Evelyn Tillinghast The basic principle goes something like this; men and women's natures can be separated into two categories. Women are better at remembering things. Men Aren't. Men are more physically impulsive and aggressive. Women aren't.
This notion has been seen in several popular books such as Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, The Male Brain, The Female Brain, and, Results at the Top: Using Gender Intelligence to Create Breakthrough Growth (which was only released last year). The concept has also been popular in scientific studies. The "Extreme Male Brain" theory of autism is where there are two basic categories for "male" and "female" brains; men are better at systemizing, women are better at empathizing, and autism just happens to be an extreme of the "male" brain. A globally published study by Madhura Ingalhalikar concluded that "male" brains are structured for perception and coordinated action, whereas "female" brains are structured to communicate analytical and intuitive processing. It also found that "male" and "female" brains start out the same, but as the individual ages, the developmental trajectories separate, resulting in wide differences during adolescence and adulthood. The only problem with these notions is that they fail to account for one thing; they assume that traditionally "male" and "female" behaviors consistently add up to create "male" and "female" brains. (There is also the whole thing with nature and nurture, but it wasn't part of the article, so I don't think I should be getting into that) In 2015, an analysis of four large data sets of brain scans showed that humans don't have a consistent set of "male behaviors" and "female behaviors." It's more a "mosaic" if you will, of features. Some are more common in men, some are more common in women. A data set of 4,860 adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health also showed that the only things men and women differed the most on were things like weight, depression, delinquency, impulsivity, gambling, involvement in housework, engagement in sports, and a femininity score. No one had solely "feminine" or "masculine" scores. So what caused this misconception? The rise of 17th-18th century egalitarianism. It created a need for scientific reasoning to explain why women were naturally "inferior," and it worked. As Londa Schiebinger put it, “Women were not to be viewed merely as inferior to men but as fundamentally different from, and thus incomparable to, men.” The same thing was done to people of color (just google scientific racism). Bottom line; although there are differences in brain and behavior, when you stop focusing on the group and start focusing on an individual, differences are going to "mix up," rather than "add up." No one falls onto an exact line with men being more "things-oriented" and women being more "people-oriented." As a matter of fact, recent studies have shown that people's self-reported tendency to empathize says nothing about how they systemize. They can gravitate to one, both, or neither, and claiming that science says that merging gender roles is unlikely due to "natural" differences is incredibly flawed reasoning. There are no "male" brains and there are no "female" brains. There are just brains.
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Great job Evelyn! You make such good points about how the sexism of centuries past (and current) has impacted our views of the male and female brains. It always bothers me when people make sexist assumptions and then just say "well it's just a biological fact!" With article like this, we will be able to take steps in combatting sexism and making the world a better place. Amazing work!
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