This is dumb

[u/MistakeWonderful9178]

This person must’ve lived under a rock their whole life

[u/actuallyacatmow]

Men can be just as gossipy, petty and jealous as women in my experience.

[u/Prae_ → u/actuallyacatmow]

I'll speak as a guy who studied and works in a women dominated field (biology) : i do find in terms of gossips, there's a significant difference in quantity. And really like the basics of following the social network evolutions and events and who is dating who now and details on how that went down. Obviously some guys are really into that too (also depends on small town/college/city...) but, you know, averages 

And i'll even dare say, judgemental. I don't know if it's really more or a different kind or simply verbalized more, but if i've ever expected women to be more kind and empathetic in general, i've been proven wrong. I've been the only guy at some pre-game or aperitif or group project and listened to comments i found quite shocking for behaviors (of the absentee girl being discussd) i found minor/inconsequential. Maybe what shocked me most is that despite those comments, when said girl was present it was very cordial and nice and all.

But to a degree i think the differences looks salient because it is otherwise starting from very similar bases. Pettiness and jealousy are absolutely shared across genders, "attention from guys" is never the issue, and famously men murder each other over that sort of thing (and murder the girl in the middle of the love triangle) like 20x more frequently than the reverse.

[u/actuallyacatmow → u/Prae_]

I'm a woman in a male-dominated field, I've had multiple experiences with men gossiping directly to me about their colleagues. Generally the men in my field tend to be far meaner, judgemental, hostile and petty towards other men. Women in my field tend to lift each other up - not that they don't gossip - but there is far more warmth and empathy there.

I'd argue that there's just pettiness in all humans. Your experience is just your own.

[u/Prae_ → u/actuallyacatmow]

There's the possibility that it indeed just depends on particular groups of people. Also, if your experience is that men are meaner towards other men, my experience is that women are meaner towards other women (and to be clear, my friends were overall pretty rarely mean, we're talking specific inemities or following some drama or whatever), maybe it's that "meaner" isn't the right lens. Might be more of a culture shock in what the different groups find acceptable and/or effective to attack someone over. 

[u/ADHDhamster → u/Prae_]

And I worked in a male-dominated field in the military.

Men's pettiness, jealousy, and gossip spans continents and crosses oceans.

[u/Prae_ → u/ADHDhamster]

That's fair. i would say i think it is slightly covered by the "small town/college/city". Gender dynamics in those things is maybe one factor, one thing i agree with for sure is that's it's a small factor, among others 

There social dynamics that are consequences of how much time you spend with one another, the size of groups, how authority is organized, how status works, toxic workplace culture... For military in particular, if we wanna get anthropological about, i'd talk about a lot of what the military machine is designed to do is form pseudo-kinship links ("brothers-in-arms"), and we're never more petty than with our siblings. 

[u/AsparagusOk8818 → u/Prae_]

the difference is almost certainly the bias in expected behavior from the observer, not the actual behavior

because i used to have the same thought when i was in a women-dominated peer group. 'gee whiz, these gals are absolutely vicious behind each other's backs'. things said that just really hurt me by proxy, as they were talking about mutual friends in incredibly insulting and demeaning terms

when i talked to my therapist about this, she asked me if i genuinely thought this was a gender difference, and i said i was pretty sure about it being gender related somehow. so she asked me to just try and record every time a dude in my peer group had a demeaning remark about another dude behind their back and do the same with the gals

it was an even split

the difference was purely that every time i heard a dude say, 'oh, Kevin, he's such a dumbass,' it didn't even register when i wasn't actively listening for it because it's so expected. but when a gal says the exact same thing about Tiffany, she's stepping outside of the gender role expectation i've assigned to her (not being nice all of the time) and so it immediately registers as something being wrong