NYT piece debunking 'Brain Sex'

[GraceTheDisgrace]

Scientists Daphna Joel and Cordelia Fine in the New York Times Opinion section.

'In 17th and 18th century Europe, the rise of egalitarian ideals created the need for a scientific account of women’s inferior status. Thus was born gender biological complementarity — the notion that, as historian of science Londa Schiebinger explains in The Mind Has No Sex, “Women were not to be viewed merely as inferior to men but as fundamentally different from, and thus incomparable to, men.” It has been with us in one way or another, roping in science to explain the gender status quo, ever since.

At its core is the persistent belief that men’s and women’s natures can be usefully and meaningfully carved into two categories or “natural kinds,” that are distinct, timeless, and deeply biologically grounded. Today’s version of this idea continues a centuries long quest to find the source of this hypothesized divergence in abilities, preferences, and behavior in the brain...'

www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brains-mosaic.html

Notevenmyrealname Is this the study you mean?

Zell, E., Krizan, Z., & Teeter, S. R. (2015). Evaluating gender similarities and differences using metasynthesis. American Psychologist, 70(1), 10-20.

Abstract:
Despite the common lay assumption that males and females are profoundly different, Hyde (2005) used data from 46 meta-analyses to demonstrate that males and females are highly similar. Nonetheless, the gender similarities hypothesis has remained controversial. Since Hyde’s provocative report, there has been an explosion of meta-analytic interest in psychological gender differences. We utilized this enormous collection of 106 meta-analyses and 386 individual meta-analytic effects to reevaluate the gender similarities hypothesis. Furthermore, we employed a novel data-analytic approach called metasynthesis (Zell & Krizan, 2014) to estimate the average difference between males and females and to explore moderators of gender differences. The average, absolute difference between males and females across domains was relatively small (d = 0.21, SD = 0.14), with the majority of effects being either small (46%) or very small (39%). Magnitude of differences fluctuated somewhat as a function of the psychological domain (e.g., cognitive variables, social and personality variables, well-being), but remained largely constant across age, culture, and generations. These findings provide compelling support for the gender similarities hypothesis, but also underscore conditions under which gender differences are most pronounced.

psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-00137-002

It may be although what I read was actually a more simplified breakdown explaining it for people with a non-scientific background. I’m still searching for it. It said there was hardly any difference but the influence of hormones on an unborn child could be said to have an influence on personality in a few small ways. It was very clear to stress that these were observed trends rather than absolute facts though. It doesn’t contradict the article in NYT, however due to some of the arguments on this thread I thought it an interesting point to make.

Nice bit of misogyny there - blaming women for men's actions.

That's not what "blame" means.

If that is in response to the poster I think you are referring to, in another thread it was pointed out that said poster thinks that male violence can be cured by women having group sex in public.

Yeah, and I definitely never said that. I never said "in public," so stop making things up, thank you. I never said women having group sex cures males violence; I said having group sex would protect one from violence. It's a general principle that being in the company of other people has a protective effect against violence (this applies to both men and women). It's going to be a bit difficult to rape someone during group sex with everyone else watching.

But I did also say that having sex in a building where friends are present would also help to protect women from violence. Funny how everyone glossed over that.

Dude, I'm a gender critical radical feminist. That means I understand biological sex, which includes hormones. I live in a female body. Believe me, ain't none of us trying to discount the existence of sex hormones, chromosomes, or other biological differences between the sexes. And yeah, we know, testosterone supposedly relieves men of responsibility for their violent actions.

It's absolutely outrageous that you would pounce upon my wording as though I was suggesting you didn't think female hormones were more present in female bodies (a poor choice of words; I should have used "accept" rather than "concede") and you use that to completely skim over the point I made. I would have preferred if you had the courtesy to respond.

1. Different levels of hormones are observed in men and women.
2. Hormones are known to influence behaviour.
3. Why is controversial that testosterone could affect aggression or libido?

And yeah, we know, testosterone supposedly relieves men of responsibility for their violent actions.

No one has ever, ever suggested that. If we thought men were excused of violent actions for being men, then we wouldn't be sending so many of them to prison.

You'll have to forgive me, I didn't realize I was having a conversation with a dude who wants to go on and on about his pubertal sexual experiences. I'm going to pass on this one. Entertain yourself with someone else.

If you're going to ignore qualitative accounts of men's experiences with sexuality, then it's simply not your place to try to dissect men's psychology. I agree that you should pass on this one; it would be better if you focused on trying to help women and address women's problems, rather than talk about men.

relative to our great ape ancestors, is a REDuCTION in the sexually dimorphic traits you are discussing.

But still sexually dimorphic, right?

And no, you are wrong that we can actually know if it is society or not that impacts any specific behavior. As it is males are treated differently by others than females are because they are seen as male by others and our society has different rules and expectations for males than for females. Experiments to control for this would be highly unethical for obvious reasons.

The problem you are describing arises with any study in the social sciences; that's why statistical principles like multivariate analysis exist. Just because there are multiple variables, doesn't mean it's impossible to hone in one variable.

(by the way I find it pretty hilarious that you felt the need to explain to a group of well educated women that kids going through puberty become sexually interested in other). Not a single person here has tried to argue that biology in no way impacts behavior.

I'm happy that you agree with me.

Is there some reason why the hairy handed one is being fed?

Not everyone you disagree with is a troll.

Male aggression is actually pretty well researched.

There's a surge of testosterone in the male body at an age of ... I don't know, really early, I think it might have been three days? Or perhaps three months.

Scientists prevented the testosterone from increasing in male mice, who then only displayed territory defense reactions just like female mice, but didn't display male-type aggression against other mice anymore.

Humans are quite a bit more complex, and there hopefully won't be experiments on what happens if you manipulate the hormones of male toddlers, but it's a possible explanation.
(And also explains why a male taking estrogen after going through puberty doesn't have any effect on violence levels)

Major hormone surges are always accompanied by physical changes in the body. By far the most significant happens during puberty. At 3 years old there is virtually no difference I'm levels of testosterone in boys and girls and yet gender identity is usually in the process of being rapidly and firmly developed at that very age. The overlap with the surge in language and communication skills is far greater than the overlap in hormonal changes.

I may have remembered wrongly since the study was on mice.

Boys have high testosterone right after birth (presumably before birth, too) and also at four years old:

www.powerfulmothering.com/that-tricky-thing-called-testosterone/

At 3 years old there is virtually no difference I'm levels of testosterone in boys and girls and yet gender identity is usually in the process of being rapidly and firmly developed at that very age.

I guess that explains why there's no difference between aggression in 3 year old children then.

The 4 years old thing is a myth, first mentioned by Steve Biddulph in "Raising Boys", but there is no evidence of this actually happening at all.

PJ

“Still sexually dimorphic”?

Obviously it depends on what you measure.

In terms of sex organs it’s obviously determinitive.

Physically, quantitatively so, with a lot of overlap.

Psychologically? Again as I said there seem to be a few differences which are persistantly measurable and significant but they are even less qualitative than the physical ones. And you could make the argument given the current evolutionary Trend that selection is favoring less dimorphism yet - there hasn’t been enough time. Pure speculation of course, but so is your assumption that maintenance of sexual dimorphism is somehow adaptive. The point is we DONT KNOW and in fact can’t.

The thread has moved on a little, , but I just wanted to make a point here:

Why not change women and girls instead? Given that the common argument is that women and girls are sexually suppressed, it makes far more sense to condition women differently rather than suppress men

That isn’t just social conditioning. This is biology...I like sex. I’d like more sex. However the reasons I have refused sex include:

Menstruation (The blood is a pita to clean up, and I feel like shite anyway)
UTI. Very common in women. Often triggered by sex, and certainly makes it painful Medical profession tends to lump it in The wimmins things basket and tells you to get on with it.
Thrush (See above) new partner always gives me a bout of thrush, as do condoms.
Risk of unwanted pregnancy. Always has to be taken Into account. Contraceptives make many women feel crap, can lower Libido anyway.
Endometriosis/ ovarian cysts. Staggeringly common. Incredibly painful. Not taken seriously by doctors. Not sexy.

For many (most?) women it isn’t just a case of if I fancy a shag I’ll have one.
It’s a balance of risk of pregnancy, (I have to think am I in a situation where that’s ok? I have medical issues, a pregnancy would kill me — quite literally. ) also other aggravating medical factors, Menstruation etc etc.

In my experience a man wouldn’t have to stop and think about any of those except pregnancy. And tbh he could do a runner in a way a woman never could.

And you could make the argument given the current evolutionary Trend that selection is favoring less dimorphism yet - there hasn’t been enough time.

Do you have evidence for that? I don't see how selection for less dimorphism would occur in modern human societies. Given the popularity of BDSM among women, it would appear that, even though women like to be treated equally in day-to-day life, there still seems to be a lot of women who like men to be masculine when it comes to sex and reproduction... if anything, that would increase dimorphism.

Pure speculation of course, but so is your assumption that maintenance of sexual dimorphism is somehow adaptive.

Yeah, but it's based on the fact that we see dimorphism in other primates.

But also, I'm having a hard time believing that a species can be physically dimorphic (which isn't being disputed by anyone here) but somehow not be psychologically dimorphic. I mean, psychology partly arises from physiology.

*However the reasons I have refused sex include:

Menstruation (The blood is a pita to clean up, and I feel like shite anyway)
UTI. Very common in women. Often triggered by sex, and certainly makes it painful Medical profession tends to lump it in The wimmins things basket and tells you to get on with it.
Thrush (See above) new partner always gives me a bout of thrush, as do condoms.
Risk of unwanted pregnancy. Always has to be taken Into account. Contraceptives make many women feel crap, can lower Libido anyway.
Endometriosis/ ovarian cysts. Staggeringly common. Incredibly painful. Not taken seriously by doctors. Not sexy.*

I don't doubt that all of those are unpleasant, but... pretty much all of those can be avoided by simply having non-penetrative sex!