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Different Sins for Different Sexes?

1001001

1001001

Serial Canon Violator
Administrator
I heard an interesting story on NPR yesterday.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100961306


It was about a study by a 95 year old Jesuit priest who catalogued confessed sins by type and gender over his career.

Using the Seven Deadly Sins as the categories measured, he determined that men and women sin very differently.

For men, the top three confessed sins were: LUST, GLUTTONY, and SLOTH.

For women, the top three confessed sins were: PRIDE, ENVY, and WRATH. (I think "Pride" in this sense means "stubborness", refusal to admit you're wrong, etc.)

Now we have to add (at least) two statistical caveats: first, since the information came from the sacrament of confession, this applies to Catholics only. Secondly, and more importantly, this cannot be said to measure actual sinful behavior, but rather, what people confess to the most.

So, what say you? Does this seem accurate to you? Is it outdated/sexist? Is the whole concept of sin too stupid to worry about? Or is there a gender specific pattern revealed here, perhaps one we all recognize at some level?

Signed,

A Horny, Fat, Lazy guy married to an Inflexible, Angry Woman who Never Says She's Sorry.
 
So basically he's saying men like to sleep, eat and have sex while women like to hate eachother, be jealous of eachother and never admit they're wrong.

I'm Shocked!
 
While greed is a universal sin, not specific to either sex.

Explains a lot, really.

:bolian:
 
I don't think it says much about what the different genders do, but it's a very revealing look at what bothers each gender about themselves.

For example, take a man and a woman who both have a messy house and a beat-up car. They're both living their life the same way, but the woman is probably more ashamed of her house whereas the man is probably more ashamed of his car.

The only difference between them is how they perceive themselves. I think that's what we're seeing here.
 
RoJoHen said:
^So women don't care if they're fat and lazy, but they care that they're bitches?
Click to expand...

I think so. For a woman:

Caring if you're fat = How do men view me?
Caring if you're a bitch = How do women view me?

There's an small, important part of our lives when we REALLY care what the opposite gender thinks of us, but as we age we tend to care more about impressing our own gender. Who do you think mid-life-crisis sports cars are supposed to impress? Other men. Likewise, at a certain point a woman wants approval from her female friends more than from men.
 
Maybe I don't know old enough women...because the women I know love being bitches but constantly complain about how fat they are (whether they actually are or not).
 
JonathonWally said:
So basically he's saying men like to sleep, eat and have sex while women like to hate eachother, be jealous of eachother and never admit they're wrong.

I'm Shocked!
Click to expand...

:lol:

Exactly.


Small White Car said:
I don't think it says much about what the different genders do, but it's a very revealing look at what bothers each gender about themselves.
Click to expand...

Excellent point. You could be on to something here.
 
1001001 said:
JonathonWally said:
So basically he's saying men like to sleep, eat and have sex while women like to hate eachother, be jealous of eachother and never admit they're wrong.

I'm Shocked!
Click to expand...

:lol:

Exactly.


Small White Car said:
I don't think it says much about what the different genders do, but it's a very revealing look at what bothers each gender about themselves.
Click to expand...

Excellent point. You could be on to something here.
Click to expand...
^ Agreed, as Spock would say, FASCINATING:vulcan:
 
1001001 said:
Small White Car said:
I don't think it says much about what the different genders do, but it's a very revealing look at what bothers each gender about themselves.

Caring if you're fat = How do men view me?
Caring if you're a bitch = How do women view me?
Click to expand...

Excellent point. You could be on to something here.
Click to expand...


For me, would I care if I was fat? Yes I would. Thoughts derivative of that are not sin; it's important to me. It isn't something to confess because it wouldn't in my mind be sinful.

Would I care if I was a bitch? Yes I would. In good conscience, I wouldn't want to maliciously hurt another's feelings, so if I did so, it would be something I'd feel bad about. It would be a sin.

(Not that I have a religion but that is besides the point. I'm equating sin with immoral here)

Perhaps for guys, it's the opposite of this? Perhaps guys feel that wrath is 'justice', or 'competitive as is life' and thus not self-assessed as being sinful. While caring about your waistline or image is self-indulgent vanity, that is incompatible with conventional male values, so is self-assessed as sinful?


So to summarize:

If it's a conventional behavior for a gender: it's NOT sinful to do. It's NOT confessed.

If it's NOT a conventional value of a gender: it IS sinful to do. It IS confessed.
 
Or maybe women are PROUD to be BITCHES!

They're confessing about the pride, not the bitchiness itself.
 
If I remember correctly, the priest interviewed in the story said that the specific sin women confessed to the most was gossip.

That could be placed in any or all three of those categories, I suppose.
 
1001001 said:
If I remember correctly, the priest interviewed in the story said that the specific sin women confessed to the most was gossip.

That could be placed in any or all three of those categories, I suppose.
Click to expand...

I guess, to explain the correlation, whatever the behaviour is, it has to be something which that gender tends to do, but at the same time, feels guilt for doing so.

Perhaps this is really just emotional dissonance between one's own will to behave in one's own perceived social (gender) role, and one's own (gender-modified) conscience.

eg, Women are socially expected to gossip so they are more inclined to partake in it, (this inclination possibly being enhanced by peer pressure). Women at the same time, are more inclined to feel conscience-type guilt from gossiping, because of higher empathic awareness.

Could that be it?

I am noticing from your original post:

LUST, GLUTTONY, and SLOTH are all self-oriented behaviours.
PRIDE, ENVY, and WRATH are all social-oriented behaviours.

There is a clear gender correlation from that alone.
 
Jadzia said:
I am noticing from your original post:

LUST, GLUTTONY, and SLOTH are all self-oriented behaviours.
PRIDE, ENVY, and WRATH are all social-oriented behaviours.

There is a clear gender correlation from that alone.
Click to expand...

That's a very insightful observation.

This whole thing made me think of that video where the guy (I can't remember his name) is explaining that men's brains are full of boxes (everything compartmentalized) and women's brains are like barbed wire (everything connected).

He also said something that made me laugh out loud: A man's favorite box is his "empty box". Men can sit and do nothing for hours (sloth?). And there's nothing that makes a woman angrier than seeing a man doing nothing (wrath?).

Having been married almost 17 years, this does sound vaguely familiar....


:lol:
 
Small White Car said:
I don't think it says much about what the different genders do, but it's a very revealing look at what bothers each gender about themselves.

For example, take a man and a woman who both have a messy house and a beat-up car. They're both living their life the same way, but the woman is probably more ashamed of her house whereas the man is probably more ashamed of his car.

The only difference between them is how they perceive themselves. I think that's what we're seeing here.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't agree.

This is like saying men walk into confessional having felt rage, but don't see it as a sin, so don't mention it, but admit to feeling lust. That completely misses the point of Confession.

Catholics are first of all aware of what kind of behaviour they should be confessing to. Confession is anonymous between them and God so there is no motivation to mention one thing and not another. If you're going to be Catholic, and you're going to Confession, then you open up and admit it all.

The don't walk in and confess to "Pride". They confess what happened and then this Jesuit would have slotted into one of his categories.

I'm not saying this was 100% objective, but it's much more so than, say, interviewing a thousand random college students about what they did.
 
Jadzia said:
Perhaps this is really just emotional dissonance between one's own will to behave in one's own perceived social (gender) role, and one's own (gender-modified) conscience.
Click to expand...
This is pretty much what's going on; Catholics have a strong tendency to enforce (on themselves and each other) archaic gender roles. Overall, the results of this "study" are totally at odds with my own experience with people.
 
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