Confused re. gendered brain vs gender as a social construct. AIBU?

[funniestWins]

I hope I can get some genuine answers to a genuine question but am procrastinating working with the radio on and there was an academic discussion about gender as a social construct. Not necessarily feminism, but more of an anthropological debate and it got me wondering... I posted in AIBU for frank opinions as opposed to possibly slewed ones on another part of MN.

Whilst the science is still very much undecided here, many would argue that gender is a social construct and there is no such as a male brain or a female brain. The jury is still out on this one, as am I, but the notion that men and women have any differences in their brains seems to irrationally offend some people.

However, and this is where my inept ponderings become confused, if gender is a social construct and gender roles are nothing more than performative and learned behaviour, then doesn't that fly in the face of those who say they are born in the wrong bodies, that they are a man-brain in a woman's body or vice versa? Either, there can be someone trapped in the wrong body or there is no such thing as male or female brains.

For the sake of transparency, I'm not really a "feminist" as it seems a redundant viewpoint. I've never come across any sexism and I believe that for the most part, feminist emancipation has happened. I fall firmly into the I don't care as long as they're happy camp re. sex changes, transvestism etc.

So, who'd like to put me right or explain how the two ideas can co-exist?

[oliviaclottedcream]

70% of science and engineering students in Iran are female. Your point is what?

You are wrong I'm afraid, the conclusions for what they're worth, are as I described them. This experiment has been done with Barbary macaques, they were given toys to see if males were drawn to trucks and females to dolls. It turned out they were.

Also The 'journal of personality and social psychology' did an extensive study, made by a group of international researchers who compared data on gender and personality across 55 different nations across the world. Their findings were general and were talking about averages. However , they found that women tended to be more nurturing, risk-averse and emotionally expressive. Men competitive, risk taking and emotionally flat.

[almondpudding]

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

The rhesus monkey study. I'm not wrong.

The engineering answer was to someone else.

I would expect women on average to be more nurturing than men. That isn't evidence they have different brains.

[almondpudding]

Is this the report you're talking about. It is from the same journal and on 55 countries. It doesn't say what you claimed, so maybe not this one? It would help if you linked to studies or gave a name or date.
The abstract...

'Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N 􏰀 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development—including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth—were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men’s personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate person- ality differences between men and women may be attenuated.'

[almondpudding]

The link: www.bradley.edu/dotAsset/165918.pdf

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid the point is that the research I was referring to does not show 'if you look at 100 men and 100 women on average the men will have more male typical features and the women will have more female typical features'. In fact the research seems to show that all of us have a mix of features, some considered 'typically male' and some 'typically female' but it doesn't correlate with our sex, even as a spectrum. The distributions curves overlap hugely and there is also considerable variation within the male and female groups. So no, if you take a whole bunch of disembodied brains you would not be able to make even a good guess from anatomical features which were from men and which from women

I'm sorry nooka but I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of that study.

This quote comes from the study you linked.

furthermore, although one’s sex is enough to predict whether this person would have more “female-end” or more “male-end” characteristics, it is not enough to predict this person’s specific combination of “female-end” and “male-end” characteristics

So it kind of does sound like females have more female typical structures (and vice versa).

No one has said that a woman's brain is utterly different in all aspects from a mans. Just that there are differences.

In the same way there is no such thing as a male height and a female height. There is huge overlap in male and female height but no one has any issue with anyone saying men are (on average) taller than women.

Thanks for lining the study though, it's really interesting.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

nooka I'm so sorry, I just popped back on mn (should be going to bed) and I copied the wrong paragraph - it should have been the next one down.

Consistent with previous findings (14, 15), our analysis of the structure of the human brain, which included most regions of gray and white matter, as well as measures of connectivity, revealed many nondimorphic group-level sex/gender differences in brain structure

So again yes there are differences but these differences are small.

[almondpudding]

Whenshewas, I think that is missing the point, which is that brains are a mosaic (the title of the research). That could be compared to other scenarios in biology that are mosaics (hominid evolution might be an example).

It isn't analogous to reproductive organs or genitals (dimorphic) or height (a spectrum).

But people struggle with the concept of human brain functionality being mosaic, so they keep trying to turn it into either dimorphism or a spectrum, or into a set of character traits.

[youUserNameHistory]

"It is probably the most exciting bit of news in neuroscience for decades... now we can say that, like national characteristics - they work well to roughly describe in large cohorts, i.e. stereotypes exist for a reason, but few individuals exhibit them all, stereotypes do not describe individuals. - the male/female divide is the same - there are generic differences that may well be responsible for the broader stereotyping. But no one individual's brain is entirely one or t'other."


Of course. Someone used the example of men being taller than women. Of course, the chances of being proved correct in this fact are smaller when comparing one of each sex.

70% of science and engineering students in Iran are female.

I'll look for it later but I read an article comparing the equality of a society vs the percentages of men vs women in various industries and there was a striking correlation between there being fewer women in science and technology in countries where genders are equal. If my perceptions of Iran are correct then this 70% actually backs that study!

[sashh]

However, and this is where my inept ponderings become confused, if gender is a social construct and gender roles are nothing more than performative and learned behaviour, then doesn't that fly in the face of those who say they are born in the wrong bodies, that they are a man-brain in a woman's body or vice versa?

Gender is a social construct, sex isn't.

You also have to consider the different ways people are socialised and that this starts while the brain is still developing.

70% of science and engineering students in Iran are female.

What percentage of students are female?

Iran has some interesting points, before the revoloution in the 1970s Iranian women were banned from wearing hijab/burka/any islamic head covering.

The age of majority is 15 (and I think was then).

The revolution imposed Islamic dress and segregated education at every level, so suddenly there were university courses that were female only and to some women this opened up HE because their family may not have been happy with them attending uni with male students.

There have been changes, initially coed institutions were barred, then quotas were put on some subjects and others could only be studied by either men or women. Many courses today offer separate lectures to males and females even though they are on the same course.

[user1463231665]

I agree with When that there are some differences but they are nothing like as determinative as many people like to think. People want to comfort themselves or make themselves feel right when they generalise about gender difference - ah helpless little woman, cannot change a tyre, big strong man will do it and make him feel good etc etc. You see it all the time. Yet the differences between us are not huge. People use the supposed vast difference (which does not exist) for their own sexist ends. In fact I've been called male pretending to be female on here from time to time because I don't fit someone's very narrow category of what women should be like.

I have worked in Iran twice including a trip to a unviersity there - Isfahan. Going to university is one thing girls can do. Their previous freedom and choices were stripped away by the revolution in about 1979 and education is one thing they can get (some of them) although they don't get huge scope to practise after although nothing like as bad as in Saudi. I suppose the segregation point is consistent with my experience at my daughters' UK girls only secondary schools - that teenage girls might well be more likely to do science and maths A levels and do well at them when boys aren't around. Just as we found in an all boys' prep school it is much easier to get boys to sing in the choir to age 12/13 if there are no girls around to suggest it's girlie to sing.

I think there is a massive difference between girls like I was who are tom boys, climb trees, refuse to wear a dress but are girls - just girls who like to be active etc and those people who from birth feel they have been born into the wrong body, don't want their breasts to grow, are sexually attracted to the opposite sex because they are really a man (or woman) not what they have beeb brought up as despite having a penis or vagina. I read the April Ashley I think it was book back in the 1970s and I could see then even as a teenager who terrible it is for those people born that way.

So yes, some gender brain differences but nothing like as big as people make out, exist and no problem or inconsistency with the fact there are trans people out there.

We need to continue to work against the massive constant pressure on girls and boys which limits their chances and choices in life to be what some cultures and groups pushes them to be purely because of their gender.

[CoteDAzur]

"they found that women tended to be more nurturing, risk-averse and emotionally expressive. Men competitive, risk taking and emotionally flat."

There is a big difference between saying "men are on average motre xxx" and "xxx is a male trait".

All of the "mend tend to be more..." traits above apply to me. None of the "women tend to be" ones do. Yet, I am a woman not a man trapped in a woman's body and I'm not cutting my long hair, wearing ties, crying into my pillow because the world doesn't call me a man, and harassing gender/critical feminists.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

^So yes, some gender brain differences but nothing like as big as people make out, exist and no problem or inconsistency with the fact there are trans people out there.
We need to continue to work against the massive constant pressure on girls and boys which limits their chances and choices in life to be what some cultures and groups pushes them to be purely because of their gender^

No time to post properly, just wanted to say I agree with user. The differences are small. It makes much more sense to treat people as individuals and not make assumptions based on their sex.

[cleaty]

Brains have plasticity, so they respond to their environment. Many of the studies that show some differences between women's and men's brains, actually show bigger differences between people raised in very different types of countries. That is not because people are born with a British brain or Ethiopian brain, but because the environments are very different, and the brain responds to this.

[cleaty]

There are differences between female and male bodies, our reproductive systems, our skeletal structure and our strength distribution. There are also subtle differences in other areas which means women and men react differently to medication. These differences all matter when you are looking at medical needs, birth, or at elite sports people. But for everyday life, most differences are very minor.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

almond
^Whenshewas, I think that is missing the point, which is that brains are a mosaic (the title of the research). That could be compared to other scenarios in biology that are mosaics (hominid evolution might be an example).
It isn't analogous to reproductive organs or genitals (dimorphic) or height (a spectrum)^

Sorry I should have been more clear. I wasn't saying "oh look the brain is a mosaic just like height is" clearly height is not a mosaic.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned a lot of characteristics that differ between females and males (I should have been more clear there's no reason you should have even read that post let alone remembered it).

So for example physical characteristics could be seen in a mosaic way too. There are differences between women and men - height, weight, body fat %, body hair, male pattern baldness, hip to waist ratio, voice, musculature etc etc.

Men tend to have more male type physical characteristics than women - but not always (my dh has almost no hair on his arms and is quite short for example).

But these characteristics don't always go together. For example my dh is quite short for a man. But that gives you no information about his hip to waist ratio or his body fat index.

To me the brain sounds similar. One woman has structure X in the brain that is female typical. That gives you no information at all regarding what her other structures look like.

But on average women tend to have more female typical structures. But you don't know which structures are male or which are female. More importantly you don't know what an individual's make up is like so it is important not to generalise and to treat people as individuals.

Hope that makes more sense.

[almondpudding]

When she was, I was thinking of something similar.

Biological sex of genitals, genes and gonads is almost entirely binary.

But then there are other Physical features which generally do cluster together. If we looked at the skull, for example, it has multiple feminine or masculine features. For example, orbital socket shape. slope of the forehead, cheekbone shape, protrusion of the brow ridge and so on. People who have one feminine feature tend to have many, and the same for masculine features. So even though there are multiple variables, they tend to cluster together, and create a very masculine face of a very feminine face. It also genuinely exists along a spectrum with many intermediate types as features become less pronounced. Brain features do not cluster in that way.

But then If we looked at something like haemophilia, on average men are more likely to have haemophilia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy and various other recessive chromosomal disorders. But a. those disorders don't cluster and b. not all men have them. So saying that on average men are much more likely to have haemophilia is true. It does not then follow that the average man has haemophilia. We do not go around saying to men, 'ooh be careful not to exert yourself in case you have an accident and something bleeds.' We could also say our genes are a mosaic.

So with the brain, we could also say there are mosaic features and some men have multiple brain structures which are on average more common in males, just as haemophilia is on average much more common in males. This does not mean that the average man has either a brain with multiple masculine features or haemophilia.

Most men and women have a mosaic brain with no particular pattern of masculine or feminine features. They all have the same type of brain - mosaic, just as most men and women have the same response to blood clotting - a non haemophiliac one.

I also strongly agree with Cleaty. Humans have evolved to adapt to whatever environment they are in. If a British baby was raised by South Anerican tribe, their plastic brain would adapt differently in that environment. The brain does the same for physical changes in the body like pregnancy. It doesn't require for their to be different predetermined brains for ethnic groups or the sexes for brains to respond to different material experiences. It isn't all genes or socialisation. That's a false choice.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

I also strongly agree with Cleaty. Humans have evolved to adapt to whatever environment they are in. If a British baby was raised by South Anerican tribe, their plastic brain would adapt differently in that environment

Totally agree, people are very much a product of their environment and their genes.
Unfortunately the brain is not endlessly plastic though. If it was cerebral palsy wouldn't exist.

Overstating the brains ability to be plastic is a bit worrying to me. It could suggest you are able to change things you can't, such as change someone's sexuality. Theres quite a consensus that you can't change a persons sexuality (and not should you try).

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

But then If we looked at something like haemophilia, on average men are more likely to have haemophilia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy and various other recessive chromosomal disorders. But a. those disorders don't cluster and b. not all men have them. So saying that on average men are much more likely to have haemophilia is true. It does not then follow that the average man has haemophilia. We do not go around saying to men, 'ooh be careful not to exert yourself in case you have an accident and something bleeds

Sorry but I don't think you can compare a normal physical characteristic (height, hip to waist ratio or body fat %) with a disease.

If you look at a populations height it exists on a bell curve. If you look at haemophilia it is a disease (you suffer from it or you don't).

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

This graph is taken from the paper nooka linked to (in this case distribution of grey matter).

As you can see the distribution is a bell shaped curve. It's natural variability not a disease state.

[almondpudding]

Do you mean sexual orientation?

I have deliberately changed my sexuality multiple times; it is pretty easy.

Sexual orientation is different. It may be difficult or impossible to deliberately change it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't change over the course of someone's life. The 'born this way' thing was made up to defend against the religious right. It isn't true for many lesbians whose orientation changed to lesbian later in life. I don't feel a need to define my sexual orientation and what happens to it in terms of the religious right.

The brain being plastic doesn't mean that you can always choose to change it. It is often changed or not changed by events outside of social control (your own or other people's). There are brain changes in pregnancy; that doesn't mean I can decide not to go through them in some kind of internal battle of wills.

Joel has said that brain features are plastic in terms of sex related structures, but those are changed by things like stress. That is rather different to the softer ways society might mould personality traits that usually don't show up as structures at all.

[almondpudding]

Everyone agrees that the amount of grey matter is different on average in men and women.

That's not what is being discussed.

Joel's research is about the functional structures which may alter the way people behave, or reflect the way people behave.

It's not about disputing basic morphology of the brain, which is similar to height.

[almondpudding]

I'm not comparing haemophilia to height. They can't be compared because height is a continuous variable so can be plotted on a bell curve. It isn't because of whether or not they're a disease, it's because of the type of variable they are.

[VestalVirgin]

Sexual orientation is different. It may be difficult or impossible to deliberately change it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't change over the course of someone's life.

Apparently, for women, taking testosterone can change it. I know at least of one former lesbian who took testosterone in order to look like a man ... and is now attracted to men. If she hadn't de-transitioned, she'd still be perceived as gay.

I'm more comfortable with the religious right not knowing that. However, lesbians who think "transitioning" will help them fit in with the heterosexual mainstream, should know it.

[almondpudding]

Vestal, I suppose I should be more specific and say that just because the brain is plastic doesn't mean you can change every element of it through psychological/social methods.

I can't necessarily will myself to have an experience similar to taking LSD, but I could will myself to take LSD.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Yes almond I meant sexual orientation.
If I'm honest I'm not entirely sure that a person who feels they are straight can change their sexual orientation (my thoughts would be lots of people are bisexual and at different times in their lives they have different partners). But that is just my opinion.

I actually think we agree more than we disagree (don't know if you feel the same though).
Your statement It isn't all genes or socialisation. That's a false choice

I totally agree with that. People are a product of genes and environment, it's not an either or arguement.