This is getting out of control - Ladyfest

I love that comparison, sixinabed.

And you certainly don't come across as stupid, petal, anything but!

Germaine Greer may speak bluntly. However she's been thinking about and fighting for feminist causes for decades. Isn't it odd she's being dismissed as talking 'drivel'? Feminists are not normally known for being bigoted types - quite the opposite. So why aren't people thinking about why GG might hold that opinion.

This sort of misogynistic drivel almost (tragically) makes sense of some of Germaine Greers recent transphobic drivel. If at this 'lady fest' you wanted to discuss the clitoridectomies suffered by FGM victims, presumably you wouldn't be permitted to do so? Unbelievable, depressing and offensive.

You don't have to believe there's no difference petal - and holding that belief wouldn't make you thick. There are intelligent people who still believe there is a difference. But if you want to explore the issue there are loads of interesting studies and articles - the trans threads are full of them.

You're clearly not stupid petal.

Omg....I'm going to tesco...I'm clearly thick as pig shit....can't get my head round this at all.there has got to be some differences between a male and female brain...

It is bloody good conditioning.
Take a small tiny unimportant example many mothers of girls might relate to - all those small girls running around refusing to wear anything other than pink. My own daughter started expressing that preference from about 18 months despite a very feminist upbringing.
She would say she genuinely liked pink - not any other reason. Friends explained to me it was because pink is a delicate feminine colour. It must be innate as all those girls liking it couldnt be by pure chance.

100 years ago pink was a boys colour. Its just culture.

Human brains are fantasically adaptable and we are social creatures expert in fitting in with social structures. Thats the bit thats innate not what those constructs are.

Try the Cordelia Fine book its really good at this stuff.

I'm with you on the male and female brain too petal

I don't think it looks different but I do think hormones within a body causes a male and female brain to act differently.

Are you winding me up? I know I can be a bit thick ( I've got a degree) but can be in my own world...my brain just is female..

You would also have faced a very different physical reality and this would have also made you a different person.

It's not really saying that petal - if you were born male you'd have been treated completely differently by society and would have grown up receiving very different messages and social conditioning. So you would have ended up a completely different person.

What is it about your brain that makes you think it's female?

I can't accept that....I'm sure when I was at school,long time ago,I was taught the male brain was bigger and more devolved in some areas ,where the female Brain showed different devoplment in different areas ....am I going mad ,or can anyone else remember being taught that?

That's like,...no..I'm going to have to find some studies to prove otherwise..my brain is female,totally.unless it's bloody good conditioning that's like saying I would be exactly the same person,brain wise if I had a male body,absolutely not...my brain is female..

Try Cornelia Fine Delusions of Gender. It looks a huge range of research into sex differences between brains.

Essentially - there is no good evidence there are any innate differences between male and female brains. Brains are amazingly adaptable and the most plausible explanation of any differences that might be found in every study Ive ever seen on this subject is that years of socialisation in a gender biased culture have caused them. Many dont even find any differnces.

6pence,I'm amazed at that,totally

There's no such thing as a female brain Petal40. At least that's what most people on here believe. The science largely backs that up. When I say largely, there were a few studies a good few years ago now that suggested that there might be a difference between male and female brains but they never really came to anything and now the scientific consensus seems to be that brains are not "male" or "female" in any real way. Other than to say that a brain is female if it exists in the body of a female person.

To be fair, no ones genitals are exactly pretty

Speak for yourself. But no, I'm not going to show personal proof to the contrary.

Anyone got any links to the differences in male and female brains....there has got to be some.so what ever brain you are born with,whatever body the brain grows in,that is yr gender and yr sex....to properly change from male to female surely you would need to do the following(which I don't believe is possible as yet)outside the body sex change,a womb transplant in to a male body and a brain transplant from a female brain.

Humans reproduce sexually - this works by having 2 types of human. Males are the type of human who produces sperm and females who are the kind who produce ova and gestitate the child. There are a few people born with intersex conditions which is a biologically abnormal for our species.

Wearing a dress, having cosmetic surgery, genital surgery, having some kind of 'feeling' you are actually the other sex, having to have surgery like a hysterectomy for medical reasons nor going through the menopause alters a persons sex.

empressofthevulvacupcakes - I'd always wondered about her username!

Have read all the articles you have highlighted.....this is what I'm thinking,all the tinkering in the world,wear a dress ,use a woman's loo,invade our spaces and call yrself a woman,have surgery to remove yr penis,Adams apple ,testicles,..(.if you go this far and many CHOOSE not to)....non of that makes you a woman,it mimics a woman's body,but does not ensure the person becomes a woman ,because the internal sex organs that create and grow a baby and cause mensuation can not be created in a male body....so on the outside the male is able to pretend to be female,but the inside sex organs stay male....Or am I wrong and have I missed something??