research
evidence
stereotypes
GENDER
Integronomia
ergonomics and sustainability - research, consultancy, design
www.integronomia.it
These slides contain data that researchers, in different subjects, published in scientific journals
Sonia R. Marino
architect and european ergonomist

Biology, physiology,
genetics…
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Prototype of the worker
• Male, 40 year old, 70 Kg
• Usually the cooling standards of
the offices are based on the
metabolism of this prototype of
the worker
70 Kg
=
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Sustainable cooling?
It based on women
• Women have a slightly
lower metabolic rate than
men, therefor women would
be at ease even in less
cooled environments
Review of current climate standards
would reduce waste of energy
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Gender and immune system
• The activation and suppressing of genes of the immune
system is different between men and women
• That difference could explain the higher incidence of
autoimmune diseases in women
• It is necessary to produce "gender drugs” that calculate
the differences
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Pain and gender
• And pain ?
• Microglia, a particular group of immune cells, transmit the
pain to the male brain, cells T and B in the female brain
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Stress, anxiety,
performance …
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Dangerous situations
• At the sight of the negative images, in women the areas
related to pain and pleasure with centers become more
activated, men those involved in decision-making
processes and the autonomic nervous system
• This could indicate that faced with dangerous situation
the man has a greater propensity to action
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Gender anxiety!
• Women are more anxious
• It seems due to a genetic
variant in the brain which
leads to a dysregulation of
serotonin
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Stress, empathic abilities and
gender
• Basically males under stress become more self-centered
and less empathetic
• For women, it is quite the opposite, they become more
"prosocial"
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Alcool, performance and gender
• Subjects had to press a green button when a green light
blinked, they did not had to do anything if a blue button
blinked
• Tipsy subjects were less and less able to keep from
pressing the blue light button, but the performance of the
men were three times worse than those of women
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Pilots and plane crashes
• Men and women both cause plane crashes, but ... men
drivers tend to have accidents because of distraction, or
bad decisions, like flying in bad weather or on a plane
with known technical issues
• Generally women are more cautious
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We know the female is
peaceful …
Franz Xaver Simm
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Hurricanes …
• In the United States, hurricanes with female names
cause a greater number of victims than ”male" hurricanes
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… stereotypes are dangerous
• The discrepancy is due to a psychological phenomenon
related to gender stereotypes
• Hurricanes with a female name are perceived as less
violent, more weak, therefore the people do not follow
the precautionary measures and evacuation directives !!!
After Katrina, 2005
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Perception's diversity,
colours and …
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Different communication
• The male brain circuits are optimized for good
communication within each hemisphere, in female brain
communication there is better between the two
hemispheres
• In the cerebellum exactly the opposite happens
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Women prefer pink …
• In every civilization and culture,
there is this preference that
probably is due to a natural
predilection, selection started at the
time of the hunter-gatherer
societies when women would have
developed a special sensitivity and
attention to the reddish color of the
ripe fruits
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… though the colour blue
• Universally the color blue likes more
• For this preference the reason could be in good time and
good and clean source water its signal value
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Women at risk blindness
• A study on blindness showed that in the world about two-
thirds of blind people are women
• In the underdeveloped areas 40% of women are more
likely to be blind than men
• The phenomenon is not only connected to the disastrous
situation in which women often live in third world
countries, indeed the difference is even higher in
industrialized nations
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Colour or movement
• Gender difference in the
concentration of receptors in cells
of the visual cortex during
embryogenesis results some
differences in the architecture
perception
• Women excel in the discrimination
of color tone shades, men in the
ability to capture changes in the
fast-moving stimuli
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Gender and visual memory
• Women memorize better
human physical appearance,
clothing or face strangers they
meet
• The difference between the
sexes is not great, but it is
indicative of another different
interpersonal sensitivity area
between women and men
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Colour perception
• The achromatopsia, partial or total color blindness, is
caused by changes in the genes for the opsin, a protein
contained in the rods, especially in men
• The red opsin would have been maintained by natural
selection to provide to humans a better color perception,
especially women
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Red or green face ?
• In male caucasians the spectrum of light from the face is
more shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. In
female caucasians generally it lies at the green end
• The discovery could have interesting implications for the
development of technologies for facial recognition
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Orientate, look for, …
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Find the products and lines
• Women are faster than men in finding products on
shelves and in choosing between similar products, and
they have a better sense of direction at the supermarket
• Men seem to be faster in finding parking space and they
are more apt in queuing up and pay at the check-out
counter
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Orientate: map or memories ?
• Men are better in reading road maps than women, but if
it is to reach a known destination the female brain keeps
better track of the points of reference
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Mind map
• The subjects were monitored to verify how much energy
is depleted to pick some mushrooms
• Although there were no major differences in the number
of mushrooms they picked men climbed over the
mountains and consuming more energy 70% than
women
• Women stopped more often but they gave the
impression of knowing exactly where to go
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Love, where are the
• Women decide better search strategies faster than men
• A study tested the behavior of individuals when they
search for objects: men were very good at discovering
the hidden ones, women were great when it came to
remembering where those objects had been put
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Preconceptions and
prejudices
It is easier to break an atom than a prejudice
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Gender disparities in online sales
• If a woman sells a thing on eBay, she gets a much lower
price than a salesman
• With the same product, women receive fewer deals
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Blah blah blah …
• Women say an average of 16,215 daily words, against
15,669 for men
• The difference, about 3% on average, does not appear
statistically significant
• Until now it was believed that women said about 20,000
daily words against 7,000 for men
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Beyond gender differences
• Most brains are a diverse mosaic of female, male and
intermediate characteristics
• Despite the existence of gender differences in the brain,
it cannot be asserted the existence of two distinct
categories: "male brain" and "female brain"
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Sense of humour
• According to Christie Nicholson,
“Gender humor", for a woman who has
a sense of humour is the person who
makes her laugh, for a man who
laughs at his jokes
• When relationship continues, recent
studies show that the male humour
becomes less important, but the
woman’s irony becomes a blessing
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Less different than we think
• Neurological differences between
males and females are minimal,
compared to the impositions of the
social norms; for instance, male
children like the dolls just like
female children, some time after in
preschool age the differences starts
when adults suggest the roles
Environmental factors condition
more than we think
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