WIBU to print off this article and give it to the teacher.

[Imalldonethanks]

DD (8) came home from school at the end of last term talking about the differences in male and female brains (not relating to their weight or structure!). Her teacher had declared she has a 'male' brain because she is logical and rational.
This sort of talk boils my blood.
My next child is in her class this year and I don't want her to listen to this sort of crap.

I get on reasonably well with this teacher, but there are very few opportunities to chat.

So WIBU to print off an article from The New Scientist debunking that theory and send it in with a note saying 'thought you might find this interesting'?

babs I don't know about op, but if I was teaching my dd the earth was flat and men and dinosaurs co-existed, due to fundamental, out dated flaws in my understanding of science, then yes I would appreciate the teacher giving me the scientific facts.

solaris but surely the bin is where you get your reading material, given the trash which forms your opinion?

averylongtimeago

SJW bingo!

BTW, every poster here has at least 15 degrees and has studied each relevant subject at post-grad level.

Lurkedforever1

Bit of a rude description of MN!

I'd point her in the direction of Dr Lise Elliot's research.

At birth human brains are not sexed in terms of functionality. Male ones are bigger because they have a thicker outer layer or something but this has no bearing on how they function or develope.

Due to lived experience (socialisation and release of hormones) female and male brains develope a little differently over time in that 'generally' some things are more or less apparent to male or female brains but this is hardly surprising as brain development is use dependant and saying some traits are seen more commonly in female brains is as meaningless as saying some traits are seen more commonly in child abuse survivors also, that doesn't mean that at birth their brains are destined to end up that way it means shared lived experience influences brain development similarly.

It's important imo that a teacher understands that the science is clear that at birth brains are not sexed and that to claim rational thinking is a male attribute is part of what socialses girls to think they are less capable than males.

mummmy2017, so your friend is uninterested in improving her understanding, and laughs at someone who tried to help? And boasts about it to boot. I hope she doesn't teach my kids.

*However it's not specific to teachers, one of the senior law professors made a huge mistake on a point of law during one of his lectures last year and my daughter spotted it, emailed him and to be fair, next lecture he corrected it and pointed out she was the only person in the year who knew. Who hasn't made a mistake at work?

I wouldn't correct her. *

How is the lesson from your daughter's story not to correct it? Surely the lesson is that you should correct it, and a good teacher will cheerfully acknowledge their mistake and make good. Why leave it to chance and see if any students challenge it for themselves? OP spotted the error, OP can quite reasonably point it out, no need to hide behind her kids. We're all on the same team here. If I make an error at work I'd much rather a colleague points it out rather than wait for a client to! I know teachers joke about putting in a deliberate error to test the kids, but they don't actually want to get things wrong. Unless they're mummy2017's friend anyway.

I understand what the teacher meant by 'male' and 'female' brains but it's not great to be telling little children this kind of information, it's a little bit advanced for them at primary school.

That's just a really weird thing to say. Your daughter is female so it is impossible for her to have male brain, there are simply no Y chromosomes in it. While there are differences on a very g break level between thinking styles and strengths of men and women there is no such thing as a 'male brain' beyond one that is literally male, I.e. Belonging to a man. She just sounds a bit stupid-most primary school teachers are. Why do you care so much? It's not like she told your daughter that Hitler lead Germany in WWI (sonething that a primary school teacher once said to me).

My experience is that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that, unfortunately, teachers are holding ideas and opinions very strongly anchored in patriotic society/ideology.

See punishing all boys for misbehaving in the playground (regardless of whether all boys were involved or of some girls were involved too),
Comments about boys being good at maths and girls at English (with the associated effects on their expectations)
Boys being treated as if they will always create mayhem, be a pain etc... whereas girls are all calm, nice and gentle (so if a boy and girl misbehave in the same way, the boy will be told off but not the girl) etc etc

Tbh the list is endless.

So yes you can try and have a chat with her re make and female brain.
Or you can let it go and spend a hell of a lot of time teaching your dd (or your ds if you have one) that those ideas are just a lot of rubbish.

mumma only too advanced for the inferior girl brains surely?

How do you explain the fact that autism is five times more prevalent in males and the close correlation between the thickness of the cerebral cortex and autistic brains. One of the many physical differences between male and female brains is the thickness of the cerebral cortex.

Are children socialised into ASDs? If not, how is it so much more likely to be presented in boys and men?

EternalOptimistToo - I presume you mean some teachers?

Similar to how the tallest people in a society will be men, but you can't classify people into "female height" and "male height". Only there's more overlap with brains I think solaris. (Also female ASD is probably still underdiagnosed so the difference is maybe less than the statistics say.)

One of my DDs is cynical. Could you ask the teacher what type of brain she has please?

I would have a quiet word, with the article under my arm, and then kick off if it is repeated with the next DC.

The teacher is correct in what she said. Sounds as though it has touched a nerve and you don't like it

She's not though. Maybe you should read the article, and more, as well?

Eolian probably some teachers yes.
At my dcs primary, I would say that represent about 90% of them though (all of that is stuff that teachers have told me personally).
I'm not even going into what the dcs are coming back with (such as 'when men shop they only go to take when they need and don't look at anything else whereas women are likely to come out wo what they were suppose to buy but with plenty of other things instead')

I'm seen the same with secondary teachers (such the fact that there are films for boys and films for girls).

But yay, on paper, that will be some teachers.

I'd classify 6' 6" as a male height though based on the fact that this trait is likely to belong to a man. If I were a betting woman, I'd suggest that anyone of this height was male. That's the point I'm attempting to make.

Whilst girls seem to be better at disguising ASDs, no one I know professionally believes it will increase 5-fold as methods for diagnosis in girls improves.

Besides which, haven't you shot your own argument? Assuming that there are no differences in male and female brain traits, how can girls be so under-diagnosed. Has society taught them to hide their 'symptoms'? If so, that suggests any child with autism can control and hide them. An argument which would be given short shrift on these boards. The alternative is that there are (generally) sex-based differences in brains.

I agree very much with the idea that traits cannot be assigned to male brains or female brains. (I work in a profession that is 97% male and have people comment on a more or less weekly basis how surprising it is to see a woman in my job.) But that New Scientist article is poor science imo and the commentators in the article seem to be very keen to use the research mentioned in it to push their own agendas. So I wouldn't give that particular article to the teacher.

Developmental disorders like asd are under diagnosed in females.

Partly because socialisation teaches girls to shut up and put up- masking and mimicing well is common in female asd and partly it's hormone related. With adhd for example boys are more likely to present as hyperactive or combined type due to testosterone increasing hyperactivity so it gets noticed when females take up higher rates of innatentive type adhd and get over looked.

The teacher is correct in what she said

I'm sure lots of other posters will have said this, but No.

You're wrong.

Interesting NoMoreToday. So male or female hormones make the brain react differently.

You're saying that we all (generally) have the same brains but that the hormones released by our male or female bodies make them behave differently?

[Posted too soon]

The other thing you seem to say is that children can be taught to hide their ASD symptoms and that girls have learnt this.

But by the time dc have a dx they are already subject to societies expectations, so that means nothing. And lots of people do agree from first hand experience that some dc with asd can mask their behaviour in some situations. Not in a 'they can behave when they want' manner. But it's not unheard of for dc with asd to bottle it up eg at school and then have a huge meltdown when home. Which imo is no different to a girl with asd behaving differently. Especially when for asd rules and expectations can play a large role in behaviour, in terms of how the person with it interprets the world around them.

Reading your post gave me a headache Lurked.

You also didn't address any of my questions as to the differences between male and female brains and the thrust of the entire thread.

I'm no biologist but have worked in AEN for decades and whilst I agree with most of what you said, there are huge differences between people with ASD managing their behaviour but releasing it at home and girls managing it for years and years to the extent that parents and teachers are unaware. Any suggestion that behaviour can be continuously masked in the long term goes against any current thinking.

Studies into autism and similar disorders all point towards typical male and female brains. I find it fascinating watching people here tie themselves in knots being all liberal with their notions of biologically identical brains for boys and girls except of course for those physical differences which we can measure yet preserving their ideas about AEN issues and differences in the sexes.

She just sounds a bit stupid - most primary school teachers are

I don't think people who generalise like this sound very bright either.

solaris, what the teacher is doing is more like saying everyone over 5'6'' has male bones and everyone under has female bones. It's not in any way helpful. It's just nonsense. And could potentially be hurtful to short boys or tall girls.

Could you actually ask the teacher what she said? Because this sounds like one of those topics where a kid could misinterpret what was said.