Gina Rippon in New Scientist - The Truth About Male and Female Brains

[SpeakUpXXWomen]

Apologies if this is already discussed here and I haven't seen it.

Just picked up this week's copy and this story is on the front cover. It is a fantastic article by Gina Rippon dispelling gender brain myth and is undoubtedly a wonderful big yellow GC statement by NS.

www.newscientist.com/issue/3219/

www.newscientist.com/article/mg24132190-100-how-neuroscience-is-exploding-the-myth-of-male-and-female-brains/

Some beautiful extracts -

If you want to know what underpins differences between women and men in ability, behaviour, temperament and even lifestyle choices, you will find the answers in genes, genitals and gonads.

stereotypes about any group's innate abilities can become self-fulfilling prophecies. If someone is made aware of a negative stereotype about the group to which they belong, this can impair their performance in a related task. For example if a woman is told that women are poor at a particular mathematical skill, there is a consequent drop in performance in tests of that skill.

Believing that only one type of brain is capable of certain core skills may lead to an immense loss of human capital, to the detriment of wider society...It is finally time to discard this old chestnut. The concept of the female brain or the male brain is outdated and inaccurate. Every person's brain is unique.

I am going to be buying this book and suggest every school and politician in the land needs a copy pronto.

Also a book review in the guardian -
www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/05/the-gendered-brain-gina-rippon-review

I'm loving the book so far. She really sees the bigger picture.

Not getting through it much tnoughdue to mn

There's a lot on how stereotypes become self fulfilling prophecies.

EverardDigby posted this on a thread the other day:

There's also the effect where Asian women do better at a maths test when their Asian identity (stereotypically good at maths) is reinforced and worse when their female identity (stereotypically bad at maths ) is emphasised, https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1027/1864-9335/a000184

I think that is the importance of this research to hammer home to the woke. If parents, schools and politicians can be made to understand the damage caused by stereotype reinforcement that's transideology out on it's arse in one swift move.

I think that would be a brilliant book to buy and just leave lying around the house where a woke son or daughter might notice it. Hopefully they’ll read it and waken up properly.

We could bulk buy and start leaving copies in waiting rooms, on buses, in university cafes! The potential is limitless...

I wonder if we could get a group discount? Hey, MNHQ, you’re always pushing products, what about getting us a discount for this?

Ok I have messaged MNHQ this -

Please can we have a question answer session with Gina Rippon. Please can you see if we can bulk buy this book for a discount? Please would you promote this amazing piece of work?

Join in if you want this

I bought the New Scientist this week for the first time in years because this was on the cover. I've only skimmed through so far but its fascinating stuff.

A q and a would be amazing!

She did one for the Parenting Science Gang who ate a group of parents who had 2 years worth of funding to do research into parenting aspects.

parentingsciencegang.org.uk/web-chats/how-different-are-womens-and-mens-brains/

The other reason why I feel her research is important is that she's also been looking at autism and I think autism in girls.

Sorry, involved in research, I don't know how much active research she currently does.

Just reading that article again; the point she makes that media isn't too interested in men and women being the same and referring to publish examples of difference is a huge patriarchal tool isn't it?!

They ate a group of parents

I will probably add this to the growing to-read pile but is it much different to Cordelia Fine’s work? I enjoyed her ‘Delusions of Gender’ and ‘Testosterone Rex’ and it sounds like very similar/familiar ground.

Lol! Are

I didn't fully read those (on my phone pile) and it was a while ago; she's a neuroscientist but had the sexism of science to deal with her whole life from what I understand (there's a paragraph on her being called all sorts of names) so I imagine it's got more of the actual science included.

She does look at the physical actual differences, as there are some slight ones but counters them against a multitude of other factors, particularly how very much the brain is influenced by experience as it grows, and looks at the science and research around that.

@SpeakUpXXWomen maybe a crowd finder like this one?!

twitter.com/tkingdot/status/1103630687779934212?s=21