Brain differences are nowhere near the entire story. There are so many different chemicals that can be floating around in your brain at any given time. Oxytocin might give you some insight here. They've done studies that showed that this hormone increases things like trust, trustworthiness, generosity, empathy and morality.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin.html
This same video explains that testosterone increases selfishness and punishing behaviors. Different sources say different things about how oxytocin affects each gender, but there's a theme where they're saying the women either have higher oxytocin or stronger reactions to it or that testosterone interferes with it, etc. Essentially the message in the theories is "Women more frequently act on the influence of oxytocin".
Here is what this is like for me:
Imagine, for a moment, feeling ten times less selfish (the video says men have 10x the testosterone, not sure if our subjective experiences correspond exactly, but that's my guess for the following hypothetical scenarios). Now imagine being high every time you do something nice. For me, this means the world feels beautiful, I feel secure and peaceful, and I feel satisfied in a way that nothing else can match.
Imagine someone doing something bad to you. Imagine you're not even selfish enough to be angry. I don't always stay calm, but the things that don't make me angry might surprise you. Now imagine feeling sorry for the person instead of worrying about yourself. This is what it feels like to be me. People like me have to work hard on developing rational self-interest. You've probably wondered about the phenomenon where a lot of women get attached to an abusive man and keep trying to love him into being a better person even though he's abusing her. I haven't had problems saying no since my early twenties, but it took work to learn to be strong enough to say no and be firm. These hormonal differences may explain that.
If you're motivated by helping, and you even feel sorry for people who hurt you, how much motivation do you have to go out and learn more about how to make money? If your brain rewards you with a high whenever you're nice to someone, how much more time would you want to spend doing that? If what gratifies you is expressing empathy, this changes your priorities by, at the very least, competing with your other interests. In my case, I prefer playing helping roles so much that it trumps just about everything else for me. Here is a chart that shows the results of some studies done to compare the interests of highly intelligent adult men and women (I figure if the LW surveys are right about member's IQs being in the 140s on average, this chart is more applicable here than a random one).
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10176.aspx
Notice things like the women are much more interested in community service, social contacts and teaching children (all of which require caring) and men are more interested in law (which demands an aggressive personality because you're fighting over who wins). Sure, you can help people with money, but that way, you give them the most benefit while spending the least amount of time actually interacting with them. Most people have empathy and like helping but not everyone can do it full-time. I, on the other hand, like helping so much I can't be bothered to spend a large amount of time on money. After I clock out at the end of the day, it's time for me to help someone.
If oxytocin tends to affect the genders differently (or if testosterone contradicts it), this explains a lot of gender differences - why men tend to be more aggressive, why women tend to be more socially accommodating and it may explain why they aren't as interested in economics - they may just prefer roles that require caring instead.
In another discussion going on right now, I posted this proposal, asking for feedback on this experiment. The feedback was positive, so here goes...
Original Post:
In the following discussion, the idea was added that fellow LWers could submit questions to the Women of LW. The women can then use these as prompts in their narratives, if they like. If you are interested in submitting questions, please read the guidelines below in "Call for Questions" before posting.
If you are interested in submitting a narrative, please read the Call for Narrative section below.
Call for Narratives
RSVP -(ETA- We have reached the needed number of pre-commitments! You do not need to fill out the form, although you are welcome to, if you like) I think we need to have at least 6 people submitting narratives to provide both the scope and the anonymity to work. So before I ask women to spend their time writing these, I would like to make sure we will get enough submissions to publish. If you are going to write a narrative, fill out this (one-minute) form in the next couple days. If we get at least 6 women pre-committed to writing a narrative, we will move forward. I will PM or email you and let you know. If, in a week, we have not had at least 6 commitments, I will close the form.
Submissions- Feel free to submit, even if you did not RSVP. (that part is just to make sure we have minimum amount of people). Just send me a pm, dropbox link, or ask for my email. I'll add more information to this, as it gets worked out.
Although the discussion that spurred this idea was about "creep" behaviors, please don't limit your responses to that subject only. Feel free to discuss any gender-related issues that you find relevant, especially responses to the questions that are posted in the thread below by your fellow LWers.
The anonymity is to provide you with the opportunity to express non-self-censored thoughts. It is ok if they are half-formed, stream-of-consciousness writings. My goal is to find out what the women on this site think, not nit-pick at the writing style. I don't want to limit submissions by saying that they have to have hours spent on formulating, organizing, and clarifying them. Write as much as you like. Don't worry about length. I will write tl;dr's if needed.
How I organize the submissions in the final post depends strongly on what is submitted to me. Separate out things that you think are identifiable to you, and I will put them in a section that is not affiliated with the rest of your submission.
Submissions are due Sept 25th!
Security- I am willing to work with people individually to make sure that their narratives aren't identifiable via writing style or little clues. Discussions that are obviously written by you (for example, talking about an incident many LWers know about) can be pulled out of your main narrative, and placed in a separate section. (reading the original exchange on the topic will clarify what I am trying to explain)
Verification- Submissions must be linked to active LW accounts (i.e. older than a week, more than 50 karma). This info will only be known to me. When possible, I would like to have validation (such as a link to a relevant post) that the account is of a female or transgendered user.
Call for Questions
Feel free to ask questions you would like answered by the women of LW. To make everything easier for us, remember the following:
1) Put questions in response to the comment entitled "Question submissions"
2)Due to the nature of this experiment, all questions will automatically assumed to be operating under Crocker's Rules.
3) Please only post one question per comment!
Upvote questions you would like to see answered. The questions with the highest amounts of upvotes are probably the most likely to be answered (based on my model of fellow LW Women).