Gender & intelligence

Not regarding intelligence, but the hippocampus (memory, etc):
May, 2020
SexDifferencesMemoryRegion
UQ - Australian University

And - in the unlikely event they can actually come up with a reason for having 'rules' based on an incredibly broad generalisation - what is the basis for assuming that such a thing as a 'submissive role' is a necessary or desirable thing in a relationship? The only type of people I can imagine thinking this is preferable to a partnership of equals is either someone with considerable inadequacies or a controlling type.

I think I will be told that in general more women are suited to the submissive role and anyone who isn’t is an exception and rules can’t be based on the exception

This seems to be missing the point that there's absolutely no benefit to making such a 'rule' based on a generalisation (even if it actually was something with a genuine inherent basis rather than the product of existing culture and socialisation, or a stereotype which happened to be convenient to males).

It's surely much better that everyone is treated as an individual who should be encouraged and enabled to fulfil their individual potential. There is simply no need to place constraints based on a persons sex any more than on the colour of their skin.

So ... if someone tries to 'tell' you that sort of thing, take a step back and tell them they first must make a case for imposing limiting 'rules' in the first place.

There are obviously many forms of 'intelligence', though. Flexibility, adaptability and quick wittedness are the precursors of intelligence of any persuasion.

You can't talk about a brain without hormones, it doesn't exist

Definitely! Recall watching the programme about the man who became 'a mother' - Freddy (Seahorses). Freddy stopped the cross sex/'trans' hormones in order to become pregnant; but shortly after the baby's birth was very keen to start taking testosterone again.

Fredy felt deeply uncomfortable with the feelings of 'softness' and vulnerability that giving birth engendered - and couldn't wait to become 'hard' and in control again.

I personally felt this was a very selfish act........which would interfere with the mother-child bond/relationship & the natural 'rush' of feeling towards the child. Hormones are powerful substances.

if there was some incontrovertible evidence that women are intellectually inferior they would argue for a hierarchy like the parent child one (which exists because children don’t have fully developed cognitive abilities)

I would say that a submissive role is very different from the requirement for children to be cared for. If women were incapable of self care in the same way as children then they certainly shouldn't be required to provide care for others (i.e. children). There may be no legal minimum age for a child to be left alone but, for example, I don't believe leaving two 10 year olds alone would be judged any less harshly than leaving one alone at home for a prolonged period.

I think he would also probably say that he would take on a role he didn’t like for the greater good of society

If he does believe that (and I'm assuming you disagree) then I would point out that the relative suitability of men and women to various roles is irrelevant because you believe in self determination.

Exceptions only work if they are truely exceptional, ie so rare that you would be unlikely to ever encounter them.

The exception that proves the rule is a cliche for people who are not capable of challenging their thinking. A phrase I heard often from racists

When I write code I make sure I have code for each possible exception.less efficient perhaps than the norm but totally valid, and here we are talking human beings.

Equality is related to opportunity and to fairness

It is only fair if everyone is considered on their merits , as an individual. It is not equality if the best person is refused a job because on average people like them would not be capable of doing that job. Because you are looking for an individual to do the job, not an average person.

we know we need to continually evaluate and compensate for societal discrimination

Observation of a female male difference in some aspect could be useful in helping that evaluation. So if women were better at nursing, you could say equality would look like only 30% of nurses being male. But you would not want to refuse all males nursing jobs just because they were Male, because a good male nurse would be better than the average female at nursing.

As a bloke, I would think that the brains are different between the sexes.
I would say on the whole, that males are generally more violent/aggressive/domineering than females and that is down to nature. When a female displays those characteristics, I think it is more likely to be down to nurture, someone's upbringing, peer groups, career path.
I think women have more empathy than men, although there are examples which go against the rule - Gina Haspel, Imelda Marcos, Hilary Clinton.

I know our support for equality shouldn’t be based intelligence but I’m struggling with articulating why.

I would say that it doesn't mesh with the principle of self determination. Even if there were statistics showing that every single woman were less intelligent than every single man, I would still argue that I am no more obliged to serve men because of it than he would be obliged to serve another man of superior intellect to himself. There's also no requirement in a free society to do the job you're best suited to.

Before you make that point, I would advise asking him if he ever did a job he hated enough to quit. Then ask whether he'd be happy with being forced to do that job for the good of society, against his will. If he denies ever having had a job of that nature, I'd recommend picking one based upon what you know about his aversions.

Good point, Sister. Lack of emotional intelligence leads to wrong predictions about how people will behave, and thus ineffective or even damaging decisions.

Emotional intelligence is essential to seeing and understanding the bigger picture - which contributes to better decision making.

Also, while there is some degree of difference in psychological traits on average between the sexes, viewed as population groups, the bell curves of these traits have a huge degree of overlap. So many individual women will be more toward the 'masculine' edge of the bell curve, and many individual men will be more toward the "feminine" edge. So it's nonsense to assess an individual's characteristics on the basis of population characteristics. Something he ought to know if he is so good at decision-making and judgment.

I think this person could also argue that women are more emotional and therefore less capable of making decisions...

Men seem to feel free to exhibit anger more frequently than woman - an emotion which tends not to lend itself to rational decision making.

Goosefoot is correct to say that the science isn't settled, but I think it's also reasonable to say that there probably aren't large differences in intelligence and other cognitive abilities between men and women, because otherwise they would have been demonstrated clearly by now and the science would be settled.

Just as an example, in the discussion of women and Alzheimer's, part of the question is how female hormone changes make a difference. Isn't that a question about the nature of the female brain?

You can't talk about a brain without hormones, it doesn't exist.

I feel like there is a gap between the sort of thing we see about how important it is to study effects of drugs on the brain differentiated by sex, or hormones, etc, and look at the sexes separately, with the constant insistence that there are no innate differences and we can't know what they are. An innate brain is some sort of abstraction. There are only real brains in people with bodies.

But is the question about "innate" differences, or just differences? I don't think innate has much meaning here because no brain is. If pregnancy for example affects a woman's brain, or sex hormones affect the brain, those things are functions of men's and women's brains in that they belong to men or women, whether they are innate, or structural, or not.

@RoyalCorgi I'm sure that's right.

The point about brains is they don't develop in a vacuum: they develop in a social context. So it's impossible to say for sure that there are - or there aren't - innate differences in male and female brains.