The neuroscientist shattering the myth of the gendered brain

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[–]ANIKAHirsch 3 insightful - 5 fun3 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 5 fun -  (9 children)

Are men and women different, or not?

Say all you want about the particulars of those differences.

10% is a significant difference in size. Point is, it will show up on a brain scan. As will the differences in composition and distribution. So what this article says is not true.

A doctor would never argue that there are no differences between male and female heart, lungs, or kidneys. It is well accepted that men and women must be treated differently in a medical environment, due to their differences.

Gina Rippon obviously has prior-held beliefs on this subject, and is only doing the research to confirm those. He is not a neutral observer here.

[–][deleted] 21 insightful - 3 fun21 insightful - 2 fun22 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

Did you even read the article? It doesn't say that women and men are exactly alike. All she's saying is that the variations found in the brain is due to "the life they have lived, not the sex of their owners." So if there are differences, it's not due to what you think it is. She's saying life changes the brain, and thus a gendered world changes the brain to create the variations you see. Scope is important.

Prof Rippon says her research has shown there are no differences between male and female brains that can be reliably proved in repeated experiments. “One scientific paper will find differences in one structure, the next will find differences in another structure but not in the first one. So there is no consistent part of the brain or network we have currently been able to measure that establishes whether a brain is from a man or a woman. That’s the key thing that surprises people because they assume differences are there.”

“The type of games you play will change your brain. We know that from judo and juggling to violin and keyboard playing. By definition, moving the body differently according to the demands of the skill you are acquiring will change the brain. So not playing football will have a direct effect on the brain. But making sure we are doing the right things to stay part of our social group is also an important driver.

“Our brains are gathering the rules of behaviour and if those rules are gendered, then our brains will make us gendered.

“It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some research may find differences, but then you say, ‘have you looked at the education level of those participants, have they been at school for the same amount of time, have you looked at the sports they play or their occupation?’ To which the answer is always ‘no’. So how do you know what you are finding is a sex difference and not an excludence difference.”

Prof Rippon says: “There’s nothing which I have found that would allow you to compare two brain images and say, ‘well that’s a man and that’s a woman’. It’s not physically possible to say there is a male or female brain. I have had transgender individuals or individuals wishing to transition asking if we can we scan them – for instance, a man saying can you prove I have a female brain so I have a case for my transition. It doesn’t work at that level. Certain members of the transgender community are made very angry by that.”

[–]just_lesbian_things 17 insightful - 2 fun17 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

10% is a significant difference in size. Point is, it will show up on a brain scan.

Men are taller than women on average, but it doesn't mean everyone under 6 ft is a woman. Men have larger feet but there isn't a given "male foot". I'm sure if I showed you a severed foot, you would struggle to identify the sex of the owner just by looking at it.

[–]luckystar 17 insightful - 2 fun17 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The height analogy always made the most sense to me. Like yes, if somebody is 6 ft tall, they are overwhelmingly likely to be male, but that doesn't mean we need to go schedule the entire WNBA for double mastectomies because "tall bodies are male bodies".

There's also the fact that if there were such a thing as "male brains" and "female brains", the occurrence of men with "female brains" and vice versa would disprove their existence, as they would no longer be "male brains" or "female brains" any more than 6 ft is a "male height".

Then there's the fact that even if somebody's brain did more closely match the opposite sex -- so what? The determination of sex, in terms of biology, which applies to wayyyyyy more organisms than just humans, relates to gamete size, nothing more, nothing less. Brains can have correlations with each sex but they are not any part of determining sex -- there are literally plants that are male or female, and they don't have brains at all. This is the same reason why the "sex is a spectrum" logic is flawed -- you can't be more female or less female: you might have more traits typically associated with producers of large immobile gametes, but having, say, a PCOS beard doesn't mean you're somehow "less female", it just means you have one body trait more commonly found in ejaculators.

[–]ANIKAHirsch 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes. It's called bimodal distribution.

[–]anonymale 14 insightful - 5 fun14 insightful - 4 fun15 insightful - 5 fun -  (3 children)

Gina Rippon obviously has prior-held beliefs on this subject, and is only doing the research to confirm those. He is not a neutral observer here.

He? I don’t think it’s Prof Rippon’s prior-held beliefs on display here. This is the kind of stupid shit that got you banned from Reddit.

Even r/BareFootAndPregnant and r/MRAMemes got tired of you.