Comments | differenceblog: Does Size Matter?

differenceblog

Does Size Matter?

Nov 01, 2006 09:35

As explored previously (see 10/2/06 and 10/11/06), physical differences between men and women are often treated as simply being a matter of scale. Women are, generally speaking, smaller than men. According to the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (2004, pdf), the average height of an American adult woman is 64 inches and the ( Read more... )

grey matter, relative size, height, sex differences, pons, primary auditory cortex, brain size, gray matter, size, cerebellum, white matter, gender differences, brains, brain volume

Comments 5

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differenceblog November 1 2006, 15:27:56 UTC

I'm selectively deaf, so it's possible that someone mentioned it at some point, but no, I can't recall that ever happening. The only time I got a "women can't" was when I was on tour doing lighting, and one of my coworkers (British) expressed surprise that a "bird" was doing electrics instead of props or costumes.

Considering that props and costumes for those shows were as-or-more complicated than the lights, I didn't think that was a reflection of intelligence, but of general patterns of interest.

differenceblog November 1 2006, 15:36:44 UTC

2. You really never had your intelligence called into question? Is that directly into question, or even the dismissive "women can't..." stuff?

For that matter, I don't think I've ever had anyone direct any shit at me about queer issues (except intra-queer drama, like bi-bashing). I live in a very comfortable bubble.

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Thread 6

booh_bah November 2 2006, 02:58:13 UTC

The entire debate around brain sizes is hopelessly mucked up in racism, sexism, classism--just discrimination in general. Because of that, It seems that there can never really be any meaningful and/or intellectual discourse on the matter. Anyway, it doesn't seem to prove anything other than the fact that women's brains are (or may be) smaller than men's. What implications are here? What's the purpose of this study? To prove that women are intellectually inferior to men? The question in itself is just irresponsible, not necessarily because of the science behind it, but because of the socially perceived notion of bigger brain meaning more intelligence. To publish a study like this, one really should take into account what message is being sent out to the public. Again, due to the nasty history of linking brain sizes to intelligence in order to try and assert that one population is beneath another, the question of whose brain is bigger is, in my opinion, not worth asking.