Adventures in Factoids: The Great Birthday Gap


Joyce Carol Oates tweets:

Stunning data: though 91% of women remember virtually all birthdays of relatives, friends, etc., mere 8% of men remember more than one.

Is this true? Or just too good to check? I have to say I’m skeptical. My memory sucks pretty badly, but even I can remember half a dozen birthdays. So that’s a data point against the 8 percent theory. On the other hand, it’s true that these are all birthdays of immediate family members. With one exception outside of that—a friend whose birthday is the same as my mother’s—I’m pretty clueless. Though, oddly enough, I remember Matt Yglesias’s exact birthdate because he turned 10 the day I got married. And Jim Henley shares my birthday, so I remember that. I’m not really sure any of these coincidental dates really count, though.

Still, 8 percent? That just hardly seems likely. I demand Scientific Evidence™.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate