Are there any innate differences between men and women?

[Annie11111]

I am talking about psychology, hormone influence, brain ''wiring'' and all that jazz... I don't believe there are and the rest is just pseudoscience .

[TheSameBoat]

"Petula, of course it's all socialization, I never said it wasn't. Only an idiot would think that completely different hormones or millions of years of sexual dimorphism would make a difference." (With ref to the innateness of risk taking, a psychological trait) Annie11111, 2014.

Annie do stop being so goady with all these threads pretending to say the opposite of what you mean.

It's so tiring.

[AMumInScotland]

You must be very, very bored Annie...

[TheSameBoat]

11 Capt?

[CKDexterHaven]

(M)Annie.

[LEMmingaround]

I suspect im falling for a troll but no it is not psuedo science. Male and female brains are very different. The differences are subtle but there are morphological and hormonal differences. Also if you fibd the science too baffling I can start simple.

A man has a penis. A woman has a vagina. Men tend to be hairier (someone needs to relay this difference to my chin!) Men are generally stronger than women although fitness levels probably equal. Bal bla blaty bla

[LEMmingaround]

Or if you want something more scientific google "the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the pre optic are sdn-poa" tends to be larger in males. Research has in the past shown anomalies in the brains of homosexual men interestingly.

[LEMmingaround]

*pre optic area

[CultureSucksDownWords]

The thing is, if I am female, is there anything that you can say for absolutely definite about my brain without doing scans and tests?

You might be able to tell me that it is more or less likely that x,y,z is the case. But you can't make any statements for certain about any individual's brain without actually investigating.

[CaptChaos]

Yeah 11 now.

And no less dull.

[noddingoff]

I suspect there may be some tiny differences but so so small as to pale into insignificance beside the normal variation between individuals. I really don't understand the intense fascination with trying to put the biggest magnifying glass possible on the subject to scrutinise any possible difference, then reporting it in the Crap Science bit of tabloid newspapers. "Scientists have discovered the perfect arse/hip ratio to light up a man's brain!!!" - with accompanying picture of a woman's arse " "Why men can't concentrate on anything more than football+beer drinking, whilst women can multitask all the housework at once" - with some crap proof that this is our genetic lot in life. "More research is needed, says Dr Trivial Bullshit, head of the faculty of Pointless Shite at the University of Journalist Fodder"
Who funds this stuff and what possible use can it have in developing proper medical treatments? Surely there's more important stuff to pay for in the field of neuroscience.
Wasn't there a fashion over 100 years ago to try to prove as many differences as possible between black and white people (with the covert agenda of "proving" that black people were stupider therefore unfit to rule their own countries or something?)

[Trills]

If there were an innate difference in male and female brains, and if it were as large as the difference in heights, would even that be a reasonable basis for treating men and women (boys and girls) differently?

If we drew a line and said "everyone 5 foot 6 and under gets the girl treatment, everyone over that gets the boy aaaumptions" then looking around me at work I can see that a rather large proportion of people would end up being treated the "wrong" way.

That my best illustration for "lots of variation within the group, lots of overlap between the groups".

My stance is that there almost certainly are differences, but we don't know for sure what they are, it's very difficult to measure them, that the environment has a huge effect, and there's so much overlap as to make it pointless to try to make any decisions or take any actions based on the differences (even if you could measure them).

[PetulaGordino]

"Dr Trivial Bullshit, head of the faculty of Pointless Shite at the University of Journalist Fodder"

ROAR

[LEMmingaround]

If you don't think men and women are different then you are deluded. Yes there is a lot of psuedo science and the science that is often printed in the press has been misinterpreted by a mediocre journalist but the research is valid. Not all scientific research needs to be about curing disease. That attitude is niave and infuriating. My PhD was "basic"research. Avery small piece of a greater picture. Basic research is the basis upon which clinical research is based. (My research was not on sexual dimorphism). I did, in my distant past, attend a series of lectures on sexual differentiation and it was very interesting but really. You don't need a phd in neuroscience to know that men and women are different. Not in all areas. But in some and some of these are neurological. , both chemical and structural.

[LEMmingaround]

Petula - I prefer the journal of obscure results

[PetulaGordino]

trills has described it best

lem i think most of us understand the concepts of basic science and clinical, and i don't think noddingoff was suggesting one was more important than the other

it's the bullshit extrapolations justifying/justified by unchallenged social "truths" that are frustrating

[almondcakes]

There are no neurological differences in the brains of males and females. There are differences in the physiology of the brain - amount of grey matter. But if you looked at a physical brain and studied any neurological feature, or any combination of neurological features together, it would be impossible to say whether or not that brain was from a male or female.

[almondcakes]

m.youtube.com/watch?v=kKeKCxPApKQ

[CaptChaos]

Oh lummy!

[almondcakes]

Oh Buffy!

[ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy]

"More research is needed, says Dr Trivial Bullshit, head of the faculty of Pointless Shite at the University of Journalist Fodder"

Love this!

[CaptChaos]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh! MAnnie was asking about differences in brains.....

I was about to say..... if he doesn't know the difference between boys and girls by now.........

[EElisavetaofBelsornia]

Please Buffy, pretty pleeeeease look at it from a post structuralist perspective. It would be soooo much fun!

[Terrierterror]

In a recent study from Stanford it was shown that men's brains are blue on the inside. Fact.

[BreakingDad77]

I thought testosterone leaves men with a predisposition to behave in certain ways, be able to perform certain physical tasks easier.

Women can do the same, just the males physiology is more efficient.

Risk/reward behaviors can all be socialized in or out, I'm guessing? I never bought the 'women cant think technically crap', its all exposure, boys from a young age have massively more spacial awareness 'play' than girls e.g lego v barbie so boys will get a headstart.

Women can perform equally well as men, our last CEO was a woman, they have just been held back by silly old men and other women.