Male brains/female brains

What is seldom discussed at all is that the reverse (though milder) difference applies to verbal tests in the US where there are more girls than boys in the top one percent.

I have always wondered how this difference in the upper tail relates to differences in risk-taking, i.e., the difference that comes about if boys check guesses for everything they don't know and girls leave those answers empty. Depending on the test, the latter is sometimes punished more, so that the optimal strategy can, indeed, be to fill all unknown answers in as guesses.

I once did some work on how the question of sex differences in the brain was approached over history. It was very interesting, not only because of the horrible stuff that was written in the 19th century, but also because there is a very clear pattern in how the writings go.

It's a bit like the whack-a-mole game. Once a particular explanation for sex differences is debunked, a different explanation for the exactly same difference pops up elsewhere. Once that is debunked, a third one crops up and is debunked. And the game goes on. It is fascinating.

Doesn't mean that there would never be that one great final theory that tells us all the answers though I doubt that very much, partly because brains are plastic and because the way what we used to call nature and nurture interact in much more complicated ways, some of which make it impossible to differentiate between the two.

But when I was also doing that research I spotted something of interest: Whenever a study did not find any sex differences in something, the results were written up in a way which didn't mention that lack of difference. So there is a publication bias which tends to favor findings of difference and tends to 'erase' findings of similarity.

@gardenbird48
Yup the microbiome is fascinating. Have you seen the research into its connection to PTSD?

Male brains are bigger overall. Obviously that explains everything.
[sarcasm]

If anyone is interested in more “brain stuff”, the episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage (Radio 4) released on 14 July was “The Human Brain”.

Dr Gina Rippon was one of the guests, as was David Eagleman (American neuroscientist who made an amazing programme about the brain for BBC 4 a few years ago), plus US talk show host Conan O’Brien.

It’s on BBC Sounds or link here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08kn47j

A couple of previous musings of mine on this subject:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3610447-Pink-Brain-Blue-Brain-Some-research-on-radicalisation-and-brains
The "extremist brain" and the effect of social media bubbles and echo chambers on the brain.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3637551-Why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories
Why people believe conspiracy theories.

Basically people can have their brains shaped by their environment in various ways and there isn't a huge amount on this subject. We know that politicial belief itself can have an affect on the way the brain works and this shows up in scans - and this can in theory be manipulated.

You would therefore expect people who have been conditioned - by whatever means or environmental causes - to show up differently to people who have not been exposed to similar things. This wouldn't be a gendered brain though, it would just be a brain reponding to social conditioning. Of course if women are conditioned in a different way to men you might expect a slight difference between sexes but this would depend on what those individuals were exposed to rather than this being innate - which the pink/blue brain theory is based on - and you would also have women who would not share traits universally because their life experience would be different to each other.

The whole thing is fascinating, but my point is that I do not think this is in any way innate as the articles about the 'extremist brain' seem to indicate because it is not fixed and brain demonstates a 'plastic' ability to change if exposed to other ideas.

The theory also explains the idea of 'sacred values' and how certain aspects of ideology can't be challenged because the brain has resistance - think religious zealotry built into the brain.

@Broomfondle and @Aesopfable - I’m fascinated by the impact of our microbiome on our health (mental and physical) and behaviour. It would seem that our gut bacteria are specific to our sex and are said to function as a ‘second brain’ and therefore may have an input into the behaviour differences between male and female? An exciting area of research and one that the gender doctors should be taking into account when prescribing artificial hormones esp to young people as neglecting to consider the impact on the microbiome could lead to worsening mental health etc.

am sure testosterone, eostrogen must have an impact on brains.

Of course. Just like they have different impacts on the body. They have different impacts on neural development.

Another great book on this is Inferior by Angela Saini. Easy to read and debunks all the myths and bad science around male and female brain.

@Aesopfable

Yes and be more likely to be business owners and entrepreneurs!
There's also research that connects anorexia to a previous bacterial infection.

Great book on this The Gendered Brain by Gina Rippon - www.amazon.co.uk/Gendered-Brain-neuroscience-shatters-female/dp/1784706817/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1595522290&sr=8-2

Really breaks down most of the myths and why they arose, mostly from biased or flawed studies! Would really recommend it.

I’m honestly skeptical about anyone who claims definitive things about the human brain. It’s simply the most complex system in the known universe that we know of. It almost always comes down to an impossible to resolve debate around nature vs nurture. There is way more we don’t know than we do about the brain, and there simply isn’t enough information to categorise brains in this way.

Dr Gina Rippon wrote a book debunking the notion of male/female brains.

www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/05/the-gendered-brain-gina-rippon-review

Girls could suit coursework better than boys because they are trained to work steadily whereas it's often assumed that boys won't do that

Boys suit examines because of competitive hormones , whereas girls are more likely to find the competitive testing nature goes against training to be sharing and cooperative

Nature vs nurture. Not easily distinguished, but women are expected to achieve / get / have less and be less aggressive and so less likely to aggressively try get what they think society expects them to have

Physical size. I think you will find that there is a difference in the types of crime committed, with physical violence less likely and gap narrowing for hidden crimes ( and part of the reason we may see fewer white collar female crimes is that there are fewer white collar females and less likely to be suspected)

Impact of hormones, especially testosterone, there is a hormonal element which is nothing to do with the brain. This seems quite a big effect

Of course once you have considered all that you then need to consider the fact that we don't exist as a single organism but we are each a community or human and microbiota! Did you know people infected with toxoplasmosis are more likely to be involved in car accidents?

What this shows is that there is greater variability around a similar mean. So there is a difference, but it is a subtle difference in the distribution of ability

Interestingly, not so long ago ( I'm no longer in teaching) it was considered that girls performed better with a system of grading on the basis of coursework, than on examinations...and that for boys, it was, generally, the reverse - indicating broad aptitudes and preferred methods of working towards goals.

I think there was an attempt to open up the curriculum for girls in a way that has obviously paid off. There are certainly differences between individuals in preferred learning styles & methods, which I suspect extends to sex based differences too.

There are studies about male violence and to what extent it’s cultural. I recommend a book by Richard Wrangham called Demonic Males. Very interesting (bit depressing too). “Catching Fire” by the same author is also good - one section discusses the possible origins of domestic exploitation of women by men.

Even if there were proof that men were on average better at maths, and that this was innate difference, it wouldn't mean that a girl who is good at maths was born in the wrong body - it was just mean that she was a girl who was good at maths. (And she should be judged on her own abilities rather than a presumption based on her sex.)

Precisely!

I wonder if, being bigger and stronger, a lot of men just never have to consider other ways to do things, so stick with the straightforward, force route - ie. not cultural, not brain, but mechanical sexed differences affecting opportunity and choice

I see what you are saying, but there is an inevitable symbiosis that arises from the physical/biological. This symbiosis explains how culture arises, along with rigid sex stereotyping. However, if you have the protected principle of legal and civil equality, then really, what more can be done...without veering into just another type of manufactured or enforced social construction?

The maths argument niggles me too, as that is my background. I questioned a lot whether I was cut out for studying it as I didn't see women and girls in that field.

There is no great difference between the performance of girls and boys in STEM subjects. If anything, the average girl does better than the average boy.

In this study they found that in the top 25% there are more girls than boys but there are more boys than girls in the top 5% which was even more marked in the top 1%.

www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06292-0

What this shows is that there is greater variability around a similar mean. So there is a difference, but it is a subtle difference in the distribution of ability.

I think it's like if you put a sponge in a bowl of blue water (for sake of argument) and another in a bowl of pink water. The sponges are identical.
The blue water is male socialisation and also the cocktail of hormones and physical maleness that the male brain sits in. The pink is female socialisation and hormones etc. The sponges are the brain.
The extrinsic forces (socialisation) can be changed, the intrinsic ones (the sex of the body) can't.
A pattern of criminality in males shows that 'blueness' has an impact on criminality, not necessarily something intrinsic to the sponge. This is shown by the different outcomes when the same sponge is put in pink water.
Any brain in a male body if a male brain. If it looks/acts like a female brain that just shows the range of what a male brain can be.

But assuming that there are some innate differences between female and male brains that account for some of the observed differences in the behaviour of men and women, it is clear that there is considerable overlap between the sexes. To suggest that a man with brain with traits more typical of women is less of a man is no less offensive (or ridiculous) than suggesting that a 6ft tall woman is less of a woman than one closer to the average female height.

This exactly. Much better articulated than I could have managed!

I think there probably are some innate differences between males' and females' behaviour and mental abilities, and I suspect some of those get massively amplified by expectations based on stereotypes e.g. "I'm a girl, I can't be good at maths, therefore I won't try, therefore I don't develop my abilities to my full potential". (Not that I'm presupposing there actually is evidence of an innate sex difference in maths ability - I'm just using that as an example.)

But the point for me is that all these mental traits exist on a continuum, whereas your biological sex (do you have the body of the type that can produce eggs/sperm?) doesn't. Even if there were proof that men were on average better at maths, and that this was innate difference, it wouldn't mean that a girl who is good at maths was born in the wrong body - it was just mean that she was a girl who was good at maths. (And she should be judged on her own abilities rather than a presumption based on her sex.)

The reason that I fight against the concept of 'male brain' and 'female brain' is that it's often used to explain why men are 'better' at maths, computer coding, parallel parking etc and I strongly disagree with that

Obviously there are individual differences, but there are general trends and tendencies. As you say, it is too easy just to pick out the 'negative' ( culturally frowned upon) differences, whilst not acknowledging some of the other differences too.

The one other forum I post on, apart from this one, is an almost totally male dominated forum - dedicated to architecture, cities and urbanity. Why is that?

There is nothing to stop women from signing up or contributing. Even on there, though, there is a tendency for the males to be minutely interested in the very specific details of construction method, in a way that leaves me cold.

A lot of men are also very interested in the minutiae of transport networks. There was a woman once, who was similarly interested, and she produced elaborate maps and plans for a new city transport network. I know she was a lesbian, but also suspect that she was on the autistic spectrum.