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'?

AS I said Atenco she should have said Technical not male

There is one hell of a difference between technical and male.

Datun
feminine' traits are not considered praiseworthy, in a man. Why? Interesting point. But I don't think that's always true. Look how men are praised as heroes when they do some parenting, especially when they become a sole parent. Because being the primary care-give is seen as a female skil. Also - sensitive song writing or poetry - men are praise for this

They're not praised for actually being heroic though. They are coddled for managing to do something that is traditionally undervalued, whilst still getting the kids to school with unbrushed hair.

It's tea and sympathy, with a bit of pity thrown in for doing something so 'unmasculine'. Even if they barely make a decent fist of it.

I am trying to point out a Brain doesn't have a colour.

And a brain hasn't got a vagina.

My children will not be damaged by my expectation that they not be sexist or racist, thank you.

there is no difference between the brain of a black person or a white person. (So far as I know). You're just being inflammatary

It was claimed by scientists for hundreds of years that black people were mentally inferior to white people. That's not me being inflammatory, that's me repeating racism that has been used for generations to hold POC back. I'm making the point that when you live in a society where the majority of scientists were white male for hundreds of years and women and POC weren't allowed to be, that you might just find that there is a bias towards finding white males as having superior intellect and being more logical.

Im sure you'd agree that there are more female scientists today than twenty years ago. And even more than 50 years ago. And again more than 100 years ago. Is that coincidence or is that as when get more opportunities and are treated more equally- they do things seen as being too clever for them and therefore "male"? Science does not comprehend the workings of the brain entirely yet, there is no way anyone can say definitely that girl brains or boy brains are a thing, so to push that agenda on children is wrong.

If you missed the article I posted earlier please check it out.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-james-watson-scientist-selling-nobel-prize-medal

chicken if it makes it any clearer, calling, or assuming someone is a foreigner to the uk because they aren't Caucasian is very different to incorrectly guessing you might be German instead of Scottish.

OP... YANBU.

kirsty75005

No, I wouldn't call it absurd but the word "essentially" seems to strong.

I'd frame it more as:

There are differences in average performance [between the sexes] and when looking at large data sets we see that an aptitude for logic is a trait more commonly found in boys.

Princess someone who wants to be offended or find offence in any statement will always finds a way...

However it does make their life rather difficult, as people tend to avoid them, they just don't realize this. and take offence .
Myself I tend to have a lot of friends...

when looking at large data sets we see that an aptitude for logic is a trait more commonly found in boys.

Is it, though? If you're doing a "female" activity like baking a cake, you need to use a little logic to know you mix the batter before it goes in the oven. I suspect we just don't recognise it half the time, because we don't expect to see it, but it doesn't take great brain power to do at least basic logic of the "if A then B" type. I suspect there's a lot of unconscious bias and stereotype threat at play.

(I would think that, though, being a woman who works in IT.)

Is it, though?

Yes. Thousands upon thousands of studies and sources say so. Unbiased sources too.* Again, not so that someone can look at a single brain and say whether it belongs to a male / female but they're likely to be correct.

As you say, mixing batter before baking it is not much of a test of logic so I don't know why you mentioned it.

*of course, every source has bias but reputable journals can usually be called unbiased unless you buy into some enormous patriarchal conspiracy where all these scientists rig the results to maintain their male privilege.

solarisIsAClassic

I've gone back through the thread, but I can't find the actual link you used to show males are more logical. Would you mind posting it again? Or give me the name of the study and I'll find it.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131202161935.htm
This is an old study, but this one said the brains were similar but different.
However I do think intelligence will always have rather more of an effect on the results, when taken into account.
There will always be brainy people who have no common sense, and people who have a aptitude towards a certain area and yet just can't do something else....

A little PA there Datun. Why not simply tell me I'm yet to back up my assertions?

What link are you after? Studies which show physical differences in structure and activity or an explanation of how these are used in various tasks such as logic or empathy?

The book I read was Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities: Halpern, D. I'm sure you can fairly quickly find a PDF online.

Having pondered it this morning, the bit I fail to grasp is the absolute determination that men and women must be equal. Equally good at everything. This is usually wrong in nature and there's a kind of arrogance to suggest that we are the species where this changes. They school of feminism I was drawn to wasn't that we are all the same but that differences should be celebrated. Not that we wanted the big box (to use that awful image often posted here) but that we wanted exactly the same size box and a fair shot at life. With so many demonstrable differences, surely your position is the less likely one?

Would you answer a couple of questions for me?

Why do you feel the need to believe that both sexes must be the same as opposed to a ying-yang dependency complementing each other?

Do you agree that there are large observable differences (dimensions, connections and electrical activity) in male and female traits in brains?

Don't you think that the safe money is on these physical differences having a cognitive influence?

solarisIsAClassic

I wasn't being passive, or aggressive! I'm perfectly capable of being either of those two things without pretending.

It's because I too have been pondering this morning. And I have seen a study from Pennsylvania University. Which has been questioned. I wondered if that was your study. But I couldn't find a link that you had posted.

Why do you feel the need to believe that both sexes must be the same as opposed to a ying-yang dependency complementing each other?

I don't, specifically. There are times when I wonder how much due to socialisation and how much is inherent. But every time I consider it might be inherent, I come back to how socialisation can explain it away.

Do you agree that there are large observable differences (dimensions, connections and electrical activity) in male and female traits in brains?

If the scientific consensus is this, then yes, of course. Although from what I understand, you can't translate brain activity to behavioural function.

Don't you think that the safe money is on these physical differences having a cognitive influence?

See above. Also, I have no time for 'safe money' when it comes to something so important.

If women weren't historically and overwhelmingly disadvantaged, this wouldn't interest me.

The reason it does is because if you could say that a certain trait is specific to a certain sex, even averagely, it will be exploited.

There is already a whole heap of bias against women. I want to dismantle that bias, not justify it.

I truly believe, that the science, which ever way it goes, is absolutely not justification for that bias. But I know it will be used as such.

So even if science does underpin a difference in male and female brains, I want to know exactly how that has been arrived at.

The Penn Uni study, for example, didn't allow for age. According to the critics, age is a bigger distinction than sex. Which leads one to assume that the plasticity of the brain is paramount.

Again, something that is caused by socialisation.

Yanbu

I think EBearhug does have a point in that somebody has to define what counts as "rational" and "logic" and that that definition is in itself not immune to cultural prejudice.

There is a fair bit of evidence to suggest that when a certain activity or branch of learning is taken up by males, it is upgraded in terms of how much brains it is supposed to require. If for some reason (e.g. lower remuneration) it becomes more of a female domain, it is downgraded.

A long time ago (Middle Ages, Renaissance), the study of literature and languages led to political power and highly paid jobs and was (unsurprisingly) an almost exclusively male domain. The very few females who fought their way into the gang (think, Heloise) were praised as having the intellectual capacity of a man. The subjects themselves were considered to require intellectual stamina and rationality.

In the Victorian age, young men had to be reassured that botany wasn't sissy and could still be worthy the attention of a strong male brain.

These days the best paid jobs are (at least according to popular belief) in STEM subjects. These are now the definition of rational thinking and considered a predominantly male domain. Any girl who has the guts to take them up will be praised, oh yes, she will. She will be told that she is as good as the boys. And she will be expected to feel a warm glow at being as good as a male.

A boy who takes up primary school teaching will be praised in a subtly different way. It will be "how wonderful that you are taking this up, we sooo need more men in this field". Not "you should not let yourself become downcast: if you really push yourself you may do as well as the women; there are men who have almost a female brain".

When did you last see an advertising campaign with the motto Men Can?

Well exactly corythatwas

A long time ago (Middle Ages, Renaissance), the study of literature and languages led to political power and highly paid jobs and was (unsurprisingly) an almost exclusively male domain. The very few females who fought their way into the gang (think, Heloise) were praised as having the intellectual capacity of a man. The subjects themselves were considered to require intellectual stamina and rationality.

Now English is considered a subject that girls excel at, and maths, boys. As a result, English isn't as prized.

She will be told that she is as good as the boys. And she will be expected to feel a warm glow at being as good as a male.

And then she'll feel bitter and disillusioned when she realisesaw she's got to be better than the boys just to be seen as equal to them.

It almost doesn't matter whether science proves the brains of males are different to those of the females. Because what ever trait a male displays will be valued over that of a female. Whatever trait is required for a specific role, will be valued accordingly.

Competitiveness and aggression is valued over nurturing and empathy. It doesn't matter that many men are empathetic and nurturing. That is not required for the dominant role. Therefore it's discarded as secondary and of no value.

It's almost like these are your roles, now here are the traits required for those roles. And here is the value attached to them.

realises

My phone is rubbish at autocorrecting stuff.

It's a very interesting subject, and language is paramount.

Running a house with four children required an enormous amount of logic, organisational skills and almost constant confrontation.

But let's call it caregiving and nurturing.

What Gina Rippon, Daphna Joel, Cordelia Fine and others say is, if you take a bell curve of women's and men's cognitive abilities - men are at the extremes, and likely to be both the very best and the very worst (funny how no one focuses on that end and concludes that men aren't capable of anything much at all because of the few outliers at that end of the scale.)

But most people aren't at the extreme ends (else they wouldn't be extreme,) but somewhere in the middle, and when you put the men's and women's bell curves on the same graph, almost all of it is overlap. There are far more similarities between men's and women's brains than there are differences.

And surely we all know that? I can find some men I have more in common with than I do with some women - and vice versa. If I look at all the people I know, I will probably find more men I have things in common with than I will women - but that's going to be skewed by me having worked in a male-dominated profession for more than two decades, so I know a lot of men.

Plus if it were innate, we'd see the same patterns in all other countries. And we don't.

Datun, with 4 kids you are United Nations Negotiation standards..

There were places the men do all the child care and the women hunt and rule, nature nurture again...

DD's have always been asked what would you like to be, never thought to tell them anything is band.

Princess someone who wants to be offended or find offence in any statement will always finds a way
^However it does make their life rather difficult, as people tend to avoid them, they just don't realize this. and take offence .
Myself I tend to have a lot of friends...^

Quantity over quality? I've never missed out on my lack of sexist and racist friends.

Keep saying coloured though, see how many friends that makes you.

Plus if it were innate, we'd see the same patterns in all other countries. And we don't.

That and that year on year with changes of thinking more women take on perceived 'male' .jobs and pursuits (and vice versa)

So easy to keep ignoring that when given the opportunity, women and men aren't stereotypes