Gina Rippon: the Genedered Brain

[TheGreatSloth]

Is it worth reading this? From a very quick look at the book in the shop today, my impression is that she spends a lot of time discussing the way in which "women" are encouraged to have limited expectations and abilities by gender stereotypes (rather than in consequence of any intrinsic pink female brain) but then goes on to suggest that sex is a spectrum, so that (presumably) there is so such thing as a woman, so I'm not sure what (or who) the earlier part of the book is about.

And I see she quotes Anne Fausto-Sterling - generally a good sign of misogyny to come. (Plus, is she actually an expert on DSDs and the biology of gonads, hormones, etc, as opposed to an expert on brains? If not why is she squeezing this into a book on her actual specialism - brains?)

Is this unfair? Is it worth pursuing with the book? Generally I don't want to give a single penny of my money or a minute of my time to the irresponsible and destructive theorists who are responsible for legitimising putting males in women's prisons, refuges, sports, hospital wards, toilets, and changing rooms, for concealing the relative rates of male and female offending, and the biological realities of women's lives. Is G Rippon with her "sex is a spectrum" one of them?

I haven't read the whole book but I have heard Gina Rippon speak about it. My takeaway from that was that her research was clearly discrediting the theory that babies are born with an innately male or female brain already programmed to behave according to gender stereotypes, but showed instead that babies are influenced very early on by the social messages and gender stereotyping around them once they are born. Hence, babies are not born in the "wrong body" with a different coloured brain from their "assigned gender". That seemed to me to make her an important supporter for the gender critical case. I also got the impression that she was a bit shy about saying that too loudly, though she would agree when asked the direct question.

I don't know what she says about sex as a spectrum but I think I'd want to give her the benefit of the doubt and look to see what exactly she is saying. I have seen her cited by trans lobbyists as part of the shiny new science that supports their arguments that the brain actually is gendered, but I've assumed that that's because they haven't read beyond the title.

TheGreatSloth - There are lots of articles by and about Gina Rippon online - worth an internet search.

This is a good primer that she co-authored:

"Eight Things You Need to Know About Sex, Gender, Brains, and Behavior: A Guide for Academics, Journalists, Parents, Gender Diversity Advocates, Social Justice Warriors, Tweeters, Facebookers, and Everyone Else"
by Cordelia Fine, Daphna Joel and Gina Rippon

in S&F Online
(The Scholar & Feminist Online is a webjournal published three times a year by the Barnard Center for Research on Women)

sfonline.barnard.edu/neurogenderings/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-sex-gender-brains-and-behavior-a-guide-for-academics-journalists-parents-gender-diversity-advocates-social-justice-warriors-tweeters-facebookers-and-ever/

It's an excellent book. If you know Cordelia Fine's work then Rippon's is along those lines but concentrates more on neuroscience, junk science and poor media reporting. I don't think anyone who's read it would come away thinking it supports trans ideology.

Her argument is that men and women's brains do not differ substantially. She doesn't discuss intersex people at length but she points out that people often apply a simplistic analysis of the relationship between hormones and brains and that they fail to consider brain plasticity and social expectations.

It’s a really good book with lots to think about. I don’t think it matters if the reader agrees with every single conclusion she draws actually, because she lays out the evidence so clearly that you are left welcome to make up your own mind. Her main point seems to be that dividing humanity into two distinct categories is unhelpful as there are is so much overlap between the groups, and it’s impossible to untangle societal influences as they are so prevalent.

She's also very good at pointing out where media articles take science reports and push them to absurdity. So an article on the difference between men and women's brains will be based on research about hamsters or songbirds or something equally inappropriate to draw direct comparisons with human beings.

She makes the point through neuroscience that brains and personalities are unique and plastic.

Our perception of a 'male' or ' female' brain is based on sexist stereotypes. There are differences in terms of sex based differences, hormones etc, but they don't make a woman better at sewing and a man better at diy.

She asserts that In terms of a spectrum, there's a huge variety of brains with many different skills or deficits; but we label those skills as 'for' or common among men or women. And also interests; she points out how much social pressures and stereotypes mould interests.

Thanks for these helpful comments. I will get it. (I was afraid it would be rather like Sara Pascoe’s first book - ie, with a random ‘TWAW/sex is a spectrum/hey beardy guys welcome to the ladies’ changing room’ pinned on to what otherwise would be a fascinating and useful analysis of women’s experiences.)

No, she stops short of casting any aspersions on trans but really the rest of the book basically says there's no basis in brain expression for the womanly brain argument. In my opinion.