Thought easier to do a new post; this is a really good summary of Gina Rippon's new book on the neurosexism in brain research or how it's been interpreted.
(I'm still not sure if she's made it to radio 4 yet!)
Two key paragraphs for me:
Cultural paths
So if it’s not brain hard-wiring, how do we explain the often stark differences in behaviour and interests between men and women? Here is where we get to Rippon’s thesis on the impact of a gendered world on the human brain. She builds her case in four loosely defined parts, from the sordid history of sex-difference research through modern brain-imaging methods, the emergence of social cognitive neuroscience and the surprisingly weak evidence for brain sex differences in newborns. Rippon shows how children’s “cerebral sponges” probably differentiate thanks to the starkly pink-versus-blue cultures in which they are soaked from the moment of prenatal sex reveal.
....
Whatever the subtitle, the book accomplishes its goal of debunking the concept of a gendered brain. The brain is no more gendered than the liver or kidneys or heart. Towards the end, Rippon flirts with the implications of this finding for the growing number of people transitioning or living between current binary gender categories. But for now, she concludes, most of us remain strapped in the “biosocial straitjackets” that divert a basically unisex brain down one culturally gendered pathway or another.
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x