Smaller brains with different strategies
In spite of the size of brain I want to say that women have proved in every field of life that they can do every work that men can do. We can see women proving themselves in politics, health, education, business, banking, science and other field of life. Its is true that women are less in quentity in all thses fields as compare to man but small size of brain is not the reason. Gender difference is the main problem especially in third world countries. There are also some other reasons whish we discussed in this fourm earlier.
I want to see science in women not women in science and supporting B.
I like bigger brains per unit body weight a lot. Thanks for that idea, Helen. And the more we work out, the better that looks! I also don't want to tell anyone to drop an area of investigation, that smacks of burning books and forbidden knowledge from Medieval times to me. I wonder how much modern science remained locked in the Vatican libraries until after it was rediscovered later on?
MKS
Hi ExCS,
I find the setting of the unwritten rules of science fascinating, and I thought your brief comments on it were true to some of my own experiences. I will be posting on this topic again soon. Women could really benefit from learning how to set the hidden rulebook in these fields. In a way this issue relates to the Elizabeth Blackburn call (from a few years back, but I mentioned it on the forum recently) to have science change to attract women, not vice versa.
cheers,
Laura
One of the things I hated about computer science was that the boys would say, "Let's decide who has the best method to solve this problem." The woman's way was never the best according to them, even if it had the fewest steps (a criterion they often said they revered). So I like the idea of admitting and studying how brains may function differently despite basic similarities, not just per gender, but across any kinds of comparative bases.
I would pick D, and I think Helen's ratio is a great standard and we ought to get out and publicize it! It seems like the best comparison to me.
Hi friends,
Some of my favorite feminist friends are on the side of C here, based on their past experience. A less-than-totally-convincing report suggesting a difference in the corpus callosum comes out, for example, and suddenly women are all about connecting ideas while men get the hard visualization tasks right.
But, I still hunger for a world where knowing the real answer is not too dangerous to contemplate. So I still would agree with Helen, and I love the comparison she suggests.
cheers,
Laura
Argh...I see that the clickable link in the text above is broken again. I thought we had resolved all the issues with this, but I guess not.
Here is where we discussed these issues last time:
http://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/women-in-science/epigenetics-and-gendered-brains-14816495
cheers,
Laura
I am on Helen's side, being an optimist. I don't think it's knowledge per se that hurts women, but the uses that some people put it to. That's the line I want to draw to start any arguments, not whether to even know the truth. I almost feel like saying it's better not to know is anti-scientific.
Ostrich time...I pick C. Men will misuse this every time. Just keep it under your hat (was that a bad pun?). I don't think women ought to help men find reasons to discriminate against them.
B & D for me. We have Bigger brains relative to our body weights, don't we?? Londa Scheibinger said that long ago in a talk about her book, "The Brain has no Sex?" Supposedly the male researchers were all distressed, because the Important Number was the brain size relative to body weight.
