Men take more risks when a single opposite-sex observer may view their performance

Evidence

This tender friend of women—and precisely because he loves them in their truth—does not believe in feminine mystery; there is no essence that defines woman once and for all; the idea of an eternal feminine seems pedantic and ridiculous to him. … The differences that one notices between men and women reflect those of their situation. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Many boys, frightened by the harsh independence they are condemned to, thus desire to be girls; in times when they were first dressed as girls, they cried when they had to give dresses up for long pants and had to have their curls cut. Some obstinately would choose femininity, which is one of the ways of gravitating toward homosexuality: “I wanted passionately to be a girl, and I was unconscious of the grandeur of being a man to the point of trying to urinate sitting down,” Maurice Sachs recounts. However, if the boy at first seems less favored than his sisters, it is because there are greater designs for him. The requirements he is subjected to immediately imply a higher estimation. In his memoirs, Maurras recounts that he was jealous of a cadet his mother and grandmother doted upon; his father took him by the hand and out of the room. “We are men; let’s leave these women,” he told him. The child is persuaded that more is demanded of boys because of their superiority; the pride of his virility is breathed into him in order to encourage him in this difficult path; this abstract notion takes on a concrete form for him: it is embodied in the penis; he does not experience pride spontaneously in his little indolent sex organ; but he feels it through the attitude of those around him. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 681 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Men take risks to impress potentially available opposite-sex partners. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1209; Observed male-female differences reflect social situation, not fixed essence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608; Male superiority is instilled through adult attitudes, not spontaneously felt — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 681

Broader Connections

• Observed male-female differences reflect social situation, not fixed essence #complicates (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 608
• Male superiority is instilled through adult attitudes, not spontaneously felt #complicates (0.71) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 681