Weird Science: gender
April 28, 2018 7:56 PM Subscribe
What do you know about the validity of supposed brain-based gender differences? What does the science say?
I'm wondering how much of the existing gestalt on the topic of brain-based differences in gender is total bs and how much has merit. All generalizations are false, etc., but I'm curious about the patterns that have been framed as structurally based.
For example, this article suggests that it is research based, although clearly the authors have secondary gain in writing it, and the findings make sense intuitively as a person with a female brain who has been observing a person with a male brain learning about the world as he grows older. But I don't want to allow unconscious bias or junk science to inform my position. My son naturally seems drawn to spatial and mechanical processes more so than verbal ones, and definitely prefers to throw himself down the giant slide than play with the dolls. But how much of this is brain-based?
The findings in the article also help to explain why my voice sounds like the Charlie Brown teacher to the men in my life sometimes. Can they really not help it? Can I actually multitask better than the men in my life? Is that why I default to being every man's secretary? Is my partner's difficulty with emotional conversation a brain-based thing that he is limited in his capacity to overcome? Or is this research just furthering sexist beliefs without really checking them?
MeFi is very learned as a group, so while I welcome commentary and interpretation, I am very interested to know whether this notion of brain-based gender differences is real, or could be real, because you know, it's easier to cut men some slack if some of this is how their brains work.
I'm wondering how much of the existing gestalt on the topic of brain-based differences in gender is total bs and how much has merit. All generalizations are false, etc., but I'm curious about the patterns that have been framed as structurally based.
For example, this article suggests that it is research based, although clearly the authors have secondary gain in writing it, and the findings make sense intuitively as a person with a female brain who has been observing a person with a male brain learning about the world as he grows older. But I don't want to allow unconscious bias or junk science to inform my position. My son naturally seems drawn to spatial and mechanical processes more so than verbal ones, and definitely prefers to throw himself down the giant slide than play with the dolls. But how much of this is brain-based?
The findings in the article also help to explain why my voice sounds like the Charlie Brown teacher to the men in my life sometimes. Can they really not help it? Can I actually multitask better than the men in my life? Is that why I default to being every man's secretary? Is my partner's difficulty with emotional conversation a brain-based thing that he is limited in his capacity to overcome? Or is this research just furthering sexist beliefs without really checking them?
MeFi is very learned as a group, so while I welcome commentary and interpretation, I am very interested to know whether this notion of brain-based gender differences is real, or could be real, because you know, it's easier to cut men some slack if some of this is how their brains work.
The thing is, socialization changes our brains (because our brains change as we learn things, and learning social norms is learning things), and people start socializing children to gender norms before they've even born (e.g., "gender reveal" parties), so there's not really any good way to differentiate "brain-based" from "learned," because learning happens in the brain.
posted by lazuli at 8:18 PM on April 28, 2018 [32 favorites]
posted by lazuli at 8:18 PM on April 28, 2018 [32 favorites]
Best answer: If typical "male" and "female" brains do indeed differ, I'd be more inclined to look for an answer as to whether or not "cutting some slack" is applicable or not if the answer is yes . Ie. Don't assume that a provable difference provides a hard yes or no with cutting slack, without taking it one step further and looking into why/how those differences occur.
Some things to examine would be: is gender differentiation a genetic predisposition, and inherent even in the womb before sex can or has been determined, or does it develop though learned/social/environmental and external factors. In addition, is this development a hardwired factor of neurology, or is it malleable; can new neropathways or behaviours be forged/learned, after the fact.
I would guess that looking into research on how androgens and hormones influence behaviour would be helpful as well.
posted by OnefortheLast at 8:24 PM on April 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Some things to examine would be: is gender differentiation a genetic predisposition, and inherent even in the womb before sex can or has been determined, or does it develop though learned/social/environmental and external factors. In addition, is this development a hardwired factor of neurology, or is it malleable; can new neropathways or behaviours be forged/learned, after the fact.
I would guess that looking into research on how androgens and hormones influence behaviour would be helpful as well.
posted by OnefortheLast at 8:24 PM on April 28, 2018 [4 favorites]
Are you talking about gender or sex?
Because sex is a biological category and gender is a social construct.
Sex-based brain differences are real but generally insignificant.
Gender-based brain differences are incredibly hard to detect and are probably the result of socialization as lazuli describes.
‘My son prefers mechanical to verbal stuff’ is squarely in the realm of social conditioning; this kind of preference has never rigorously been shown to depend strongly on either sex or gender.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:27 PM on April 28, 2018 [16 favorites]
Because sex is a biological category and gender is a social construct.
Sex-based brain differences are real but generally insignificant.
Gender-based brain differences are incredibly hard to detect and are probably the result of socialization as lazuli describes.
‘My son prefers mechanical to verbal stuff’ is squarely in the realm of social conditioning; this kind of preference has never rigorously been shown to depend strongly on either sex or gender.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:27 PM on April 28, 2018 [16 favorites]
Best answer: For peer-reviewed research articles on sex differences in brains, see (1) (2) (3) (4). The last one highlights the notion that human XX females may have different structural connectomes than human XY males. Again, sex differences are real, but minor, imo.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:40 PM on April 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:40 PM on April 28, 2018 [6 favorites]
Also came to recommend Delusions of Gender. This is a controversial topic and the science isn’t conclusive. I think this author (who is well regarded in the scientific community) does a really good job of contextualizing her conclusions.
posted by forkisbetter at 9:29 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by forkisbetter at 9:29 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
The non-binary brain is a good article on the subject that cites some fairly recent research.
posted by Gymnopedist at 9:38 PM on April 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Gymnopedist at 9:38 PM on April 28, 2018 [2 favorites]
Mod note: A couple deleted. OP asks "What does the science say?," and we do need to stick with research and studies rather than just stating personal opinions and fighting with each other on this contentious topic.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:14 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:14 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Couple of good books:
If you want to dig into the larger issues with how difficult the study of 'nature or nurture?' topics such as gender, violence, sexuality, monogamy, and other popular questions about what makes us human, I cannot recommend highly enough the book Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind by philosophy of science professor Jesse Prinz. He goes extensively into sex and gender issues and how scientists have brought their cultures' prejudices to the design of studies on that topic.
n'thing Delusions Of Gender, though the neuroscientist author Cordelia Fine has an unfortunate 'funny' writing style that makes this book come across as a bit of a screed sometimes. She also wrote Testosterone Rex, which is pretty full of sarcasm as well as critique. I personally find the 'funny' writing style detracts from the material.
The Mismeasure of Woman is another good one, by social psychologist Carol Tavris.
posted by twoplussix at 12:11 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you want to dig into the larger issues with how difficult the study of 'nature or nurture?' topics such as gender, violence, sexuality, monogamy, and other popular questions about what makes us human, I cannot recommend highly enough the book Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind by philosophy of science professor Jesse Prinz. He goes extensively into sex and gender issues and how scientists have brought their cultures' prejudices to the design of studies on that topic.
n'thing Delusions Of Gender, though the neuroscientist author Cordelia Fine has an unfortunate 'funny' writing style that makes this book come across as a bit of a screed sometimes. She also wrote Testosterone Rex, which is pretty full of sarcasm as well as critique. I personally find the 'funny' writing style detracts from the material.
The Mismeasure of Woman is another good one, by social psychologist Carol Tavris.
posted by twoplussix at 12:11 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Be aware that many studies on sex differences in the brain use quite a small sample size. This meta-analysis of fMRI studies shows that there is potential reporting bias in many scientific studies of sex differences.
posted by Nilehorse at 12:44 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Nilehorse at 12:44 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
The Truth About Girls and Boys: Challenging Toxic Stereotypes About Our Children (Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett, Columbia University Press) is about exactly this topic.
Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett are widely acclaimed for their analyses of women, men, and society. In The Truth About Girls and Boys, they tackle a new, troubling trend in the theorizing of gender: that the learning styles, brain development, motivation, cognitive and spatial abilities, and "natural" inclinations of girls and boys are so fundamentally different, they require unique styles of parenting and education.
Ignoring the science that challenges these claims, those who promote such theories make millions while frightening parents and educators into enforcing old stereotypes and reviving unhealthy attitudes in the classroom. Rivers and Barnett unmake the pseudoscientific rationale for this argument, stressing the individuality of each child and the specialness of his or her talents and desires. They recognize that in our culture, girls and boys encounter different stimuli and experiences, yet encouraging children to venture outside their comfort zones helps them realize a multifaceted character. Educating parents, teachers, and general readers in the true nature of the gender game, Rivers and Barnett enable future generations to transform if not transcend the parameters of sexual difference.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:59 AM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett are widely acclaimed for their analyses of women, men, and society. In The Truth About Girls and Boys, they tackle a new, troubling trend in the theorizing of gender: that the learning styles, brain development, motivation, cognitive and spatial abilities, and "natural" inclinations of girls and boys are so fundamentally different, they require unique styles of parenting and education.
Ignoring the science that challenges these claims, those who promote such theories make millions while frightening parents and educators into enforcing old stereotypes and reviving unhealthy attitudes in the classroom. Rivers and Barnett unmake the pseudoscientific rationale for this argument, stressing the individuality of each child and the specialness of his or her talents and desires. They recognize that in our culture, girls and boys encounter different stimuli and experiences, yet encouraging children to venture outside their comfort zones helps them realize a multifaceted character. Educating parents, teachers, and general readers in the true nature of the gender game, Rivers and Barnett enable future generations to transform if not transcend the parameters of sexual difference.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:59 AM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
There's a fairly good explainer article by the neuroscientist Mo Costandi here (the book this is based on is OK, but I found it a bit dry/basic, I'd go with the Fine instead).
Spoiler, the first sentence pretty much sums up the field:
Subtle observable differences exist between male and female brains, but how exactly these relate to differences in behaviour is unknown.
Anyone claimimg more than this should fire your suspectometer.
posted by AFII at 1:52 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Spoiler, the first sentence pretty much sums up the field:
Subtle observable differences exist between male and female brains, but how exactly these relate to differences in behaviour is unknown.
Anyone claimimg more than this should fire your suspectometer.
posted by AFII at 1:52 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: I want to clarify that yes, I'm asking about sex not gender.
And the reason for the ask is precisely that I have visciously avoided socialization for maleness. I resisted toys targeting boys, I resisted applying any assumption of being mechanically minded, being simple in only needing food to be happy, being later than girls to develop language, all these things. But he's fulfilling the stereotypes, much to my dismay. All that effort to avoid pigeon holing seems to be wasted because he is seeking those stereotypical experiences. Hence the question about how much of this is legit.
posted by crunchy potato at 5:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
And the reason for the ask is precisely that I have visciously avoided socialization for maleness. I resisted toys targeting boys, I resisted applying any assumption of being mechanically minded, being simple in only needing food to be happy, being later than girls to develop language, all these things. But he's fulfilling the stereotypes, much to my dismay. All that effort to avoid pigeon holing seems to be wasted because he is seeking those stereotypical experiences. Hence the question about how much of this is legit.
posted by crunchy potato at 5:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
In fact you’re asking about behaviour, not neurology? Whether male/female behaviour patterns are nature or nurture, not whether eg, males or females have bigger amygdalae?
posted by Segundus at 6:00 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Segundus at 6:00 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Segundus, I'm asking whether neurological factors influence differences in observed behavior. I've always been heavily in the "nurture" camp, and I'm wondering whether there's a stronger "nature" component than I previously would have anticipated or accepted.
posted by crunchy potato at 6:20 AM on April 29, 2018
posted by crunchy potato at 6:20 AM on April 29, 2018
Unless you're raising your kid in a completely isolated bubble without any interaction with adults and other children, with zero exposure to any media (including but not limited to things like billboards with pictures), he's going to be influenced by the things and people he encounters every day. Take billboards, for example. Look at the ones he sees every day and recognize the gender stereotypes at play just in the images. If you're like me, it'll make you furious. But you can use that fury to start conversations with him. Point out the stereotypes, debunk them.
Now your job becomes how to raise him so that the women's voices he hears don't sound like the adults in Charlie Brown, so that he carries his fair share of emotional labor, so that he is comfortable with emotional conversations. It's not brain differences that make those things stereotypically difficult for men, it's lack of exposure and the constant barrage of patriarchy and toxic masculinity.
posted by cooker girl at 6:24 AM on April 29, 2018 [24 favorites]
Now your job becomes how to raise him so that the women's voices he hears don't sound like the adults in Charlie Brown, so that he carries his fair share of emotional labor, so that he is comfortable with emotional conversations. It's not brain differences that make those things stereotypically difficult for men, it's lack of exposure and the constant barrage of patriarchy and toxic masculinity.
posted by cooker girl at 6:24 AM on April 29, 2018 [24 favorites]
We tried hard to not raise our daughter within strict gender expectations yet at 3.5 years old she loves princesses and pink because we, her parents, are no match for the gifts from more traditional grandparents and friends, the pop culture of other kids at preschool, kids on the playground, etc. Raising a child is not a controlled experiment - you can’t completely escape your culture constructs. Definitely read the things people have linked in here, but if your son is showing interest in traditionally male-coded things, that’s *okay!* Embrace it as you would a daughter interested in those things, keep exposing him to a broad spectrum of things to learn and be interested in, and don’t succumb to any idea of gender-based inevitability - just because he is mechanically inclined doesn’t mean it’s because he’s a boy, it’s because he’s mechanically inclined. He can be both mechanically inclined *and* a super woke, empathetic, emotionally self-aware dude. Biology doesn’t dictate that that’s impossible.
posted by olinerd at 7:08 AM on April 29, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by olinerd at 7:08 AM on April 29, 2018 [16 favorites]
All that effort to avoid pigeon holing seems to be wasted because he is seeking those stereotypical experiences. Hence the question about how much of this is legit.
Cordelia Fine talks about this in Testosterone Rex. If I'm remembering correctly, she says that toddlers are generally very interested in finding out about their gender and conforming to their society's idea of it.
She also says that in studies of structural differences between men's and women's brains, most men have a bunch of "female" features and most women have a bunch of "male" features.
Worth a read.
posted by clawsoon at 7:21 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Cordelia Fine talks about this in Testosterone Rex. If I'm remembering correctly, she says that toddlers are generally very interested in finding out about their gender and conforming to their society's idea of it.
She also says that in studies of structural differences between men's and women's brains, most men have a bunch of "female" features and most women have a bunch of "male" features.
Worth a read.
posted by clawsoon at 7:21 AM on April 29, 2018 [2 favorites]
Best answer: There have been a number of studies on trans people both before and after hormone treatment, so I think that can give us some insight. I will not claim to understand the science, but the general theme is some of the brain structures in trans people are different from each other, often closer to cis people of the same gender, therefore there must be sex differences. Hormones seem to have a great deal of effect. The one I personally find most interesting is "Research shows testosterone changes brain structures in female-to-male transsexuals" - in summary, the part of the brain that governs language processing shrinks when people are treated with testosterone. Anecdotally, I have found this to be true; I've been on T for 2 years and it's more of a struggle to find words, both when speaking and writing. I also don't talk as much.
Neuroimaging studies in people with gender incongruence (PDF)
posted by AFABulous at 7:28 AM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Neuroimaging studies in people with gender incongruence (PDF)
...a brain phenotype becomes apparent from DTI and CTh in early onset androphilic MtF and gynephilic FtM. Their gross morphology is similar to their natal sex, but white matter microstructure is demasculinized in androphilic MtF and masculinized in gynephilic FtM. Moreover, androphilic MtF and gynephilic FtM present with a feminine cortical thickness, but they differ from control men in various regions of the cortex.A Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study in Transgender Persons on Cross-Sex Hormone Therapy
[my note: "androphilic" = loves men, so androphilic MtF would essentially mean "straight woman" and "gynephilic" FtM = "straight man"]
Conclusions: Neuroanatomical differences were region specific between transgender persons and their natal sex as well as their gender identity, raising the possibility of a localized influence of sex hormones on neuroanatomy.Evidence Supporting the Biologic Nature of Gender Identity
Conclusions: Although the mechanisms remain to be determined, there is strong support in the literature for a biologic basis of gender identity.There are a billion more of these if you search "transgender neurological study" or similar terms.
posted by AFABulous at 7:28 AM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
There is a famous case of an intersex person being assigned female at birth, and raised as a girl, who transitioned to male (and eventually committed suicide). This can help answer the nature/nurture question.
Sex Reassignment at Birth: A Long Term Review and Clinical Implications
David Reimer.. "was a Canadian man born male but reassigned as a girl and raised female following medical advice and intervention after his penis was accidentally destroyed during a botched circumcision in infancy."
It follows that if gender was wholly or even mostly nurture, trans people would not exist. It's impossible to make someone into a girl or boy by giving them trucks or dolls.
posted by AFABulous at 7:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
Sex Reassignment at Birth: A Long Term Review and Clinical Implications
David Reimer.. "was a Canadian man born male but reassigned as a girl and raised female following medical advice and intervention after his penis was accidentally destroyed during a botched circumcision in infancy."
It follows that if gender was wholly or even mostly nurture, trans people would not exist. It's impossible to make someone into a girl or boy by giving them trucks or dolls.
posted by AFABulous at 7:35 AM on April 29, 2018 [4 favorites]
My son naturally seems drawn to spatial and mechanical processes more so than verbal ones, and definitely prefers to throw himself down the giant slide than play with the dolls.
Another bit from Testosterone Rex: The research has shown that all children prefer the "boys' toys" to the dolls. The sex difference is that girls dislike the dolls slightly less than the boys do.
posted by clawsoon at 7:38 AM on April 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
Another bit from Testosterone Rex: The research has shown that all children prefer the "boys' toys" to the dolls. The sex difference is that girls dislike the dolls slightly less than the boys do.
posted by clawsoon at 7:38 AM on April 29, 2018 [8 favorites]
If sciatrix doesn't show up soon, I'm going to recommend Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Difference, Evolution's Rainbow, and her own extensive response to the Damore memo, which touches on many issues of gender and science.
posted by clawsoon at 7:56 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 7:56 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I've heard good things about the book Delusions of Gender, though I haven't read it.
I've read it, you should read it. She very meticulously rips apart most of the science that is like "Oh hey it's all biological" and looks closely at various nature/nurture arguments and while her ultimate conclusion has an edge of "It's complicated" I think you'll walk away from it having a much greater understanding about what all the fuss is about and what the scientists think. There's also the aspect of sexism that pervades a lot of these conclusions that she also looks into. She has a sense of humor and the book is a good read.
posted by jessamyn at 8:09 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
I've read it, you should read it. She very meticulously rips apart most of the science that is like "Oh hey it's all biological" and looks closely at various nature/nurture arguments and while her ultimate conclusion has an edge of "It's complicated" I think you'll walk away from it having a much greater understanding about what all the fuss is about and what the scientists think. There's also the aspect of sexism that pervades a lot of these conclusions that she also looks into. She has a sense of humor and the book is a good read.
posted by jessamyn at 8:09 AM on April 29, 2018 [5 favorites]
Yeah, it seems like the only way to 100% answer the question would be to study the brains of newborns and then raise them in a cultural vacuum. Even if that were possible, it would be highly unethical and I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:49 AM on April 29, 2018
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:49 AM on April 29, 2018
More research from Testosterone Rex: Parents are bad at being gender-neutral even if they think they're good at it. Is that expression on your child's face fear or determination?
posted by clawsoon at 9:24 AM on April 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 9:24 AM on April 29, 2018 [10 favorites]
Another thing I learned from Jordan-Young's Brain Storm: Be suspicious if the science matches current gender stereotypes too closely. Before and after 1980, scientists found that testosterone exposure increased "masculine" traits. However, most studies before 1980 counted sexual passivity as "feminine" and sexual activity as "masculine", while starting around 1980 most studies counted "female sexual activity" as "feminine" and "male sexual activity" as masculine.
In other words, exactly the same person - a woman with early sexual interest and experience - would've counted as "masculine" before 1980, but "feminine" after 1980. And yet in both cases, published studies came to the same ultimate conclusions, that in utero testosterone exposure led to more "masculine" traits in women. Women's DNA didn't change before and after 1980, but our stereotypes did evolve, and that seems to have affected which results got published.
posted by clawsoon at 9:53 AM on April 29, 2018 [11 favorites]
In other words, exactly the same person - a woman with early sexual interest and experience - would've counted as "masculine" before 1980, but "feminine" after 1980. And yet in both cases, published studies came to the same ultimate conclusions, that in utero testosterone exposure led to more "masculine" traits in women. Women's DNA didn't change before and after 1980, but our stereotypes did evolve, and that seems to have affected which results got published.
posted by clawsoon at 9:53 AM on April 29, 2018 [11 favorites]
Another one from Cordelia Fine (you should really just read one of her books): Men and women have different bodies, and that means they'd need to have different brains in order to get the same behaviour. (If you control different bodies with the same circuits, you'll get different behaviour.) So if you see a neurological difference between male and female brains, how do you know whether it causes male and female behaviour to be the same or different?
Another one: If male rats don't get their genitals licked by their mothers, they don't develop stereotypical "male rat" behaviours. Is that part of male rat behaviour "biological"?
(You might also be interested to learn that testosterone is converted to estrogen in the brain.)
posted by clawsoon at 10:20 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
Another one: If male rats don't get their genitals licked by their mothers, they don't develop stereotypical "male rat" behaviours. Is that part of male rat behaviour "biological"?
(You might also be interested to learn that testosterone is converted to estrogen in the brain.)
posted by clawsoon at 10:20 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I see that Jane the Brown's answer was deleted, but one of the most interesting bits was about meat consumption. Different levels of meat consumption change the structure of the brain, and American men eat a lot more meat than women. So if you're looking at a study comparing the brains of men and women, are you seeing genetic differences or differences in meat consumption?
posted by clawsoon at 10:37 AM on April 29, 2018
posted by clawsoon at 10:37 AM on April 29, 2018
Valian's Why So Slow? is excellent and goes into nature-nurture a lot.
posted by clew at 11:39 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by clew at 11:39 AM on April 29, 2018 [1 favorite]
BBC Horizon did a really good episode on this called 'Is your brain male or female?'. It's been a good few years since I watched it, but I do remember they did an interesting study where they dress the same toddlers in boy/girl clothing and watch how people interact with them and what toys they play with. I think the findings were mixed between nature and nurture - there was some really good balanced discussion.
One of their explanations has really stuck with me. The idea is that 'male brains give men P trait', 'female brains give women Q trait' is gross simplification - it's more like the population's level of P (or Q) could be graphed as a bell curve each for men and women, with significant overlap. So perhaps the average woman is more Q than the average man, but maybe 45% of men are more Q than a woman. The episode explains it better than I can.
posted by iplaytheviol at 11:53 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
One of their explanations has really stuck with me. The idea is that 'male brains give men P trait', 'female brains give women Q trait' is gross simplification - it's more like the population's level of P (or Q) could be graphed as a bell curve each for men and women, with significant overlap. So perhaps the average woman is more Q than the average man, but maybe 45% of men are more Q than a woman. The episode explains it better than I can.
posted by iplaytheviol at 11:53 AM on April 29, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'd you're using David Reimer as your litmus test then you will want to do some thorough reading. Reimer wasn't just raised "as a girl", he and his twin brother were made to do sexual things to each other under the guise of medical science, and he eventually killed himself. His case is hardly a slam dunk for gender being innate and points more to how sexual abuse and unnecessary medical treatment can have a negative effect on a child's life and mental health.
More to the question, every cell in our bodies is *sexed*. Behaviors, feelings can/are be shaped by hormones. While there are some behaviors/feelings that are stronger/more common in each sex as a result of biology (nurturing females, aggressive males), that doesn't mean there are characteristics that belong to only one or the other. Being nurturing doesn't make a male a female just like being aggressive or risk-taking doesn't make a female male.
Daphna Yoel's 'mosiac' analogy is good:
Longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKeKCxPApKQ
Short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYpDU040yzc
posted by masquesoporfavor at 12:02 PM on April 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
More to the question, every cell in our bodies is *sexed*. Behaviors, feelings can/are be shaped by hormones. While there are some behaviors/feelings that are stronger/more common in each sex as a result of biology (nurturing females, aggressive males), that doesn't mean there are characteristics that belong to only one or the other. Being nurturing doesn't make a male a female just like being aggressive or risk-taking doesn't make a female male.
Daphna Yoel's 'mosiac' analogy is good:
Longer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKeKCxPApKQ
Short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYpDU040yzc
posted by masquesoporfavor at 12:02 PM on April 29, 2018 [9 favorites]
Brain science is not complete - there's a great deal unknown and a great many unknown unknowns. I find it interesting. I am a feminist and I have a son who loved trucks and guns. The focus is usually on differences in the brain. I have read some primatology, and I think males have a strong drive for dominance/ power/ status. Females do, too, but not as strong. I think even as toys, certainly as real items, trucks and guns are strong symbols of power. I have some extended ideas on this, but not cohesive enough to write at this point. Also, I think it's a contributing issue, for the most part. When I read about brain science, the amazing complexity boggles my mind.
I tried to teach my son about respect. We are primates, many men seem to have impulses that are contrary to the direction we want to evolve in. As humans, we can decide to grow and change in ways that promote equality. We are not governed only by our DNA or by our culture.
posted by theora55 at 5:25 PM on April 29, 2018
I tried to teach my son about respect. We are primates, many men seem to have impulses that are contrary to the direction we want to evolve in. As humans, we can decide to grow and change in ways that promote equality. We are not governed only by our DNA or by our culture.
posted by theora55 at 5:25 PM on April 29, 2018
the population's level of P (or Q) could be graphed as a bell curve each for men and women, with significant overlap. So perhaps the average woman is more Q than the average man, but maybe 45% of men are more Q than a woman.
This.
If you graph a large population, the peaks of the bell curves for males & females will fall at different places, but the skirts of the curves are wide - so there's huge overlap. Individual variation can put one far away from the statistical mean for one's sex.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 6:59 PM on April 29, 2018
This.
If you graph a large population, the peaks of the bell curves for males & females will fall at different places, but the skirts of the curves are wide - so there's huge overlap. Individual variation can put one far away from the statistical mean for one's sex.
posted by HiroProtagonist at 6:59 PM on April 29, 2018
I have visciously avoided socialization for maleness. I resisted toys targeting boys, I resisted applying any assumption of being mechanically minded, being simple in only needing food to be happy, being later than girls to develop language, all these things. But he's fulfilling the stereotypes... I've always been heavily in the "nurture" camp, and I'm wondering whether there's a stronger "nature" component
Apart from anything else, I find it strange that you're looking to confirm or reject your beliefs/hypotheses about nature vs nurture based on observations of exactly one child. Yeah, you tried not to expose your son to stereotypically masculine things and he seems to like them anyway. But so what? If he had instead gravitated towards purely pink dollies and glittery make-up, would you then have concluded that boy brains are "actually" stereotypically girly?
posted by MiraK at 7:10 PM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Apart from anything else, I find it strange that you're looking to confirm or reject your beliefs/hypotheses about nature vs nurture based on observations of exactly one child. Yeah, you tried not to expose your son to stereotypically masculine things and he seems to like them anyway. But so what? If he had instead gravitated towards purely pink dollies and glittery make-up, would you then have concluded that boy brains are "actually" stereotypically girly?
posted by MiraK at 7:10 PM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
One of Cordelia Fine's points in Delusions of Gender, which rang true to me for a variety of reasons (she offers both evidence from animals and from humans), is that gender identity may be something that is strongly influenced by development and essentially inborn. In other words, children have a sense of their own gender, such that boys want to be perceived as male and girls as female. What exactly that means in terms of behavior, though, will depend on the culture they're raised in -- i.e., what it means to be a man or a woman in that culture. As a parent you have only a limited degree of control over the deluge of messages your kids get (and end up internalizing) from the broader milieu of peers, other parents, teachers, media, commerce, etc.
There's also a very well-cited psych paper from 2005 called "The Gender Similarities Hypothesis" which is worth a read: "The gender similarities hypothesis holds that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. That is, men and women, as well as boys and girls, are more alike than they are different. In terms of effect sizes, the gender similarities hypothesis states that most psychological gender differences are in the close-to-zero (d ≤ 0.10) or small (0.11 ≤ d ≤ 0.35) range, a few are in the moderate range (0.36 ≤ d ≤ 0.65), and very few are large (d=0.66–1.00) or very large (d > 1.00)." There's an updated take (from 2014) here.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:46 PM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
There's also a very well-cited psych paper from 2005 called "The Gender Similarities Hypothesis" which is worth a read: "The gender similarities hypothesis holds that males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables. That is, men and women, as well as boys and girls, are more alike than they are different. In terms of effect sizes, the gender similarities hypothesis states that most psychological gender differences are in the close-to-zero (d ≤ 0.10) or small (0.11 ≤ d ≤ 0.35) range, a few are in the moderate range (0.36 ≤ d ≤ 0.65), and very few are large (d=0.66–1.00) or very large (d > 1.00)." There's an updated take (from 2014) here.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:46 PM on April 29, 2018 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: MiraK, I am not intending my parenting to be an experiment with a sample size of 1. I do however believe that nature has a stronger component than I thought it did, because his decisions do not seem to match the neutrality I thought I was offering. He isn't even 2 years old, so the role of culture is limited here. I wouldn't think boy brains are girly if he liked dolls, but I would think that my efforts to not socialize as male (nurture) had been successful in letting that be a safe interest. I feel like the "nature" input sort of failed, which leads me to question the role of nature in the situation, and the repercussions of that possibly greater role.
This is a great discussion with much food for thought and I appreciate the feedback from all of you.
posted by crunchy potato at 9:29 AM on April 30, 2018
This is a great discussion with much food for thought and I appreciate the feedback from all of you.
posted by crunchy potato at 9:29 AM on April 30, 2018
Well, I got a MeMail, so if you do want my honest opinion....
...it's complicated. Surprise!
Glancing, for example, at your original link, I see that the very first list centers differences in sizes between men and women in the corpus callosum. These differences do exist! It's just that they vanish if you take overall brain size into account, and they seem to be an artifact of brain size. And of course, that difference in absolute brain size comes down to the fact that women are, by and large, slightly smaller than men in terms of body size. I can certainly come up with other studies that attempt to control for brain size and do find significant size differences, but these studies by and large do things like use different-sized brains and attempt to control for brain size by measuring intra-cranial volume or some other measure. Unfortunately, because corpus callosal size does not scale linearly with brain size, this is still going to yield significantly different measures--especially when you parse the data very finely.
Scrolling through the same piece, I'll note that the contention about ADHD diagnosis occurring primarily in boys is complicated by differential perception of ADHD girls and boys by both parents and teachers. Bluntly, boys are more likely to be taken in for psychiatric evaluation and help than girls are, and so they are more likely to be diagnosed.
I can keep digging, if you like, into that piece--but the long and the short of it is that it makes a lot of claims that I'm not sure are as well-supported as the authors like, particularly in light of research that has come out in the last fifteen years.
You have to understand, also, that brains are not static with respect to their environment: they change based on the experiences they encounter, and this is particularly true of small children. My experience has been that folks working on brain structure consistently underestimate the level of observation that developmental psychologists can demonstrate from extremely young children... and the level of differential treatment that parents, teachers, and other adults demonstrate according to the perceived gender or sex of the child, for that matter. If you take two infants and constantly discourage one of them from practicing one skill and constantly encourage the other to practice it, their brains will change as a result--even if you started with identical twins. I'm not remotely saying that brains are blank slates, but the human brain in particular is remarkably socially plastic. It's not like we get gender stereotypes that are functionally incompatible with a human brain, either.
I am also generally somewhat skeptical about the specificity of fMRI studies and careful about interpreting them, although this is probably my bias as an animal researcher. It's important to understand exactly what fMRIs are measuring, and while the time resolution is beautiful and the spatial resolution is quite good given the level of invasiveness, the trouble is that fMRIs only measure fluctuations in blood flow, which can reasonably interpreted as changes in sugar demand. It's rather like trying to understand how a whole bunch of computers work and are different and similar to one another by staring deeply at them using heat goggles or power in/power out.
So those are my caveats. I would actually not recommend Evolution's Rainbow for this particular question, since it's very much about different ways of organizing sex in animal species and that's not, as I understand it, what you're asking about. Both Brain Storm and Delusions of Gender provide a pretty solid walk through some of the specific studies; Brain Storm is not a snarkily written book, if you find that kind of tone off-putting. It has a more sober, incredibly fair-minded tone, but it is also much more densely written.
Pick whichever tone seems more enjoyable to you, because I think you might be interested in understanding exactly how hard it is to provide a truly gender-neutral upbringing to any child. Bluntly, without total isolation from other humans, it is nearly impossible to do--and I find people don't even notice the gender socialization seeping in at the edges, more often than not. I believe both books have sections on this, if I remember correctly.
posted by sciatrix at 9:35 AM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
...it's complicated. Surprise!
Glancing, for example, at your original link, I see that the very first list centers differences in sizes between men and women in the corpus callosum. These differences do exist! It's just that they vanish if you take overall brain size into account, and they seem to be an artifact of brain size. And of course, that difference in absolute brain size comes down to the fact that women are, by and large, slightly smaller than men in terms of body size. I can certainly come up with other studies that attempt to control for brain size and do find significant size differences, but these studies by and large do things like use different-sized brains and attempt to control for brain size by measuring intra-cranial volume or some other measure. Unfortunately, because corpus callosal size does not scale linearly with brain size, this is still going to yield significantly different measures--especially when you parse the data very finely.
Scrolling through the same piece, I'll note that the contention about ADHD diagnosis occurring primarily in boys is complicated by differential perception of ADHD girls and boys by both parents and teachers. Bluntly, boys are more likely to be taken in for psychiatric evaluation and help than girls are, and so they are more likely to be diagnosed.
I can keep digging, if you like, into that piece--but the long and the short of it is that it makes a lot of claims that I'm not sure are as well-supported as the authors like, particularly in light of research that has come out in the last fifteen years.
You have to understand, also, that brains are not static with respect to their environment: they change based on the experiences they encounter, and this is particularly true of small children. My experience has been that folks working on brain structure consistently underestimate the level of observation that developmental psychologists can demonstrate from extremely young children... and the level of differential treatment that parents, teachers, and other adults demonstrate according to the perceived gender or sex of the child, for that matter. If you take two infants and constantly discourage one of them from practicing one skill and constantly encourage the other to practice it, their brains will change as a result--even if you started with identical twins. I'm not remotely saying that brains are blank slates, but the human brain in particular is remarkably socially plastic. It's not like we get gender stereotypes that are functionally incompatible with a human brain, either.
I am also generally somewhat skeptical about the specificity of fMRI studies and careful about interpreting them, although this is probably my bias as an animal researcher. It's important to understand exactly what fMRIs are measuring, and while the time resolution is beautiful and the spatial resolution is quite good given the level of invasiveness, the trouble is that fMRIs only measure fluctuations in blood flow, which can reasonably interpreted as changes in sugar demand. It's rather like trying to understand how a whole bunch of computers work and are different and similar to one another by staring deeply at them using heat goggles or power in/power out.
So those are my caveats. I would actually not recommend Evolution's Rainbow for this particular question, since it's very much about different ways of organizing sex in animal species and that's not, as I understand it, what you're asking about. Both Brain Storm and Delusions of Gender provide a pretty solid walk through some of the specific studies; Brain Storm is not a snarkily written book, if you find that kind of tone off-putting. It has a more sober, incredibly fair-minded tone, but it is also much more densely written.
Pick whichever tone seems more enjoyable to you, because I think you might be interested in understanding exactly how hard it is to provide a truly gender-neutral upbringing to any child. Bluntly, without total isolation from other humans, it is nearly impossible to do--and I find people don't even notice the gender socialization seeping in at the edges, more often than not. I believe both books have sections on this, if I remember correctly.
posted by sciatrix at 9:35 AM on April 30, 2018 [8 favorites]
crunchy potato: I do however believe that nature has a stronger component than I thought it did, because his decisions do not seem to match the neutrality I thought I was offering.
Yes, "nature" has an effect, probably bigger than we thought for a while, but you need to split it into two parts:
- the "nature" that results from the random mix of genes he got from you and his other parent, and
- the "nature" that results from his having a Y chromosome.
Maybe he inherited his dislike of dolls from his Y chromosome, or maybe he got it from Great-Grandma HatesKids. At this point, we don't know nearly enough about genes and behaviour to differentiate.
posted by clawsoon at 9:37 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yes, "nature" has an effect, probably bigger than we thought for a while, but you need to split it into two parts:
- the "nature" that results from the random mix of genes he got from you and his other parent, and
- the "nature" that results from his having a Y chromosome.
Maybe he inherited his dislike of dolls from his Y chromosome, or maybe he got it from Great-Grandma HatesKids. At this point, we don't know nearly enough about genes and behaviour to differentiate.
posted by clawsoon at 9:37 AM on April 30, 2018 [2 favorites]
...or maybe it's a random interaction of genes which produces a new trait that wasn't in any of his ancestors. In some cases, there's an evolutionary advantage to having some offspring traits be effectively random, and recombination during meiosis is one thing which helps that happen.
In other words, if you keep having kids, you'll likely find that you get a mix of personalities: Some introverts and some extroverts, some people-oriented and some thing-oriented, some loving quiet gentleness and some loving action, some good at memorizing and some good at solving. You might try to teach your introverted kid to be constantly outgoing but find that their nature makes it as difficult as teaching your slide-loving kid to play with dolls.
posted by clawsoon at 10:09 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
In other words, if you keep having kids, you'll likely find that you get a mix of personalities: Some introverts and some extroverts, some people-oriented and some thing-oriented, some loving quiet gentleness and some loving action, some good at memorizing and some good at solving. You might try to teach your introverted kid to be constantly outgoing but find that their nature makes it as difficult as teaching your slide-loving kid to play with dolls.
posted by clawsoon at 10:09 AM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Speaking of experiments with a sample size of one, I'd like to recommend There's a Good Girl by Marianne Grabrucker. It's an account of the first three years of a little girl's life, by her mother, who tried her hardest to raise her in a non-sexist fashion. As you're doing the same for your kid (but presumably not keeping a daily diary about it!), you might appreciate Grabucker's observations of just how much social conditioning made its way into her daughter's life despite her efforts.
posted by daisyk at 10:45 AM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by daisyk at 10:45 AM on April 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
crunchy potato: I do however believe that nature has a stronger component than I thought it did, because his decisions do not seem to match the neutrality I thought I was offering.
You offered a neutral and therefore you expected the output to be neutral? Your assumption that "neutral tokens in = neutral personality out" is inherently flawed.
Also PS: you are not the sole influencer of your child's life even at this age. More importantly, you yourself are most certainly not offering TRUE neutral as the influence!
Children have personalities and preferences of their own. You may expose your child equally to "girly" foods like cupcakes and rosette-cut veggies and to "manly" foods like, idk, hunks of meat? - but that doesn't mean this child will grow up liking all these types of food equally, right? He will have tastes of his own. If he happens to really love hunks of meat, you really can't conclude that it's because he must be wired like a stereotypical boy. It could be a random preference just as easily as it could be "stereotypical boy" preference.
posted by MiraK at 11:19 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
You offered a neutral and therefore you expected the output to be neutral? Your assumption that "neutral tokens in = neutral personality out" is inherently flawed.
Also PS: you are not the sole influencer of your child's life even at this age. More importantly, you yourself are most certainly not offering TRUE neutral as the influence!
Children have personalities and preferences of their own. You may expose your child equally to "girly" foods like cupcakes and rosette-cut veggies and to "manly" foods like, idk, hunks of meat? - but that doesn't mean this child will grow up liking all these types of food equally, right? He will have tastes of his own. If he happens to really love hunks of meat, you really can't conclude that it's because he must be wired like a stereotypical boy. It could be a random preference just as easily as it could be "stereotypical boy" preference.
posted by MiraK at 11:19 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
People who sincerely believe they are parenting their child in a gender-neutral way overwhelmingly do not actually do so. This has been found repeatedly in studies - if you film people interacting with a baby the way they behave is dramatically different based on whether they are told the child is male or female, and this is true even for people who insist afterward that their treatment of the infant was not influenced in any way by the child's gender. And, of course, even if you did manage to parent in a perfectly gender-neutral way your child still would not be receiving perfectly gender-neutral input, because you are not the only person who affects your child.
Nature does have a very significant effect - bigger overall than we used to think - and in particular, sex differences in brain development are probably real, although not very large or consistent from individual to individual. But it's nearly impossible to conclude that any particular trait in an individual infant is due to biologically-based sex differences and not nurture.
posted by waffleriot at 11:57 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
Nature does have a very significant effect - bigger overall than we used to think - and in particular, sex differences in brain development are probably real, although not very large or consistent from individual to individual. But it's nearly impossible to conclude that any particular trait in an individual infant is due to biologically-based sex differences and not nurture.
posted by waffleriot at 11:57 AM on April 30, 2018 [4 favorites]
I would think that my efforts to not socialize as male (nurture) had been successful in letting that be a safe interest.
You have a spouse. Are thy doing the same? Most people who think they are being gender neutral with their parenting are not, according to science.
posted by jessamyn at 12:15 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
You have a spouse. Are thy doing the same? Most people who think they are being gender neutral with their parenting are not, according to science.
posted by jessamyn at 12:15 PM on April 30, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: But he's fulfilling the stereotypes, much to my dismay.
I might ask what stereotypes he is fulfilling that you perceive as male? Loudness? Throwing things? Kind of a sociopath? Not very empathetic? Likes climbing? Likes bugs? Not good at listening?
I did some extensive studying of the culturally constructed nature of gender in children during the 19th century, and one of the constants that cropped up was that girl children tended to love all of the fun messy “masculine” things that boy children did, and the difference was that girl children had to be rigorously and sternly squashed out of liking those things as quickly and completely as possible. Boy likes a bug? He’s fearless, an explorer! Girl likes a bug? Ewww, nasty, nice girls don’t touch that, here’s your dolly, messy messy. Boy runs around a shouts? Future of the empire! Girl runs around and shouts? Embarrassment to the family name, be quiet be quiet BE QUIET, get a harsher governess, sit and do needlepoint for six hours even when you’re five years old, go help mummy with her knitting, we mustn’t talk so loud when daddy is sleeping. (There was actually a movement in the 19th c. to prevent girls from reading youth fiction about adventures, because girls got confused and thought they were allowed to dream about having adventures themselves, so it would be much better for them to read books about girls sitting quietly and making dinner for boys. Seriously.)
There has long been this characteristic of manliness as NATURAL and wholesome hearty impulses, whereas girls and women are sooooooo delicate, but I have to say that a lot of girls are ruthlessly punished into performing that type of delicacy, rather than coming to it naturally. What you might be seeing is not that any behaviors are inherently male, but that male children’s fairly natural impulses are the same ones that are rigorously policed out of many to most little girls at a young age. We have family videos where my brother runs around growling and pretending to be a monster and my (self-identified as feminist) parents laughed and praised him, but then would tell me to be quiet when I tried to tell a joke too loudly. If all the toys you get are baby dolls, you learn to play with baby dolls. If you get told Daddy will have to go into the workhouse unless you start helping sew even hemlines, you learn how to sew.
It’s just that the most repressive forms of socialization are mostly in place for one gender, in the toddler years. All two year olds are basically little sociopath giggle snot factories, but boys are allowed to be without too many repercussions. I have seen, time and time again, that a boy toddler who tears screaming through an otherwise reverent church sanctuary is greeted with smiles and laughter and maybe gets talked about as “filled with joy” in the sermon, while girls toddlers who run and scream get disapproving looks and “stop being a brat” and “oh that’s a shame” reactions. To the exact same behavior.
You would be shocked at how many women who describe their childhood selves as "tomboys" were actually just, you know, children. Running around. Smashing stuff. Riding bikes. Wearing durable clothing. Climbing trees. "Being allowed to do things all kids enjoy" means "I was raised like a boy" for a huge portion of our culture.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2018 [15 favorites]
I might ask what stereotypes he is fulfilling that you perceive as male? Loudness? Throwing things? Kind of a sociopath? Not very empathetic? Likes climbing? Likes bugs? Not good at listening?
I did some extensive studying of the culturally constructed nature of gender in children during the 19th century, and one of the constants that cropped up was that girl children tended to love all of the fun messy “masculine” things that boy children did, and the difference was that girl children had to be rigorously and sternly squashed out of liking those things as quickly and completely as possible. Boy likes a bug? He’s fearless, an explorer! Girl likes a bug? Ewww, nasty, nice girls don’t touch that, here’s your dolly, messy messy. Boy runs around a shouts? Future of the empire! Girl runs around and shouts? Embarrassment to the family name, be quiet be quiet BE QUIET, get a harsher governess, sit and do needlepoint for six hours even when you’re five years old, go help mummy with her knitting, we mustn’t talk so loud when daddy is sleeping. (There was actually a movement in the 19th c. to prevent girls from reading youth fiction about adventures, because girls got confused and thought they were allowed to dream about having adventures themselves, so it would be much better for them to read books about girls sitting quietly and making dinner for boys. Seriously.)
There has long been this characteristic of manliness as NATURAL and wholesome hearty impulses, whereas girls and women are sooooooo delicate, but I have to say that a lot of girls are ruthlessly punished into performing that type of delicacy, rather than coming to it naturally. What you might be seeing is not that any behaviors are inherently male, but that male children’s fairly natural impulses are the same ones that are rigorously policed out of many to most little girls at a young age. We have family videos where my brother runs around growling and pretending to be a monster and my (self-identified as feminist) parents laughed and praised him, but then would tell me to be quiet when I tried to tell a joke too loudly. If all the toys you get are baby dolls, you learn to play with baby dolls. If you get told Daddy will have to go into the workhouse unless you start helping sew even hemlines, you learn how to sew.
It’s just that the most repressive forms of socialization are mostly in place for one gender, in the toddler years. All two year olds are basically little sociopath giggle snot factories, but boys are allowed to be without too many repercussions. I have seen, time and time again, that a boy toddler who tears screaming through an otherwise reverent church sanctuary is greeted with smiles and laughter and maybe gets talked about as “filled with joy” in the sermon, while girls toddlers who run and scream get disapproving looks and “stop being a brat” and “oh that’s a shame” reactions. To the exact same behavior.
You would be shocked at how many women who describe their childhood selves as "tomboys" were actually just, you know, children. Running around. Smashing stuff. Riding bikes. Wearing durable clothing. Climbing trees. "Being allowed to do things all kids enjoy" means "I was raised like a boy" for a huge portion of our culture.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:29 PM on April 30, 2018 [15 favorites]
Best answer: Oh, yeah, what a fiendish thingy says absolutely. And that actually plays into why conditions like ADHD and autism are diagnosed in boys more frequently--little boys aren't so heavily socialized to be quiet and easygoing, so they are typically much more likely to act out in class and be obnoxious (from the perspective of the teacher), which means they get referred for treatment. Little girls are more likely to internalize issues like that and either rely on coping mechanisms and support from other girls or just fail quietly in the corner, because they come in for more criticism, consistently, for the same behaviors.
posted by sciatrix at 1:03 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by sciatrix at 1:03 PM on April 30, 2018 [5 favorites]
One of the few genes whose variations have been tentatively linked to variations in male behaviour (specifically aggression) is the androgen receptor gene:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136208
It's on the X chromosome, so your boy inherited it from his mother. You might think that a potential regulator of male behaviour would be passed from father to son, but in this case you'd be wrong.
I seem to recall that there are over 100 variations of the gene present in the human population. If the link with behaviour is confirmed, it would seem that evolution has favoured large variations in "what it means to be a man", at least when it comes to aggression. There's no single correct recipe.
posted by clawsoon at 5:31 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0136208
It's on the X chromosome, so your boy inherited it from his mother. You might think that a potential regulator of male behaviour would be passed from father to son, but in this case you'd be wrong.
I seem to recall that there are over 100 variations of the gene present in the human population. If the link with behaviour is confirmed, it would seem that evolution has favoured large variations in "what it means to be a man", at least when it comes to aggression. There's no single correct recipe.
posted by clawsoon at 5:31 AM on May 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Came across this quote last night about how what we define as “biology” is always culturally mediated, and it seemed relevant to this discussion:
“If a society puts half its children into short skirts and warns them not to move in ways that reveal their panties, while putting the other half into jeans and overalls and encouraging them to climb trees, play ball, and participate in other vigorous outdoor games; if later, during adolescence, the children who have been wearing trousers are urged to “eat like growing boys,” while the children in skirts are warned to watch their weight and not get fat; if the half in jeans runs around in sneakers or boots, while the half in skirts totters about on spike heels, then these two groups of people will be biologically as well as socially different. Their muscles will be different, as will their reflexes, posture, arms, legs and feet, hand-eye coordination, and so on. Similarly, people who spend eight hours a day in an office working at a typewriter or a visual display terminal will be biologically different from those who work on construction jobs. There is no way to sort the biological and social components that produce these differences. We cannot sort nature from nurture when we confront group differences in societies in which people from different races, classes, and sexes do not have equal access to resources and power, and therefore live in different environments. Sex-typed generalizations, such as that men are heavier, taller, or stronger than women, obscure the diversity among women and among men and the extensive overlaps between them… Most women and men fall within the same range of heights, weights, and strengths, three variables that depend a great deal on how we have grown up and live. We all know that first-generation Americans, on average, are taller than their immigrant parents and that men who do physical labor, on average, are stronger than male college professors. But we forget to look for the obvious reasons for differences when confronted with assertions like ‘Men are stronger than women.’ We should be asking: ‘Which men?’ and ‘What do they do?’ There may be biologically based average differences between women and men, but these are interwoven with a host of social differences from which we cannot disentangle them.”
-Ruth Hubbard, “The Political Nature of ‘Human Nature’”
posted by a fiendish thingy at 6:48 AM on May 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
“If a society puts half its children into short skirts and warns them not to move in ways that reveal their panties, while putting the other half into jeans and overalls and encouraging them to climb trees, play ball, and participate in other vigorous outdoor games; if later, during adolescence, the children who have been wearing trousers are urged to “eat like growing boys,” while the children in skirts are warned to watch their weight and not get fat; if the half in jeans runs around in sneakers or boots, while the half in skirts totters about on spike heels, then these two groups of people will be biologically as well as socially different. Their muscles will be different, as will their reflexes, posture, arms, legs and feet, hand-eye coordination, and so on. Similarly, people who spend eight hours a day in an office working at a typewriter or a visual display terminal will be biologically different from those who work on construction jobs. There is no way to sort the biological and social components that produce these differences. We cannot sort nature from nurture when we confront group differences in societies in which people from different races, classes, and sexes do not have equal access to resources and power, and therefore live in different environments. Sex-typed generalizations, such as that men are heavier, taller, or stronger than women, obscure the diversity among women and among men and the extensive overlaps between them… Most women and men fall within the same range of heights, weights, and strengths, three variables that depend a great deal on how we have grown up and live. We all know that first-generation Americans, on average, are taller than their immigrant parents and that men who do physical labor, on average, are stronger than male college professors. But we forget to look for the obvious reasons for differences when confronted with assertions like ‘Men are stronger than women.’ We should be asking: ‘Which men?’ and ‘What do they do?’ There may be biologically based average differences between women and men, but these are interwoven with a host of social differences from which we cannot disentangle them.”
-Ruth Hubbard, “The Political Nature of ‘Human Nature’”
posted by a fiendish thingy at 6:48 AM on May 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
^ This is a really important point! Culture affects biology as well as the other way around. One of the best-known non-gendered examples is that taxi drivers in London have physically enlarged hippocampi, corresponding to the intense study they need to internalize a road map of London in order to pass licensing exams. Moreover, there's very strong evidence that their studying is what causes the morphological difference, because studies have followed people who were initially matched for hippocampus size, and shown that the ones who pass the exam, but not those who leave the program, have growth in the hippocampus. This means that we have to be really careful about interpreting things like fMRI studies, because we don't know whether we're measuring something upstream or downstream of cultural influences.
posted by en forme de poire at 12:46 PM on May 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 12:46 PM on May 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
You might find this FPP on MetaFilter relevant. There are a number of excellent comments in the thread as well (including several from people answering your question here), and while I can make no guarantees as to its excellence, one of mine somewhat directly addresses some aspects of your question.
posted by biogeo at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 8:59 AM on May 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Summary:
"Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men’s and women’s brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men’s brains aren’t wired for empathy and women’s brains aren’t made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men’s and women’s behavior. Instead of a “male brain” and a “female brain,” Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender."
posted by perplexion at 8:13 PM on April 28, 2018 [29 favorites]