Comments | joreth: Pink Brain, Blue Brain

joreth

Pink Brain, Blue Brain

Oct 12, 2009 15:10

Everyone of my Regular Readers should know by now that one of my pet peeves is the perpetuation of the myth that men and women are inherently different.

Of course there are some obvious physical differences, even aside from the genitalia. But study after study after study have shown that the differences among men and the differences among women ( Read more... )

reviews (books), science, gender issues, recommendations

Comments 10

christinaathena October 12 2009, 22:05:26 UTC

Yeah, whatever natural - STATISTICAL - differences might exist, it's difficult if not impossible to disentangle from social influences. And they'd be very poor predictors of an individual child's potential anyways

joreth October 12 2009, 22:09:19 UTC

Exactly. That's what this author is trying to do, actually, disentangle "nature" from social influences. That was the idea of testing babies for how fearless they are and simultaneously testing how their mothers treated their perceived abilities.

I think it's impossible to completely separate these things, but there are quite a lot we can do to show inferences, like this study :-)

christinaathena October 12 2009, 22:41:37 UTC

Indeed. :-) It's also a good example of how early subtle gendering begins

joreth October 12 2009, 22:10:43 UTC

BTW, love the usericon!

Thread 5

christinaathena October 12 2009, 22:06:25 UTC

Sexing the Body by Anne Fausto-Sterling is another good book on that topic.

may_dryad October 12 2009, 23:15:29 UTC

Yes, I want the book just for the comparison graphs. That's such an excellent way to explain the concept that there more differences among the sexes than between them in a lot of areas.

And as I mentioned, her earlier book, What's Going in in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life, is also an excellent read. One of the things she explains in it is that the brain begins with exponentially more neural connections than it ends up needing. Whichever pathways get used the most are the ones that remain and grow stronger, while pathways that are found to be less efficient wither away. A microcosmic survival of the fittest. And it definitely seems to fit in with the idea that the process of learning (gendered) behaviors physically alters the brain, so that even biological differences between the brains of men and women could be ascribed to nurture rather than nature. Cool stuff.

joreth October 13 2009, 04:10:45 UTC

Yeah, another study not to long ago showed that men and women (with comparable training) often arrived at the same answers or conclusions or performed similarly, but different areas of the brain lit up when they were processing. The point was that the brain is highly flexible and elastic and is capable of doing a great many things no matter who the person is, but different parts of it can be "trained" to perform the same activity or to compensate for another part ( ... )

petite_lambda October 13 2009, 10:12:31 UTC

I'm in the middle of "Same Difference" now, and I wanted to thank you again for the recommendation -- this, and others!

Btw., maybe you'll like what I just wrote on the subject: http://petite-lambda.livejournal.com/14220.html

octarinelouise October 19 2009, 02:24:04 UTC

Every now and then, one of my partners gets to hear me bitch about the expectations, assumptions, and general stupidities that I encounter from people reacting to the fact that I have a biologically female form. Partner (gendered pronouns are an issue) would gladly swap bodies so we could try it the other way around for a bit, as they experience weird social anomalies from the perspective of the biologically male, and find it just as irritating ( ... )