In popular discourse, people often speak of “masculine energy” versus “feminine energy.”

Scientifically, however, there are no mysterious separate energies – observed gender differences arise from biology (genes and hormones) and cultural factors.

In this article, we’ll review the overlap and differences between men and women.

There is no masculine or feminine ‘energy’, but masculine and feminine biologies, behaviors, looks, mindsets, and gendered cultural associations (like blue for men and pink for women)

Intro: Gender Differences

Men and women differ on average in many traits, while also sharing much in common.

In practice, masculinity and femininity lie on continuous spectra with much overlap.
This comparison table reviews the key average male–female differences:

Table compiled by Lucio Buffalmano, synthesizing empirically supported findings from the Sage Handbook of Gender and Psychology & Helgeson’s Psychology of Gender, and various meta-analyses

👉🏼 Reminder: these are averages. They don’t always apply to every single man and woman, and masculinity and femininity may also be unconnected to biological gender.

• Male Physical traits: Men are on average taller, heavier, with more muscle mass. This reflects innate differences in muscle fiber size and distribution
• Female Physical Traits: Women carry more fat relative to weight (important for fertility and energy storage) and have more flexible joints
• Cognition: Men tend to do better on spatial-visual tasks, especially 3D mental rotation (Voyer, Voyer & Bryden, 1995), while women have slight advantages in verbal fluency and episodic memory (Lindberg et al., 2010).
  No difference in mathematics (Hyde, Fennema & Lamon, 1990).
• Personality and behavior: Men report higher trait assertiveness and risk-taking; women report higher empathy and nurturance.
  Males use physical aggression more often (Archer, 2004) and more often adopt dominant or competitive communication styles in groups
• Emotional expression: Men and women experience similar emotions, but express them differently. Men are more likely to outwardly express anger or pride, whereas women more often show sadness, fear, guilt or shame

Self-Esteem In Genders: Resilient vs. Fragile

Meta-analyses find that men score slightly higher on global self-esteem.
Hyde reports a small effect (~d = 0.2), but the small effect may underestimate how self-esteem changes in real-world settings.

Across several studies, men’s self-esteem seems more constant and independent when faced with criticism or feedback.
This study for example showd how men and women change their self-evaluation based on feedback:

from Roberts and Nolen-Hoeksema’s study, adapted by Helgeson

The Roots of Gender Differences

Despite lacking evidence for ‘feminine or masculine energy’, there is strong empirical support for the following domains.

1. Biological Factors

Innate biology underlies many average differences, and may set the ‘foundations’ for everything else.

Sex chromosomes (XX for women, XY for men) trigger developmental differences in the brain and body. And circulating hormones play a major role in gender differences.

It’s important to note that biology may also set preferences despite no innate skill differences.
For example, men still prefer STEM-related fields despite the fact that gender differences in math abilities have virtually disappeared.

2. Cultural Norms & Expectations

Cultural norms set the expectations of ‘what a man should be’ and ‘what a woman should be’.
For example, many may consider a passive and submissive man ‘less masculine’. And they may consider a more assertive woman ‘less of a stereotypical woman’.

Cultural expectations are often also normative. Meaning: they exert social pressures to conform to the expectations, with social costs for non-conformers (ie.: status loss for men).
This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of first enforcing and then confirming cliches.

However, biology and evolution still influence culture (and the other way around).
For example, men’s preferences for more feminine and submissive women may be rooted in men’s evolutionary problem of paternity. A more submissive woman may be perceived to be, and may as well be, less likely to cheat.

3. Socialization

In many cultures, boys and girls are overtly or subtly steered into different roles and activities.

Again, socialization and biology may go hand-in-hand.
Pellegrini notes that many boys naturally choose more dominance-oriented plays, while women naturally choose more relationship-based games (Pellegrini, 2013).
But socialization still matters and may also reinforce these tendencies.

4. Social Roles & Self-Identities

Historically and in many cultures, men had traditional roles of protectors and providers, while women were expected to be kind daughters and nurturing mothers.

Roles are also influenced by biology and evolutionary drives.
For example, men’s higher risk-taking and spatial abilities better aligns with hunting, which more modern societies may have inherited as working providers.

These roles may also set identities and provide a base for self-esteem.
For example, some men may think of themselves as ‘independent players’ and be proud of it, potentially inhibiting more long-term relationships or father roles.

5. Self-Identification (Yes, It Matters)

According to the APA Handbook, self-identification may shape nonverbal cues more than gender.

For example, feminine self-identification appears to predict decoding accuracy more than biological sex.
Write the authors:

psychological gender may be more critical than biological gender.
(…) nonverbal behaviors may often be telltale indicators of femininity and masculinity rather than manifestations of biological femaleness and maleness.
The critical issue may thus be the degree to which any male or female personally subscribes to societal definitions of masculinity and femininity. In some cases, psychological gender dovetails with biological gender

The authors also add that psychological gender can also match biological gender, which it often does.

All Factors Co-Influence Each Others

These factors may sometimes clash, but often reinforce each other.

For example, biology may set preferences. These inclinations may lead to choosing early-life plays and later jobs that hone certain skills. Those jobs turn into roles, self-identifications, and social expectations.

Bias vs Reality

It’s challenging analyze topics like mating and gender differences without any bias (see power dynamics below).
Bias can come from both sides: the denial of differences, and the overstatement of differences.

The Denial of Gender Differences

Several prominent scholars claimed that human innate mechanisms have been denied and suppressed in the social sciences.

Since our takes already align with evolutionary science, we refer to our review of Pinker’s The Blank Slate for more, and address the opposite side of the argument.

The Overstatement of Differences

Table dichotomies and pop-psychology authors can exaggerate differences, and popular perceptions turn gradients of gradual differences into categorical polar opposites.

For example:

Partly true—but without context, it’s just pop-psychology (and manipulation attempts, see below)

These claims aren’t totally wrong.
But they overstate differences. For example, Janet Hyde’s review of 46 meta-analyses found that many small differences are context-dependent. And the largest gaps (e.g. aggression, sexuality) are still moderate in size (Hyde, 2005).

Pop Psychology-Consuming Masses Perpetuate The Myths

Dichotomous distinctions also persist because cognitively unreflective audiences cling to simplistic explanations.

Simplistic explanations, be it ‘we’re all the same’ or ‘we’re opposites’ are easy to process and remember.
The more truthful but complex explanations are more for ‘the few’ in the upper percentiles.

Misleading Scholars In Evolutionary Studies

While the denial of differences may sometimes be less factually correct, scholars may also not be immune to overstating the differences.

Stewart‑Williams explains it in The Cambridge Handbook on Human Behavior:

Kanazawa (2003) observed that, “In every society, men prefer young and attractive women, and women prefer wealthy and powerful men”.
Such descriptions suggest substantial, dichotomous differences. The evidence for these differences, however, invariably consists of relatively modest differences in the central tendencies of highly variable and overlapping distributions.

The Truth: Overlap, Individual Variation

There are real and important gender differences, with large overlaps.

Virtually no trait is exclusive to men or women, and the difference is more a matter of degrees.
Gender differences often follow this pattern:

Crucially, it’s worth remembering that there is enormous variation within each sex. For many traits, intra-sexual variation is larger than inter-sexual vartiation.

Evolutionary Perspective: Mating Differences & Life Phases

From an evolutionary perspective, men and women should differ most in reproduction-related traits.
For example, men’s higher preference for variety and women’s higher preoccupation with forced copulation.

And as would be predicted by evolutionary models, several differences decline after the ‘core reproductive years’.
For example, the ‘smiling gap’ in public narrows as women get older (LaFrance et al., 2003).

Importantly, the differences may be smaller or non-existent in survival-related traits like general intelligence or cognitive biases.

Small Differences Matter: Emergent Behavior & Social Dynamics

There is much truth in the claim that ‘differences aren’t that big’.
But it would be a major mistake, and an unfortunately common one, to conclude that ‘since gender differences are not so large, they don’t matter’.

Instead, even small gender differences matter. Especially if they are persistent across time and situation, as many are.
There are three levels to this:

• Individual differences add up. A woman who negotiates 20% less often, 30% less assertively, and rarely demands a promotion ends up earning considerably less money across her life
• Differences aggregate at population level to produce large social effects
• Outliers have the largest impact even if most average men are just a little more ambitious or ruthless, the

This is how we naturally end up with more female kindergarten teachers, most male billionaires, and almost all top athletes and dictators being males.

In brief: gender is a crucial factor to predict personality and behavior, while still being one factor among many.

Power Dynamics Explain It All

Masculinity gets ahead, femininity gets along

– A generalization, with an uncomfortable backdrop of truth

The root cause of many gender-biased takes come down to power dynamics, as shaped by evolutionary drives, and fueled by subconscious self-interest.

Masculinity is associated with power/independence and femininity is associated with submissiveness/interdepence.
This has tremendous implications for gender relations and public discourse. It’s the unspoken notion that drives all modern ‘gender cultural wars’.

Both genders defend or undermine those associations based on their motives and self-interests.

Men stress the biological roots of gender dichotomies because they underpin their mating strategies.
If everyone accepts male power and feminine dependence, men maintain social power and women seek male ‘provision and protection’. Protection-seeking women fall straight into men’s arms, fulfilling their sexual and reproductive drives.

On the other hand, some modern women reject the biological roots of gender differences because it better supports their preference for women’s power.
If differences aren’t biological, then men aren’t ‘naturally’ higher power, and women can be equally high-power and independent.
Women who champion women’s empowerment fear that ‘admitting’ femininity’s association with coyness and women’s ancestral ‘need for male provisioning’ undermines their cause.

This is why feminist-leaning scholars lean culture/social constructionism, and male scholars lean biology/evolution.

These underlying power dynamics and opposing interests make an unbiased discourse challenging.
Bar for a few enlightened individuals…

TPM’s Stance: Individual Empowerment Sets You Free

We take no side because we champion individual empowerment, rather than group or gender-based power.

Empowered individuals do better in life, and are also mentally unbiased. They are unbiased because they can be; they don’t depend on their gender to do well.
If anything, empowered men gain with women’s empowerment (see this video for more).

Want to become this type of man?
Our approach helps men ‘fly higher’, and achieve their goals no matter what:

• Power University: for men who want to win, no matter the culture