helping behaviors. For kids, empathy can prevent bullying, help them make friends, and help them receive help from others.
Recently, Rubalcava, Teruel and Thomas (2009)find that women are more likely to spend their income on investments in children, and theylink these allocations with direct measures of inter-temporal preference, which indicate thatwomen are more patient than men.
To support this argument, Pro cited an opinion article
My opponent cited research on young children at school that found girls offered more praise to their peers than boys, and boys were more likely to offer opinions and criticism than girls. These early playground behaviours would lead to similar behaviours 20 years later, the argument seems to be.
Further, it is not obvious why tendency to praise would make someone better suited to raising children than asserting opinions. Sometimes parents need to be firm, for example, to tell their children not to grab strange dogs in the street, and according to Pro's argument, men should be better suited to do that and keep their children safe.
Children with positive self-worth tend to make better grades in school, do not get discouraged easily, and have more productive lives overall.
I commend CON for attempting to refute my arguments, but CON has obviously failed to do so. I have proven that women are better suited to raise children as a matter of their psychology.
Please vote PRO!
Right away I have to disagree with pro's assessment of BoP "If CON does not prove this to be false, CON has lost the debate" pro has to first give warrant for it being true. Granted, pro is swiftly able to do just that.
The core of pro's argument is distilled as follows: "Young children need empathy, attention, and comfort. Women are on average, better suited to provide this to the young."
The core of cons seems to be that men are better with money, therefore better parents.
R1:
Pro builds a good case with lots of sources, and con phones it in with a simple declaration that men make more money so are in general better suited.
R2:
In gist... Pro clarified that he worded the resolution to avoid certain obvious k's, and generally disagrees with cons assessment of his case.
Con adds warrants to his case about money being more important, including a surprisingly clever twist on the sex pay gap using PewResearch for support.
Con adds that mothers get lonely (presumably fathers don't?), that empathy is not better than rationality, that men tending to abandon children doesn't reflect on if they are good parents, and finally (in response to pro's weakest argument) that playground behavior is not indicative of adult behavior nor is false praise superior to rational criticism.
R3:
Pro accuses con of Strawmanning his case. Cleverly uses a financial site to show to women are psychologically better with money than men (even if culturally that isn't rewarded with more of it), and raises the point that the pay gap is largely due to men working more and deprioritizing their children (with a quote mined from cons own source).
Con phones it in again, drops almost everything, and raises this rather obvious strawman (without defending the other allegations of Strawmanning) of pro's case: "They would be better parents if they quit their jobs and came home to gaze empathetically on their shivering children, according to Pro." Con further doesn't defend on that huge sex pay gap angle but still calls men better planners (I sincerely hope they didn't plan their way into that >$100K debt).
Arguments: pro
While I like concise, con ended up dropping way too much. I do agree with con that money is required to properly care for children, but this debate showed that men are less good at that, which is only magnified if they are raising children.
Looking back at the empathy angle, it feels like a dead end.
Men being more likely to abandon children, of course did them no favors (even if there are some men who extra not abandon their children to counterbalance this). Comparatively, women wanting to raise children, is a very favorable indicator of their psychology towards it.
Sources: pro
Pubmed.gov was good, the Berkeley.edu one not so much at first glance (con did well against this, but in the final round pro did an amazing job defending it as written by a doctor as a direct interpretation of findings from scientific research).
Cons own pew research one was directly quoted against him (more on that in the main analysis).
There were plenty more (mostly from pro), but those were the most interesting to me.
This debate turned out to be a lot more intense than I predicted, it was close, ferocious and a spectacle.
The twisting of sources by Con was clever but Con's actual own sources were .com type stuff and while pewresearch is reliable as it gets, the rest... for a formal debate... It doesn't warrant the source point.
Pro's most crucial error was allowing Con's framework of tasks required to raise and care for children to remain totally uncontested (Con's R1).
In fact, Con was extremely cunning by leaving it as 'and', not separating which was 'care for' and which was 'raise' meaning if Pro failed to contradict or elaborate on it, all Con had to do (which Con did) was prove the 'raise' without the 'care for' part in any specific manner and the 'and' aspect of the resolution is moot.
Pro's case began to solely hone in on the 'care for' aspect of the resolution, which Con noticed and went about working around Pro's line of attack by completely taking hold of the 'raise' aspect. One example of this working so well is that when pro said women like to work with people, men with objects, this became almost identical to Pro's Round 3 but it arbitrarily claimed that women are more emotional and men more rational (firstly you can be high in both and lacking in both but I won't regard that as Con didn't bring it up). Con refutes both at once by pointing out that a rational, clearer thinker is going to both make more sound decisions for the children and teach them more rational ways of going about life.
Pro retorts to this by... lying about Con every single Round, which is why I docked the conduct mark. It's one thing to flex and paint a biased image but we are talking constant gaslighting and lying about what Con has said or done. Pro said Con has dropped points, which while Con didn't directly rebuke the rationality point, it was reflected against Pro and Con certainly made points that were relevant to the resolution, Pro is knowingly lying when saying things like as follows:
"CON makes baseless points, with no substantiative meaning
CON has made no claim relevant to the resolution. "
after an OPENING ROUND by Con that actually was not involving rebuttal to be fairer to Pro as it was concise and left Pro with more to input in both bolstering Pro's own case and rebuking Con's.
Then, when Con takes it on board, (every single criticism Pro gave to Con, literally every single one was taken on board and made up for in Round 2 by Con), Pro then snarkily talks with the following tone for the remainder of the debate:
"CON made a series of points and "refutations," and most of them are strawmen or easily refutable points.
Unfortunately, I dont think any of them work. I will tear through them "
"This is simply CON pointing out the obvious."
"I'll let the voters observe how ridiculous this claim may be. "
"I commend CON for attempting to refute my arguments, but CON has obviously failed to do so. "
There's a fine line in debating between cocky and confident and Pro really pushes over a line that I am comfortable with.
In fact this goes beyond conduct, it is fallacious logic and is precisely what made me want to vote Con all the more.
Con literally took each point Pro criticised in round 2 on board and in Round 3, Pro is still shitting on Con making it out like Con isn't trying and is failing to address things and back things up.
The ENTIRE A-to-G point by point listing of what is involved in raising and caring for children provided by Con is simply waved away by Pro with the following statement:
"CON seems to be arguing whether men or women are better suited to raise children regarding things like "financial resources and patriarchal cultures," which has nothing to do with whether they are psychologically better suited, a mistake on his part. Having said this, the voters can almost discard CON's entire round 1 case. "
but never once explains why we should discard them, when in fact Con was the only participant in the debate to give proper framework for voters to ascertain what raising and caring for entails (Pro presumed we'd know being more empathic vs systematic/rational was somehow an important factor).
I do not recall having something against you...
It's just unfortunate, and honestly a disgrace, that people will place personal vandetta, or malice, into a debate vote.
What you have personally against someone stays out of the voting tab. Seriously, do I even have to say this?
"Then pro made a comeback, and you chose to just drop that he had flipped your best source and argument to be directly against you"
Yeah, and that's once again, why RM's vote is incoherent, and just emotionally charged.
He didn't even address how I took CON's strongest argument and turned it completely against them, moving into the next round where CON does not even address this. CON further makes an emotional appeal argument and sevral additonal strawmans (yet RM says I lied about con and provides no examples of course!).
Yes, moving from logic to pure emotion.
Remember, RM said I lied about CON multiple times, yet he provides no examples of this.
RM says I gaslighted CON yet provides no evidence of this.
RM makes emotional flurrys of me being "snarky" and "cocky" as a justification, while I am just making simple claims like, "CON has made easily refutable arguments" and "we can discard most of CON's case because it was irrelevant"
I gave plenty of examples of you lying about con, in quoted snippets, I'd happily extend the vote if it's necessary.
"Holding down a job or running a successful business is not easy at all and requires learning, responding, planning, social skills and all manner of executive functions. Therefore, my opponent's suggestion that managing financial resources has nothing to do with parents' psychology is simply untrue."
Note the word planning in the above, with direct connections to men being better with money therefore psychologically better suited to raise children. Which you repeated at the end for emphasis:
"Empathy and praise are nice, but they are certainly not the only psychological attributes that contribute to raising kids. Planning skills, fortitude and reason are also important."
...
You deny you moved from logic to emotion, and admit that you indeed made the appeal about the cold starving children, but deny that such an appeal of basically 'think of the children!' has anything to do with pathos... Need I even say it?
Actually, I take it back about your phoning it in comments being fair. Given that you obviously skimmed the debate yourself, your criticism is hypocritical and therefore unreasonable.
The shivering child comment was sarcasm. Which I would probably have removed had I been editing and going all out. It's always best to remove sarcasm.
"You may want to Ctrl+F your own arguments."
Yep, done. I never argued that men are better planners.
"In R2 I thought you would win. Then pro made a comeback, and you chose to just drop that he had flipped your best source and argument to be directly against you."
Do you mean about women being better financial managers? His source and argument were about managing debt (an infomercial for a mortgage service) which I never mentioned. In fact, I never argued for financial management in the first place, but about practical management and providing resources. His objection was irrelevant, a misinterpretation and a red herring so yes, I ignored it
"Yes, you moved to a pathos appeal of imagined cold hungry children, but those don't work on everyone."
It was not pathos at all. I was pointing out the absurdity and weakness of his main argument.
"Moving from logic to pure emotion"
Never happened. You misread this entirely.
"and dropping so much at a critical time, IMO cost you the debate."
This is fair. I had hoped for more interesting opposition and so yes, I did slack off at the end. I 'phoned it in" and I get that someone could be annoyed by that.
"I would never argue that men are better planners,"
You may want to Ctrl+F your own arguments.
In R2 I thought you would win. Then pro made a comeback, and you chose to just drop that he had flipped your best source and argument to be directly against you. Yes, you moved to a pathos appeal of imagined cold hungry children, but those don't work on everyone. Moving from logic to pure emotion and dropping so much at a critical time, IMO cost you the debate.
I passed that vote along to other moderators. These days I pretty much only handle votes if they are very clear cut one way or another. I will say it is unlikely to be removed, as it passes the smell test, so is most likely borderline at worst (borderline votes are by default not removed). But the actual decision on that will come from another moderator who will probably get more in depth.
I should add that different aspects of a debate stand out to different readers, and (in most cases) one voting one way does not challenge the validity of another voting a different way.
The very first rebuttal argument you gave was a lie. You misquoted me as saying, "financial resources and patriarchal cultures,"
Thanks for voting, I see you are a moderator and I wanted to reiterate that I reported the vote of @Rational Madman for a few reasons
1) It shows considerable bias
2) It is incoherent, and hardly even provides specific reasons fro decisions, as yours did, and most votes do.
3) It shows a clear mis-understanding of the resolution of the debate, and igores most of my arguments, while glorifying CON's arguments.
Observe this quote
"Pro retorts to this by... lying about Con every single Round, which is why I docked the conduct mark. It's one thing to flex and paint a biased image but we are talking constant gaslighting and lying about what Con has said or done"
RM, says I was lying about CON every single round and provides no examples of this.
RM says I gaslishted CON and provides to examples of this.
As a whole, RM does not coherently explain is vote, and he hardly even speaks about the arguments made.
Please remove this vote.
Thats why I reported it.
Please don't even try. You lost the debate period, it wasn't even close. The issue is Rational Madman has some personal vandetta that he wanted to get accross in his vote I guess.
I don't know your history, of course, but it didn't seem personally malicious to me. Especially because RM is not one to hold back. If he had a problem with you, he'd just say so, I think.
Also, with all kindness, your arguments were paper thin.
I reported your vote honestly. You could tell it was extremely biased, and that you cleraly had no understanding of the resolution.
It seems personally malicious.
Yeah, I feel like he misread it. I would never argue that men are better planners, not even as devil's advocate. Just one example, but there are distortions all through the rfd imo. But it's true I slacked off in the final round, and military types can't stand arrogant-lazy energy. Hence the phoned it in comments, I'm thinking. 💜
that's one of his worst votes ever actually, pretty shocking how he forgets how Pro never touched your case overall.
Thanks for voting. I completely disagree! But thanks for the explanation.
I can't tell if you're joking or not. Time will tell I guess.
I was hesitant for fear of getting him in trouble though...
As I was saying, best to report this obviously wrong vote to the propper authorities.
To be "safe"? From what?
"something" doesn't seem right? What something? RM's vote was almost flawless.
Yeah, read the whole vote. Something doesn't seem right. Im reporting just to be safe.
The reason for I listed to discared the round one case was that the "patriarchy" or being wealthy doesn't relate to psycology. It says so in the same like that you sai I didn't mention the reason.
Seems like a bad vote, thumbs down.
Thank you for your voting comments. Your depth of analysis is astonishing, honestly.
Anyone feel free to vote, if you wish!!!
I'll look at it, but I'm pretty busy rn
Would you be interested in voting again?
ok.
I'll address your arguments next round. Don't mind, I didn't see them before I posted.
Lol what? Oof. I thought i had to post first and only had 10 minutes. Got that wrong! I'm the real novice here.
Oh no! I thought you were arguing first! But it's me!
Nttp 😊
Thank you for accepting. Game on.
Stick solely to the word 'raise' (as opposed to care for AND raise ) and I'm more open to accepting it but I will wait as I want a better idea of your ability and style to know how to predict and counter you.
I await anyone to kindly accept this debate.