The Gendered Brain caused by biosocial straitjackets

Yet the quote in the thread title is saying there is a difference.

The Gendered Brain caused by biosocial straitjackets

So the straitjacket is caused by both biology and social influences? Not one or the other but both

The trouble with looking for scientific articles is that there's a publication bias towards studies that find a difference. The sex based differences in skin are trivial.

'Men's and women's skins differ in hormone metabolism, hair growth, sweat rate, sebum production, surface pH, fat accumulation, serum leptins, etc. Examples of differences in the proneness to cutaneous diseases and skin cancer are quoted.'
www.jdsjournal.com/article/S0923-1811%2809%2900164-9/abstract

If you insist that the biological differences between the sexes are trivial, don't complain when sex is replaced by gender identity ...

Thanks Neuro, its a good article you linked to. Very much saying the same thing.

crsacre Is it really so difficult to understand that just because men and women have some things in common doesn't mean that they also have no differences?

Eg. men and women have different reproductive organs, but the makeup of our skin is (as far as I'm aware) the same.

In the same way it is possible for our brains to be more similar than different, but our pelvic structure, hormone levels etc to be different.

While I believe there always has been gender stereotypes, some based on sex women have babies, men don't. Men are bigger and stronger.

However many female stereotype barriers were broken down during WW2. Women who'd have been SAHM's used the state nurseries and went to work. While the men were away, women were doing traditionally male roles. At the same time they wore 'male' clothing jeans / dungarees.

I'm not sure when Enid Blyton wrote Famous Five, but George was the tomboy, and Anne the girlie girl. So it was accepted then that not all girls were into pink fluffy unicorns. Many young girls had George as their heroine.
I don't think there ever has been a George equivalent for boys ie an girlish boy in a book.

Maybe Billy Elliot is as close as we come to a male George.

Before the 90s toys were toys particularly young childrens stuff came in bright basic colours. Even dolls clearly aimed at girls were multicoloured, Sindys jeep was yellow and tent blue.
Since the 90's things started to appear gendered basic bright (sometimes blue / green) targeted at boys and pink/ purple targeted at girls. Barbie took over Sindy and everything became very pink.

I used to think it was a pure marketing thing, aimed at making it more difficult for families with different sex children to pass toys and to a certain extent clothing down. Now I'm not so sure.

However at no point in time has it been widely accepted for males to be wearing skirts / dresses. The way women can wear jeans (or waist high overalls to a certain generation).

STEM subjects are trying hard to attract girls. Are they being put off because its seen a male so if you like it you must be transmale?

Are there traditionally female sectors trying to attract males?

I certainly believe we need to break down gender stereotypes. For both boys and girls sakes.

crsacre the brain and body might be on average different sizes - this affects sport in the case of the bodies - but his doesn't not lead to people having an innate "gender". It means that people have a sex. Gender is constructed socially (based on perceived sex). If somebody does not fit what society/they see as the stereotype for their sex then they sometimes perceive themselves as having a different "gender" because they don't fit sex stereotypes. This, however, does not make them a different sex. It just means that they have correctly identified the stupidity of sex stereotypes. Hurray for them! It all goes a bit wrong though when those same people are encouraged to think that if they don't fit the stereotypes they must be in the wrong body. Everybody is in the right body in the sense that there is no right and wrong body. Gender, which is based on sex stereotypes from a young age, makes us think that gender and sex are the same. They are not. Gender is a lie. Sex is a neutral fact.

Is your brain separate from your body??

Ultimately we are all individuals and she points out that if she put down clusters of characteristics describing a person we would not be able to tell if the individual was male or female.

So there is no justification for separate sports competitions for males and females?

unless you think a sperm whale could outsmart you

Have you read some of the posts on mumsnet??

But yeah i agree that bigger doesn't mean more intelligent

Cordelia Fine Delusions of Gender’ is great too. She shows that on a whole range of attributes considered both ‘male’ and ‘female’ the differences between same sex individuals is much greater than the difference between the averages of male and female. Even those averages will he influenced by the different worlds males and females have grown up in. Ultimately we are all individuals and she points out that if she put down clusters of characteristics describing a person we would not be able to tell if the individual was male or female. This is of course obvious - I am more ambitious and driven, less empathic and caring than many men I know. Yet I am still, happily, a woman. Gender Identity is really Gender Stereotype - something invented by human societies with an underlying assumption that all men have the same ‘male’’ characteristics and all women have the same ‘female’ characteristics. But of course we don’t we are all individuals.

I'm pretty sure that Fine debunked the idea that bigger brains are directly related to greater intelligence in her book.

I mean, just on a common sense level, men have bigger heads too so are their brains larger in relation to their bodies or are they just larger all round? I think it's the latter, isn't it?

And we know very well that bigger animals aren't necessarily more intelligent than smaller animals, unless you think a sperm whale could outsmart you.

I’m waiting for my copy having read the Observer article. I think she is going to debate at the Roual Institution and will appear on Radio 4 soon.