via Jay Lake

[barbarienne]

...from one of many link salads.

Male and female ability differences down to socialisation, not genetics.

(Spelling is British because it's in the UK's Guardian.)

I need a copy of this article pasted to a bat so I can club people with it.

The reason I perpetually refuse a GPS system is because my internal navigation system kicks ass, and my map

Comments

[mastadge]

I have conversations arguments on this topic regularly, and it is so nice to finally have an accessible, popular book I can point people toward rather than just citing academic papers and difficult feminist texts.

[nathreee]

Ever since that book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, I wondered why people didn't see that those theories were mere sexist assumptions, generalisations that would never hold through when tested. Our behaviour is much more influenced by our culture than by our genes.

And yes, I too want a really big bat, for people who somehow think I can't read maps, can't have photographic memory or can't fix a computer just because I have tits.

[mnfaure]

The reason I perpetually refuse a GPS system is because my internal navigation system kicks ass, and my map-reading skills are even better.

A resounding YES! to this.

[jaylake]

I have an absolutely dumb-ass question about this. Given that men and women's bodies are different (demonstrably so), including some difference in average physical capabilities (upper body strength for men, coordination and pain tolerance for women), why isn't it reasonable to assume gender-based differences in brain structure and function may exist?

Note am I *not* drawing a line from that to dolls vs trucks or "math is hard, let's go shopping". Or demanding that skills of any kind be proven. And I see the cultural and social landmines in this question fairly clearly, I think. But the question still nags at me a little.

[mastadge]

I don't think anyone's saying that there aren't differences, just that the differences have been hugely overstated, and that trends have been popularly misunderstood as concrete differences. As you say, the difference is in average physical capabilities and appearances, but there's overlap even in the physical -- from the obvious, like gynecomastic or lactating men and women with facial hair, to the less obvious, like people born with neither or both male and female reproductive organs. The difference between male and female bodies is not so concrete nor always so apparent as many'd often like it to be. As a moderately sizeable man often sporting scruff, even I have, more than once, been mistaken for a woman. As with bodies, moreso with brains: overlapping bellcurves with very little if any difference -- science likes results, so studies showing null results between men and women have often been discarded! -- have been interpreted as vast gulfs between men and women, creating this false binary where you're either one or the other, and

[barbarienne]

The "science" (notice the scare quotes) on this subject historically has been awful. The trend as we've gotten better at understanding the brain has indicated that mental skills, at least, are not what common (so-called) wisdom indicates.

I mean, it's only the last few years that it's been discovered that neuroplasticity does not have to diminish with age; the previous determinations were through inference, not science.

Even allowing for some general trends, the range of human behavior and skills has been drastically understated across a gender divide. This is true in the physical arena as well.

Take, for example, elite marathon runners. While the top men are still faster than the top women, the women have been closing the gap for the past thirty years. The men's world record (set in '08) stands at 2:03:59, and the women's record (set in '03) is now 2:15:25. (The men's record in '03 was 2:04:55. Source also has a graph showing the slow convergence of the curves

[jaylake]

Thanks. This isn't a hot button issue for me (and I do have a daughter who breaks a lot of stereotypes), but it does poke my curiosity, like I said. I take the argument that the variation across the human range far exceeds the gender variability. Again, thanks.

[wuwt]

My daughter is very verbal (reading the first page of "The Prize" to prove she could at age 4) and my son is mechanically inclined to the point of obsession. Traditional gender roles yes and no doubt the origin is in their nature. Nurtured too? Absolutely. But this doesn't mean that it couldn't have been the reverse...

[wuwt]

Hmm - now that I think about it, she may have been 5, but still....

[barbarienne]

Not to cast any aspersions on you or M's parenting skills, but y'all are kinda traditional in that outlook (at least to my eyes). Furthermore, while F may have inherently been more mechanically inclined and R more verbal, there are other factors that might exaggerate those differences. It's Bob the builder, not Roberta; and Thomas the tank engine, not Theresa. Even if you and M were paragons of cross-gender activity encouragement, the world around you discourages such expressions.