What do you say to someone who doesn't believe in feminism because "men and womens brains are wired differently"?

[LittleWhiteWolf]

I can't get my head around it. The friend in question is intelligent and educated and not stupid at all, yet spouts this as the reason why feminism, why equality doesn't work. Where she sees scientific and historical evidence to support this, I just see opinions. Apparently because men are the typical hunter gatherers and women the nuturers, we should just accept that. I'm just getting so sad listening to this.

Anyone got any tips one what one says to someone so mired in this belief???

Chocolate and high heels. You're joking right?

Oh good.

I was told earlier that men are incapable of planning and cooking a decent meal.

NO they just often can't be arsed, because someone (probably with a vagina) will believe it's their job/prerogative/responsibility and do it for them.

There is no cooking gene or a blimming "i like football" chromosome or whatever.

Perhaps a short circuit. She needs a new fuse, maybe?

mrsravelstein - and where do you think culture comes in to the chocolate and high heels.

Do you think that the brain of a female makes them pre-disposed to like chocolate and high heels or the culture around us?

Simone de Beauvoir wrote 'The Nature of the Second Sex' which was an inverted feminism. She was a feminist (of a kind - it was a while ago) , but this book analysed the biology of the different sexes. It helps explain about men and women being wired differently but it is no justification for inequality. As most people have stated here.

I do think there is a big crisis in the way men and women relate to each other which isn't being addressed. It seems that once they are in a relationship anything goes and stereotypes rear their ugly heads, yet as singles we have more respect for each other. Or is it just me?

Ask her how, precisely, a Y chromosome or its absence is going to affect the brain.

It's also good to remember that early feminist called this the "women's liberation" movement.

OP - what does your friend think about dreadful oppression of women in eg Afganistan. Even if someone thinks this is "natural" then why are we not in the same position in this country? (Presumably due to some form of "feminism" - because make no mistake - no man ever gave up his power/priviledge "just because"!

Admittedly I've not read The Second Sex for years, but I do not remember it in any way explaining 'different wiring'. It's a rather fabulous look at how sexism operates IIRC.

Ask her how, precisely, a Y chromosome or its absence is going to affect the brain.

what makes you think it doesn't?

The sort of people who will advance this kind of argument usually tend to have this idea that men are wired to be "hunters" and work outside the home etc. while they envisage that women are natural carers, housewives and so on.

My argument with that would be that even those people will freely acknowledge that men are very different from each other. Presumably a farm labourer and a professor of French literature are in no way identically "wired" - even if they are both men. Men's interests, talents and motivations vary immensely; nobody would deny that.

Hence if you wish to argue along these lines, you would have to present some serious evidence to support your claim that the same variations do not occur among women. If your argument is in any way tied to biology (and I guess it basically has to be for someone to claim it is natural) this will turn out very difficult indeed since there is just as much genetic variety among females as among males.

yes, i absolutely understand the argument about conditioning/socialisation, and i think it's valid, but i don't think it fully explains what i, personally, observe to be the differences between most men & most women (and again i am treading carefully here as i am well aware that other people will have had different experiences to me).

i genuinely don't see why it matters whether you believe men and women are inherently different or not, as long as you believe that they are equally intelligent, equally entitled to vote, equally entitled to work, equally entitled to be a stay at home parent etc?

That you believe men and women to be wired differently shows that your beliefs are not based on evidence.

Holly that is an illogical statement. It does no such thing.

Motherinferior, 'The Nature of the Second sex' is a different book from 'The Second Sex'. My guess is that poor Simone was so bombarded with questions from her sexist intellectual peers that she had to go off and biologically explain the difference to keep them quiet. But it's an interesting book, from a biology point of view.

Elephants, really? So they'd say my DH who is currently cooking an elaborate supper which he thought up all by himself is a figment of my imagination?

Sorry for small hijack, op.

I too think your friend ought to have a look at Cordelia Fine.

Migrating - please do cite your evidence that women's brains are wired differently. I think that anyone who is rational will find my statement to be perfectly logical

Okay, different angle: let's say for argument's sake that men's and women's brains are "naturally" significantly different in a way that we can scientifically measure and demonstrate. (And, FWIW, I don't think it's what the evidence suggests, but anyway, ...)

The problem with that is that as humans we do not accept "natural" conditions as normative (unless of course it advances our goals - like in the case of the people who like this kind of argument). Death of cancer is natural, for example; that doesn't stop us from recognising it as undesirable and trying to prevent it from happening. On the other hand me typing this on my computer is about as far removed from natural as technology currently allows me to go. Nevertheless our society seems to value and promote technological innovation.

Equating "natural" with "desirable" is simply not the done thing in our society. So even from that POV the argument fails.

Motherinferior - sorry, wrong info. 'Nature' was a separate book but when translated was combined into one in two parts. I have a vague recollection of J-P Sartre being involved in this idea of a book merger and it changed the impact of her analysis. I would check but I can't find the book it's on a dusty shelf behind a cupboard with other books I thought I would never need to look at again.

Sorry been away from thread. I was just undercoating a door while DH bathed this kids and

OH NO DH penis has just fallen off and I have glanced in the mirror and I have an enormous beard and look like jeremy clarkson ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH

we have completely misunderstood the plastic nature of brains until very recently. gender is only one area in which we have historically got this wrong.

"For many years, scientists assumed the human brain was fully formed by the age of three but that notion has been challenged by the discovery of brain "plasticity" throughout life."

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cfkq

the idea of a fixed brain whether it is male or female, clever or not helps perpetuate inequalities.

its the old 'qui bene' (who benefits) question?

There are a few things I want to say:

Given the plasticity of our brains socialisation plays a massive part in how they are "wired".

As has been said above, in the majority of hunter gatherer societies traditionally men hunted and women gathered (and provided most of the calories). I can't really see how either hunting or gathering is particularly similar to most modern day work or how either would be viewed as worth less than the other.

If men and women are born with brains that tend to work in different ways how does that lead to the conclusion that we can't have equal rights.

Maybe women are more nurturing (through culture or innately) how does that mean that "feminism won't work".

(By the way, am I the only person not convinced by Cordelia Fine.)

Maybe OP's friend should read up on bit of Neurology for Dummies, or something. Then she can draw her own conclusions. Unless of course the wires in her brain don't reach that far.
Perhaps you should lend her some extension leads, OP?

I 'gather' all the time, Anais - in TopShop, Reiss, Whistles... then I leave my 'gatherings' in the changing room and go and hunt for a bargain in Oxfam.