If you’re a server in a restaurant, who are you most glad to see seated at your table: a group of men or a group of women? Or does it matter at all when it comes to your tip? Recent studies show the answer is, well, it depends.
In the current issue of In Character journal, sociologist Christina Hoff Sommers surveys current research on generosity and gender differences. Sommers shows that studies do not conclude that one sex is inherently more generous than another. They do conclude, however, that men and women are generous in different ways. While men are more likely to be bolder and more risk-taking in their charitable activity, women are more empathetic.
Sommers concludes:
“So, what, finally, may we conclude about the question of sex and generosity? We can safely say that men and women are different in their impulses and motives for giving to others. Fund-raisers and tax policy experts would be remiss not to take these differences into account. While there is nothing wrong with encouraging males to be more empathetic and females bolder in their charitable donations, ambitious programs for resocializing children to be more like the opposite sex are ill advised and, in any case, of unproven effect. The truth – not likely to make headlines in London or San Francisco – is that both sexes have their graces and their own styles of being virtuous. Determining which sex is the more generous is like deciding which is more physically attractive: there is no objective answer. Henry Higgins and Charles Darwin take note: when it comes to generosity, the sexes are different but fundamentally equal.“
Sommers’s article is fascinating. This is not primarily because of its conclusions but because of how counter-cultural these conclusions are. To say that men have a bent toward risk-taking and women are designed with a bent toward nurturing is not to say that all men are alligator-wrestlers or that all women are earth mothers. There’s a great deal of variation among both men and women.
But everywhere around us we do see a truth that our contemporary culture wants exinguished. God created men with a drive toward bringing bread from the ground, a vocation that is sadly cursed by sin (Gen 3:17-19) . And God created women with a drive toward being mother of all living, a vocation that is also sadly cursed by sin (Gen 3:16).
That doesn’t make much difference in how much is left in the tip jar. But it does make a difference in how and why men and women decide how much to leave. Why then can’t churches think through how in evangelism and in discipleship to reach both men and women, how to address spiritual formation both in terms of adventure and in terms of nurture?
It’s something to think about. In the meantime, whether you’re a man or a woman, leave a generous tip.
