Question about the brain gender

[honeyandmarmitesandwiches]

Hi all,

I've been reading some of the feminism threads and trying to educate myself a bit more. I would describe myself as a feminist but until recently hadn't done much deep thinking about it. Anyway, I have a question...

I understand the difference between 'sex' and 'gender', sex being whether you're born physically male or female, gender being to do with the social construct of girl stuff and boy stuff, pink and blue, supposed male and female strengths and weaknesses and how we're all 'supposed' to behave. So (most) feminists really reject any suggestion of a 'ladybrain' and all the crap that usually goes with that. I'm with you so far... HOWEVER

Is it at all true that male and female brains ARE, on average, different? Not that this should ever be used as an excuse for putting women in a box and telling them they're no good at maths or rational thinking etc etc, but...
What about the influence of hormones, for example? Men have more testosterone, could this make them more aggressive, less empathetic etc on average? Is there something to this or has it also been debunked?

I know there is a book called Delusions of Gender, I have just ordered It for a read.

I noticed on amazon at the same time though that there were books in genre like 'The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain' by Simon Baron-Cohen and 'The Female Brain' by Louann Brizendine.

I haven't actually read any of them yet but would like to ask if anybody else has, and whether there is any real scientific consensus or is the debate still ongoing? In other words do we know if our brains truly are gender neutral or not?

Hope this doesn't come across as goady, it's not meant like that at all btw!

Thanks for the replies, I haven't had a chance to check out that video yet but will definitely do so.

I know very little about hunter gatherers, but logically it would make sense that a lot of the animals that were hunted would be small, surely - rabbits and the like - and they'd be caught using traps and snares, which involves completely different skills than the cliché of chasing down a woolly mammoth and killing it with spears. See also catching fish.

Good point jilly

Often lion packs hunting do not successfully kill any prey. That is an enormous waste of bodily resources. But unavoidable of course as lions are carnivores and can't set traps etc.

I think the lionesses have more success than the lions according to a dimly remembered documentary... Certainly our own social lens is put on cave society!

It has been reported that male populations show a broader distribution of various abilities – the result being that there may be more males at the gifted end of the ability spectrum than females, even if the average ability in the two populations is the same. I've seen this used by scientists to defend why there are relatively few female top scientists, which I think is highly problematic - top scientists are not all geniuses, for a start; Einstein was mediocre at school and bad at maths... plus, there is no particular set of abilities that is critical for success in science (or anything else).

Delusions of Gender is brilliant. I reviewed it in a series of blog posts here: meaningandtruth.wordpress.com/category/delusions-of-gender/

The hunter gatherer stuff has all been debunked by archeology. Early women played a prime role, not just berries and shit.

It's interesting that studies prove that female babies develop right or left hand dominance well before males though.

The idea of male hunters and female gatherers is a Victorian creation, to fit in with accepted gender roles of the time...

I think it should also be noted that any women displaying 'genius' tendencies, until recently, is likely to have been locked up as troublesome or mentally unstable.

As someone else mentioned there are also problems in how intelligence is measured. By men, for men springs to mind.

I think the overall thing I took from Cordia Fine's book was how much brains responded to conditioning. They aren't innate immovable organs like some people like to describe. They respond to their surroundings and the stimulii provided.

Interesting Framey, I'll let the HG society I lived with know that they have been debunked

This blog is not one I would usually link to (the blogger seems to have some hate for radical feminists) but I found this explanation rather interesting:

dirtywhiteboi67.blogspot.de/2016/03/transgender-brains-effects-of.html

So there is such a thing as brain sex - but if transpeople were born with a brain belonging to the sex they identify as, then there would be no changes in sexual attraction after taking hormones. But there are!

Of course, this has nothing at all to do with liking dinosaurs or pink, or hunting or gathering. It is just about sexual attraction - apparently, sexual orientation and if it is same-sex or other-sex is hardwired in the brain, and will change accordingly if the brain is fooled into thinking that the body changed sex.