Biology of Gender
Hi friends,
There is going to be a workshop in Claremont on Women in Science early in 2011, and one of the topics is going to be "Gender and the Brain." I've started reading on that subject, and if you have recommendations of books or articles for me to read, I'd love to hear them. What a confusing field! Some people say the differences in brains of men and women are so slight it's not worth discussing while others try to map all known differences in behavior onto the differences that have been described. Some say it's all genetic, others say epigenetic, others put the differences all on the sex hormones. Some say the differences that do exist are results of gender, not causes of gender differences. Wow. I hope I can find the gold in all this contradictory material.
What do you think based on reading in your field or others:
A There are few, small differences in male and female brains in humans
B Bird have big gender differences in their brains and so probably the small human differences matter
C Environment seems to be much more important than the underlying biology of the brain structure
D. Hormones rule; they really determine what is male and female. Look at people who have chosen to change gender. Without hormone treatment, it just doesn't work out.
Hi friends,
See the later post on this topic. Jordan-Young's book is really good in my opinion if you'd like to read an overview of the gendered brain.
cheers,
Laura
Rebecca Jordan-Young has a new book out called Brainstorm: The flaws in the science of sex differences, that looks good to me.
Hi "looking for..."
I am looking forward to reading that book! My co-editor, Ilona, recommended it too, after she saw a book review. At least it will be amusing, and probably convincing but I'll wait on that conclusion.
cheers,
Laura
I think a big does of skepticism is best in this field. There's a new book to look at by a cog sci Brit named Cordelia Fine, called Delusions of Gender. Check out this sample of her prose:
“Nonexistent sex differences in language lateralization, mediated by nonexistent sex differences in corpus callosum structure, are widely believed to explain nonexistent sex differences in language skills.”
I think A is right but I'm not really an expert. I think too that feminists often argue that we must de-emphasize the brain differences because they can be used to portray women as those who can't do things needed by brain region X, when in fact the distributions for males and females for the abilities in question usually overlap.
Thanks for the suggestions! I am ordering all these for my Kindle and will read them asap. I hope they make some sense out of the disarray in my current concepts!
cheers,
Laura
A,C, and especially D. Try the Sexual Paradox by Susan Pinker. Very nice summary of some of the different issues regarding gender differences. One point that stands out for me in that book is how much we point to the edges of what is likely a normal distribution of "interests" and "abilities" and say those are true for the majority of females vs. males. This is especially true for the sciences where you have PhDs who are certainly at the edges of such a distribution to start with given the huge amount of extra education/training they undergo compared to the average person on the street!
How about all of the above? I think this is an area where many factors converge, no simple answers. Look at the book Blue Brain Pink Brain (so something similar). It sounds like it's about how all is brain structure differences, but the reality is much more balanced.
I am for A and B. There are small differences, but small doesn't mean weak and unimportant. There is a lot that men and women have in common, but that doesn't take away from the importance of any real differences. The hard part is assessing how much is environmental. That's where Tierney and I would completely disagree, I suspect.
FBP
