Imo the answer is female socialization. Women are socialized to remember important event dates. The consequence maybe that others will consider you a bad wife/mother/person if you can't remember. Whereas for men it's like oh well they're just your average guy...

Edit: I'm not great with memorizing dates and have terrible memory. I just use an online calendar so I don't forget birthdays/event dates. Literally no excuse in this day and age...

I have the memory of a goldfish, always have. It's great because I can rewatch one of my favorite tv series a couple years later and be genuinely surprised by parts. Unfortunately the only things I can remember in painful detail are awkward/shameful interactions, I can tell you what tank top I was wearing when I got caught gossiping about a friend in 6th grade.

I have to say though, in this day and age, there is no excuse for forgetting birthdays. Just put them into your google calendar! Anyone who forgets their wedding anniversary is an asshole.

I think it depends on what they're remembering. Social stuff, women do better on average. But there are male-dominant fields where men may exceed. I can't remember where I read that, but I think the idea is that motivation is really important.

Ask men about sports games from years ago and see what they remember. :)

There are some studies showing that women do have better memory of various types, and that estrogen levels can have an impact on this. Some of these studies looked at things that might be impacted by socialization, like remembering verbal or episodic things

Here are a few I found:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/313998

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20190612/Women-have-better-memories-of-events-than-men.aspx

My experience is that my memory has always been better than men's. Is that because my memory is actually better, or because I always invested more mental/emotional energy in men than they did in me? I don't quite know...but I do know my ex-hub was willing to admit my memory was better than his until it became more convenient for him to gaslight me because that made him feel better about himself. I truly think it's a matter of men not giving a shit rather than actual mental faculty.

As a woman who used to abuse alcohol,

You are going to find more variation within sex than between is my prediction.

Maybe, but there is a large interpersonal variability that goes beyond eventual sex differences.

My memory of faces is catastrophic. Last week I talked with a guy for 15 minutes at a congress, then went to find him again to talk some more, and could not remember anything about his face. Memory of names is not much better: my bf, who was in highschool with me, still remembers most of our classmates' first and last names, and can recognise them on photos. I remember only the 5-10 people I stayed in contact with. And it's the same for dates, programming grammar, math theorems or physics formulas, and so on.

The only thing I remember relatively well is foreign languages, and places/people I have drawn/painted.

My sons have noted that they don't really remember things from their earlier childhoods well. They're older teens. I am in my later middle age and still remember my own early childhood clearly. My husband doesn't really remember his childhood at all -- his sisters have highly detailed (and colorful) stories about their own childhoods and his.

This is an interesting theory, and I wonder if anyone has ever put any research into it.

I've always found my father has a better memory than my mother, in terms of family/personal memories. But my husband omg... he is awful at remembering stories. I always have to jump in and correct things.

This might explain why mothers know the names of all their kids teachers and friends and doctors and their birth dates and the dad barely know the kids names

Yea, that seems like a sexist stereotype. The examples that you gave are about remembering things that matter to others. We have different expectations so we probably learn to remember different things. That has nothing to do with our innate abilities.