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[–]lefterfield 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I suppose... On the one hand, I see the absurdity of socialized concern for others in that situation. On the other, I'm in favor of anything that stops someone from choosing a more reliable or more fatal means of killing themselves... and all it really suggests is that women are socialized to have empathy. What we need more of is socializing men to feel empathy, too.

[–]Realwoman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's not just socialization, baby girls are more interested in faces than baby boys and greater empathy is observed in most female mammals since they're the ones taking care of the young.

[–]sisterinsomnia 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The study about baby girls being more interested in faces than baby boys had severe methodological problems and nobody has ever been able to reproduce that result in later studies (there is also an argument that eyesight is not sufficiently developed at that age which was pretty much right after birth to distinguish shapes_.

In the first study the research assistants held the baby, they knew the baby's sex, and, of course could have unconsciously been changing the angle the held baby was looking.

[–]Realwoman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting. But there is a solid evolutionary explanation for why females are more empathetic and more caring about other people - they're the ones taking care of babies. This seems to be true for all female mammals. Now for humans, it makes sense that caring fathers are more likely to have their offspring survive but I don't know if that has been demonstrated.