'Ladybrain' vs behavioural differences

[georgarina]

So, I believe in the importance of sex over gender and lack of 'manbrain'/'ladybrain.'

What I'm not sure about, though, is where behavioural differences (such as sex offenses disparity) fit into that. Has this been addressed anywhere?

Human males show more physical aggression than human females which is true of most mammal species. I would rather go into a field with a cow than a bull and a ewe rather than a ram. Same with our closest relatives like male chimps, male gorillas and to a lesser extent male bonobos.

That’s a bit of a tangent to your question but humans follow the same pattern you’d expect.

Hormones maybe.

I guess in times gone by the 'weaker' males wouldn't have survived - a bit like they don't in the animal kingdom.

@WhiteFire You get sneaky male syndrome in lots of species though. Like less dominant ‘weaker’ male chimps that don’t look like a threat and are tolerated by the females but have a quickie when the dominant ones aren’t looking.

May not be exactly on point, but always good for people to see this video on brain sex by neuroscientist Sophie Scott.

https://vimeo.com/414833798/description

There was this study on monkeys that showed that the female monkeys played with more doll type toys than the male monkeys and I have heard the theory that females are slightly less aggressive than men from an evolutionary perspective because as the ones that have the babies & vulnerable small children it would make sense if they had more ability to handle the stress better.
The invention of the gun and modern weapons should have equaled the playing field for women as far as physical strength is concerned yet gun ownership in the USA is predominantly by men- 43% of men and 22% of women.

About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. Those numbers rise exponentially in prison, where 15% to 25% of inmates show these characteristics and so the higher number of male psychopaths could account for some of the the higher number of men in prison.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2755553/

gun ownership in the USA is predominantly by men- 43% of men and 22% of women.

43 + 22 does not equal 100. If 65% of gun ownership is male or female, who are the other 35%?

Kids of both sex

It's not that 43% of gun owners are male, but that 43% of males own guns. Which is a terrifying statistic, if true!

I think what she's saying is that 43% of men own guns (the other 57% don't) and 22% of women own guns (the other 78% don't).

I knew gun ownership in the US was high, but I'm quite shocked that nearly half of the men there own guns if these figures are correct.

My understanding is that for nearly all traits that can be measured, if there are any sex differences they are pretty weak - not enough to be anywhere near unique to one sex or the other....

Apart from aggression and violence, which is markedly higher in males as a class.

I've been reading 'Bitch: what it means to be female' by Lucy Cooke and it has a lot of examples where females are the more aggressive sex (hyenas and meerkats to name a few) and poses the question of whether we've been looking for sex differences all these years when there are more sex similarities (in the brain anyway).
The difference is that overly aggressive males who threaten the stability of the group in animal species are cast out and face isolation and starvation before they can do too much harm. Sadly this is not an option in modern human society.

That is essentially what Sophie Scott says in the talk I posted above (from memory).

I suspect some "behavioural differences (such as sex offenses disparity)" may align more with possession/lack of testicles (and associated endocrinal differences, maybe?) rather than particular kinds of brains.

This is such an obvious point it is worth investigating why OP and others seem to miss it. Why the concentration on brains rather than other parts of the body? Or, perhaps, other aspects of a person?

Yes, this has been addressed.

Start, perhaps, with a look at Neurosexism, Neurofeminism, and Neurocentrism: From Gendered Brains to Embodied Minds (Claus Halberg, Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 2022), in which the author investigates possible conceptual confusions which may underlie the "tendency ... to exaggerate cognitive, emotional, and behavioural sex differences and to pin gender stereotypes on allegedly innate sex differences of brain structure and function."

Key to Halberg's development there is the so-called 'mereological fallacy', adumbrated, particularly, by Bennett & Hacker in their book Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell 2003).

This is probably a bit tricky, just off the bat, as it were. But, anyway, OP, try to consider the first question I asked above: what might lead you to think of the brain, rather than the sex organs, as determinative of "behavioural differences (such as sex offenses disparity)"? - Might it be something to do with what Claus Halberg describes as "how neurosexism assumes neurocentrism"? (Op. cit.)

I think it’s hormones from sex differences. I’m a very different person on the combined pill than on progesterone only. May also have to do with the fact that our young are dependent for so long compared to other animals. Was there some evidence that transmen on testosterone have an increased risk of criminality?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9316179/

Can’t find the full study or attest to it’s validity but it suggests that testosterone is linked to violence in women as well.

[PS]
Can I just add, 'neurosexism' is a coinage of Cordelia Fine. (See her Will working mothers' brains explode? The popular new genre of neurosexism.)

I assumed (wrongly, it was just pointed out to me) everyone in the world is familiar with Fine's stuff.

If you're not, perhaps also have a look at Fine, C., Joel, D., & Rippon, G. (2019), Eight things you need to know about sex, gender, brains, and behaviour: A guide for academics, journalists, parents, gender diversity advocates, social justice warriors, Tweeters, Facebookers, and everyone else

... Oh, and read Fine's book. It's good. Delusions of gender. Your library will have a copy.

Of course there are sex based differences that result from the impact of bio-chemistry on various. This manifests as general tendencies rather than hard and fast rules, though - and there is a spectrum of aptitude and behavioural trait across the sexes. But you do get clusters of one sex or the other at certain junctures or ends of the spectrum.

Puberty heigtens and emphasises these differences, as does pregnancy, and childbirth via the hormones released and their interplay on the brain.

To my mind, denying there are sex based differences - just making one exception to say males tend towards more violent and aggressive behaviour - is at the root of much TRA activism. I think that is why so many women support trans activism too. They have been brought up to view men and women as equal as in the exactly the same ( except for a few body parts which can always be altered/added/removed).

Same for the 'sex positive' movement - whereby women are supposed to feel liberated by being as promiscuous in the way that many men are, or by selling sex. The denial of sex based differences when it comes to sexual behaviour or inclination.

I'm not sure I agree with that totally. Obviously we know males, as a sex, tend to commit more crimes of violence; but there are certainly lots of very aggressive women. They might not be getting involved in mass brawls or football violence ( although some do on a Saturday night after one drink too many) or express that through being a serial killer - but aggressive nonetheless.

Aggression is a human instinct; often a defensive instinct.

To my mind, denying there are sex based differences - just making one exception to say males tend towards more violent and aggressive behaviour - is at the root of much TRA activism. I think that is why so many women support trans activism too. They have been brought up to view men and women as equal as in the exactly the same ( except for a few body parts which can always be altered/added/removed).

How odd - I reach the opposite conclusion. They see traits as inherently relating to having male or female bodies - liking playing with dolls, for example - to the extent that people who like dolls think they must have a female body.

I see male and female people as being able to have any personality, behaviour, preferences, etc. Breastfeeding and birth aside (and male violence aside), your potential to be a good parent, for example, is not directly linked to whether you're male or female. Obviously this is complicated by social factors which are not negligible, but essentially I don't anyone to think I have a certain type of brain or personality just because I'm female.

Aggression seems to be linked to testosterone though - a hormone as opposed to your brain - in that it is associated with higher levels of violence in both sexes

Clearly there is a strong social element also which is why some societies are much less violent than others

Those sorts of play activities are gendered inthe sense they are associated with sex/biology; and because trans believers don't believe in sex they only believe in gender - they tend to think certain types of play activity, for example, is what makes you male or female.

The thing is that gendered norms and streotypes often do have some foundation in reality - in that you will notice that little girls tend towards pair bonding in a way that little boys don't. And little boys tend to be more interested in playing with vehicles than girls. There are obviously exceptions and there are girls who are just as interested in trains, for example,as boys - but just not that many.

That of course doesn't mean that girl who prefers playing with trains and tractors over putting teddies or dolls to bed is a boy. theer is a spectrum of aptitudes and preferences amongst children of either sex - but the clusters and tendencies towards certain types of preference are there.

Cross sex preferences and tastes have long been associated with being lesbian or gay; although of course not by necessity.

The influence on the brain of sex hormones is there before birth, and whilst there might not be any obvious structural differnces in the brain ( apart from the male brain being bigger) there do tend to be differences in process.

The thing is that the tendancies we observe in small children turn out to be already socially influenced

Years ago a study of nursery staff and very small children

The staff were asked to asses the children - caring , boisterous, likes cuddles , likes cars../

And they found that the children dressed as girls were reported as the obvious - caring, play with dolls

Only they weren't the girls

It actually showed how the smallest of children respond to subtle signals from the adults as to what they should be doing -

but the clusters and tendencies towards certain types of preference are there.

And what can you do with this information (not asking in an arsey way!) as it won't apply to so many people?

Sell gendered things to kids, sure. Use it as a rule of thumb when hiring for a job that requires technical thinking or diplomacy? Hope not. Determine who quits work to look after the kids as one sex is more naturally a nurturer? I hope not. Tell people, yes they're male, but not really a man because they carry their baby in a sling? (Or because they have a DSD, which TRAs love to do...)

Using sex as a proxy for behaviour, personality, attitudes, preferences etc seems a very inefficient process when the correlation is so weak as to be almost meaningless - I guess useful enough if you're doing things at very large scale like marketing.

I don't even think car insurers can use sex as a proxy measure of risk any more (right? ) even though that is based on fairly robust data!

There was a similar experiment on Child of Our Time (I think, def Professor Winston program).

They dressed babies in blue or pink babygrows and observed how a stranger left alone with them behaved. The strangers went for different toys to interact with them dependent on the babygrow colour...