zestyping: Men's brains are different.

Ping (

zestyping) wrote,
@ 2006-08-08 13:40:00

Men's brains are different.
On Sunday, the SF Chronicle printed a front-page article on a UCSF neuropsychiatrist's research indicating differences between the brains and thinking patterns of different sexes. The second segment of the article, which continues on page A6, is headlined "WOMEN'S BRAINS ARE DIFFERENT" in enormous type across all six columns.

I don't object to competently conducted scientific research showing differences between the sexes. I do object to wholesale generalizations such as "Men have O'Hare airport as a hub for processing thoughts about sex, where women have the airfield nearby that lands small and private planes." (Brizendine) or "Women live emotional lives. Men do not." (contributed by a reader).

And i do object to a headline that turns "the sexes are different" into "women are different". Different from what? The ultimate standard of measurement that is everything non-female? How nice to know that the editors of the Chronicle think of half of us as these weird aliens or something.

(Post a new comment)

	beethatbumbles 2006-08-08 09:04 pm UTC (link)
	Ping, you are so awesome. I love it when guys notice this kind of thing and realize that it's a problem. (Reply to this)

	molybdenum42 2006-08-08 09:08 pm UTC (link)
	I second that thought. Thanks Ping. (Reply to this)

	men are in fact different letoams 2006-08-08 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	According to that research, before the second boost of testosteron, the brains of women and men are the same. It is the testosteron that makes male brains then act differently, and not the other way around. So the correct title should be "MEN's BRAIN ARE DIFFERENT" :) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: men are in fact different r6 2006-08-09 07:13 am UTC (link)
	As far as I can tell, biologically men are just modified women. Take a girl, turn on a few genes, stir, and you get a boy. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: men are in fact different

auros
2006-08-16 10:32 pm UTC (link)

Quite a few cognitive scientists think that Brizendine is a hack.

If you want to get why the "gender/brain difference" meme is kind of a joke among cognitive scientists, scroll down to the bottom of that link and take a look at the pair of bell curves. Abs(Mu_male - Mu_female) is MUCH less than Sigma_male or Sigma_female. And that's the case in the vast majority of these studies.

Though, there's an interesting new study, just out, suggesting that gender may magnify the (quite real) brain differences associated with left-handedness.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	blackgraysky 2006-08-08 10:09 pm UTC (link)
	Well, the article focused on the female brain. So I don't think the headline was wrong in saying that women's brains were different since all the article did was talk about women's brains. I think there are too many bigger problems with society and concerning gender issues to be so picky about a stupid headline. (Reply to this)(Thread)

anemone
2006-08-09 01:53 am UTC (link)

It isn't being picky. There's a pervasive assumption that men are normal and women are the weird ones. You see this all the time--it's so common you probably won't notice unless you are looking.

Simple example: how do you draw a cartoon bear who is male? You draw a bear. How do you draw a cartoon bear that is female? You draw a male bear and add a bow. (Or maybe some lipstick, or maybe both.)

This article is doing the same thing. The default, the standard, is the male. Female braisn are the ones different from the standard. (This is, of course, absurd. One could just as well write "male brains are different" implying that the female brain is standard, but people rarely do.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

conceptual
2006-08-09 02:37 am UTC (link)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

hackbod
2006-08-09 06:39 am UTC (link)

Would it harm men if women were taken to be standard and men's differences from that were pointed out?

Indeed it does. An extremely excellent good book on the subject is "The Mismeasure of Woman" by Carol Tavris; she devotes a chapter of it to how women are taken as the norm for relationships and how this harms men.

I think we use men as the standard because historically they were strong and right where women were weak and ill, but I don't know that there's an inherent sexism in still using it.

Um, that certainly sounds like sexism to me. :)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	conceptual 2006-08-09 06:39 pm UTC (link)
	Okay, so how do people remedy this? Functioning without a norm, and making all decisions case-by-case is too complicated; otoh, trying to create a norm that is an amalgamation of male and female creates a whole host of issues regarding the correct balance of characteristics. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Anonymous)
2006-08-09 11:27 am UTC (link)

Does it necessarily harm women if men are assumed to be standard, and then the ways women deviate from the standard are used to distinguish? Would it harm men if women were taken to be standard and men's differences from that were pointed out? I think we use men as the standard because historically they were strong and right where women were weak and ill</i>

Um, what? Men certainly do have greater upper body strength than women, so I'll buy the "stronger" stuff (though it suffers from the same thing as the headline), but "right"? What the heck do you mean that men are "right"? What do you mean women were "ill"?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	zestyping 2006-08-09 11:36 am UTC (link)
	Yes, because the "standard" is what guides all kinds of decisions. If you assume the "standard" to be male, then you'll tend to design products, regulations, processes, and organizations with only males in mind, which puts females at an unnecessary disadvantage. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	conceptual 2006-08-09 06:10 pm UTC (link)
	Okay, sounds reasonable (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Deleted post)

(Anonymous)
2006-08-09 11:22 am UTC (link)

If you think about it, men are the default because they are the pure bodies. We draw female bears with bows because females are the ones with bows and not the males. Guys can just wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, throw on a shirt and be ready for the day. Women have to brush their hair, put on make up, put on something cute, etc. Not that every woman actually does this, I'm just using being really general here. Men are just themselves, while women add something.

This is so wacky I'm not even sure if you're serious or just trying to draw me into a rant.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	blackgraysky 2006-08-09 06:37 pm UTC (link)
	I was just thinking...we're all allowed to do that still, right? I didn't think anyone would understand me. And I'm a bit pissed off right now (not at anything related to this post, entirely separate matter) so I tend to think a bit backwards when that happens. Sorry. Thanks for saying I was wacky. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	zestyping 2006-08-09 11:36 am UTC (link)
	men are the default because they are the pure bodies What do you mean by "pure bodies"? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	blackgraysky 2006-08-09 06:38 pm UTC (link)
	Never mind. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ohh letoams 2006-08-09 03:30 am UTC (link)
	Seems this was not the same research as mentioned in yesterday's Globe and Mail article. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sickening wanton_adonis 2006-08-08 10:21 pm UTC (link)
	wow, I always wondered why I couldn't fit men's hats. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: sickening wanton_adonis 2006-08-08 10:27 pm UTC (link)
	Brizendine uses those differences to explain everything from why teenage girls feverishly swap text messages during class, to why women fake orgasms to why menopausal women leave their husbands seriously, give a guy menopause and see if he wants to stay around after a cold shoulder or two. and we fake orgasms in order to be able to walk the next day. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	One Track Minds dag29580863 2006-08-09 12:28 am UTC (link)
	I think the implication is that men's brains are all the same... (Reply to this)

	Bravo rainbowsorbet 2006-08-09 01:55 am UTC (link)
	Will you please tell that to the Chronicle? I think they need to hear it. (Reply to this)

sbtorpey
2006-08-09 03:31 pm UTC (link)

Good point. Last time I checked, most people were women, so it seems odd to claim that women's brains are different from most people's brains. That pretty much leaves men's brains—— an interesting minority, but not necessarily a natural default setting. (Of course, maybe it's meant to indicate that women's brains are different from God's brain.)

I haven't read the article, but if the whole thing is really just about women, then that seems like an even more pervasive weirdness, and one that robs the subject of its greatest interest.

For me, anyway, the really interesting idea is that a brain can have a gender, that there can in fact be clearly male and clearly female brains. (I immediately want to know how quantized this is, or how continuous a spectrum—— are we talking a difference like male vs female genitalia or like male vs female height?)

Hmmm. I guess I should go read the thing. Thanks for pointing me towards it. Even with that odd and apparently unthinking title, it may be worth a look.

(Reply to this)

s0kate
2006-08-10 08:07 pm UTC (link)

Hey,

I have an off-topic question for you. I just did a google search for technorati and livejournal because I'd like to get my livejournal to ping technorati.com and would like to insert the search, etc. into my lj page. I noticed that you had the stuff embedded into your main lj page and was wondering if you could help me out with it. I searched on technorati for advice on how to work it with lj, but couldn't find anything. Ditto on lj. I was looking to see if I could get the one that's on my blogspot to also for for my lj. Would you be able to help me out? Or at least point me in the right direction?

Thanks, Sara

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	zestyping 2006-10-06 12:35 am UTC (link)
	I edited the style for my journal. When you create your own style, you can put (almost) whatever HTML you want in it, so i took the existing Refried Paper style and inserted the Technorati link. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Mini Sitemap:

Username:		Create an Account Forgot your login? Login w/ OpenID
Password:
	Remember Me
	English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…