I grew up in NC and there are a lot of things to like about that region. But this is one of the big reasons I’d never live there again as an adult. The disenfranchisement is unacceptable, and sadly almost all my my highschool cohort has left the state for better conditions elsewhere, as well. Sometimes I lament not staying to contribute to pushing back against this stuff, but ultimately I have to prioritize my family’s well being, so we now live in a much less cynical state.

I agree that socialization is a big part of this tendency, as other commenters are saying. However, having experienced living with a testosterone dominant body and an estrogen dominant body, I’ve found that it was much harder for me to process other people’s emotions on T. While I would care about people and what they were expressing, I often would feel overloaded by strong emotions. On E I don’t notice that as much, and have a lot more patience and capacity to emotionally engage with others.

I’m sure this stuff varies a lot from person to person, and there isn’t one single factor that determines how men and women would typically behave. But in my own life there’s a pretty big hormonal component to this