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Gina Rippon on the Gendered Brain on Today Prog 27th Feb

39 replies

NeurotrashWarrior · 26/02/2019 08:21

There's just too much news at the mo!

Now moved to tomorrow morning, I believe Simon Baron Cohen (who came up with the autism is an extreme male brain idea - debunked) is also interviewed.

twitter.com/ginarippon1/status/1100100789555642369?s=21

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Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 05/03/2019 21:59

That's really interesting Ever. Yeah I feel SBC is kind of back tracking a bit.

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nettie434 · 05/03/2019 21:41

Thanks neurotrashwarrior - I kept on wondering why I’d missed it [embarrassed]. Gina’s book sounds interesting. As for SBC, friend whose son has autism laughed about his ‘associative mating’ theory. He said it was ‘shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted’ and didn’t he have any practical advice to help parents who had already had children with autism Smile!

EverardDigby · 05/03/2019 14:53

There's also the effect where Asian women do better at a maths test when their Asian identity (stereotypically good at maths) is reinforced and worse when their female identity (stereotypically bad at maths Hmm) is emphasised, econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1864-9335/a000184

Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 05/03/2019 14:22

Nettie, it was pre recorded and moved to today due to too much news. And probably the presenter.

Gina goes into a lot of it in her book which I'm not reading as spending too much time on mn

It was a vety short interview tbh. I believe they has a debate last Thursday.

I feel Baron Cohen isn't seeing the bigger picture of how ideas of gendered brains feeds into sexist narratives and also perpetuates stereotypes - which ironically creates a gendered brain!

One bit I did read in the book was how test subjects perform if told they're participating in a test that looks at stereotypes and how the stereotypes aren't true v just doing a test and being told that the sexes perform differently. Bit like the placebo effect in reverse.

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EverardDigby · 05/03/2019 12:53

I was surprised that there was more agreement between them than I'd expected from previous reporting. The thing I don't understand is that if a male brain is biologically bigger (on average) does that mean anything about having more neurons / connections or is it that the processing power is still the same, everything is just physically bigger without this making any difference to function? This seems to be a key question, there might be physical differences but what functional difference does that make to anything?

nettie434 · 05/03/2019 12:01

Didn’t hear interview on the 27th but Today had a follow up item today with Gina Rippon and Simon Baron Cohen. It was a good interview - with GR pointing out the effects of gender stereotypes and SBC suggesting that there are some differences at birth. Definitely no pink lady brains from either. It starts at about 2hours 50 minutes in.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0002z2x

Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 05/03/2019 10:41

Reporter said grey, he said grey and white.

But I'll also add that there's a phenotype of autism where the brain is larger. Interestingly only in males.

I do know that the main point Gina is making in her book is the impact of this research on other things, one of which obviously is the trans and gender stereotypes debate.

The thing is brain plasticity is so individual how can we ever take account of individual experiences? For example, trauma increases the size of the amygdala, mindfulness has been shown physically to reduce it. Some individuals are more sensitive to stress. Cosleeping positively impacts young boys more than girls in terms of emotional regulation - is it the stereotypes you're correcting there (be a hard tough man) or is the young male brain more predisposed to stress?

I don't think it can ever be black and white. Or pink and blue. The main argument Gina puts forward is how much A gendered world impacts and creates a gendered brain.

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Melroses · 05/03/2019 10:37

Wow - it was actually on - I was getting ready for the boiler repairman to come and missed it!!!! will have to catch up

WrathoftheWorstKlop · 05/03/2019 10:04

Baron-Cohen said differences males brains being slighter larger brain was the white matter.
The journalist later went on to say grey matter.

I may have misheard.

But if I heard right then the journalist was sloppy.

Katvonfelttipeyebrows · 05/03/2019 09:08

Waiting for them to release the episode now! Just missed it

R0wantrees · 05/03/2019 09:07

sorry I missed this thread was running:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3524690-R4-Today-now-important-discussion-re-sex-gendered-brains

Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 05/03/2019 09:00

This was just on today in the last 10 mins.

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Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 27/02/2019 10:37

Actually it was very interesting regarding how the brain can change when learning a new language even protecting against dementia. So I sort of wondered if it was her, except she's not Canadian Confused.

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nauticant · 27/02/2019 10:03

Thanks NeurotrashWarrior I blinked, heard someone talk about bilingualism, and then the programme ended. I thought "Surely that can't be it?"

I imagine it got bumped off today's programme because of India-Pakistan talking up a fair bit of time.

Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 27/02/2019 10:00

Lol it wasn't her! Someone else talking about the teaching of language and it's affect in the brain. Which is huge apparently.

Babdoc and milly, I think that write up is inaccurate, someone hasn't done their research.

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MillytantForceit · 27/02/2019 09:13

"...autism, a neurological condition that affects three times as many boys as girls..."

My understanding is that many more girls have autism than previously thought. This is because they are much better at concealing it.

Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 27/02/2019 09:02

It's just been on but I could only hear a tad. I heard her talking more about the impact of bilingualism on the brain; possibly to demonstrate plasticity.

Listening later!

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Babdoc · 27/02/2019 08:56

I don’t think there are more males with autism. I think girls are better at compensating for their autism and are more intensively socialised by parents and teachers with sexist expectations of how “naturally empathic” girls are meant to be.
Virtually all the females in my and my late DH’s family are autistic. We thought my youngest DD was the “abnormal” one, and ironically she was the only NT one, who didn’t behave like the autistic rest of us!
I remember telling an aunt the features of autism after DD1 was diagnosed at 13, and she was puzzled, saying “But that’s all just normal!”.

Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 27/02/2019 08:10

Thanks for that solo. I've ordered the book!

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Original poster
NeurotrashWarrior · 27/02/2019 08:09

Oh gosh ova that's awful. I'm glad you're finally getting the support he needs; a shame it's too late.

The stereotypes in some primary/ early years settings are quite difficult to deal with; at the same time so many young children take a little longer to mature than others. I wish there were more fast track screening services in eyfs and ks1 as then of course the waiting times become longer as they get older.

I'm going to have to find it on catch up; kids, school run, teething baby etc. I miss the days of being able to listen to complete programmes but so glad for WiFi and iPlayer!

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SoloClarinet · 27/02/2019 07:40

Nice opinion price here in The Times today about female M.P.s, references Gina Rippon's writing at the end

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-mps-have-had-enough-of-the-boys-club-f7d9vh09x?shareToken=be4eed3aaba3664674d1be90f927ba85

DonaldTwain · 27/02/2019 06:51

Anyone know when this is on?

Bebstar123 · 26/02/2019 10:48

Baron-Cohen does at least seem to have realised the problems the extreme male brain theory caused lots of autistic girls, last year on Twitter he championed lots of female voices, especially those who's diagnosis was missed in the early years.

OvaHere · 26/02/2019 10:40

At the same time, I know many young boys ( as well as obviously girls) who didn't have the autism picked up because they didn't fit these stereotypes.

I also found the stereotypes unhelpful. My DS finally got a diagnosis a year ago age 14 after a decade of pursuing it.

He's been under CAMHS since age 5 due to behavioural issues but there was a huge barrier there because his presentation is atypical unless you spend a lot of time with him which no clinician ever has. Things only changed when the secondary school support workers were able to see what I saw and backed me up.

By atypical I mean that he didn't do things like line up toys - he never played with toys full stop and for the 10 -12 years of his life pretty much trashed and broke anything in his line of sight.

Interestingly, and I'm not sure exactly why this is, his ASD has become more apparent as he's got older. If I had to guess I'd say puberty has reduced his hyperactive behaviour and aggression (which was previously diagnosed as ADHD/ODD) which is odd because you sort of expect it to be the other way around with teens.

LizzieSiddal · 26/02/2019 10:26

Thanks for the heads up, will listen tomorrow.

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