Hey we made this social justice wiki and all of our staff got doxxed and attacked by 4chan before we ever went public. So if you could signal boost this, sign up and help contribute articles to make this all worth it for us that would be great.
Yes, we have, please help us! http://sjwiki.org/
We're a wiki that is trying to cover both social justice 101, with research and academic backing, and more in-depth stuff. But unfortunately our progress has been stuntted slightly by a massive influx (now completely stopped) of trolls.
Well this is a post I've been meaning to write for a while.
Every single time women of colour talk about "white feminism" or "white feminists" within the context of discussions about the way that the mainstream feminist movement privileges whiteness, we deal with an onslaught of defensive white women insisting that they personally are not like that, and would you please say "some white women" and not make generalizations?
What those women fail to realize is that by making that request, they are exemplifying Mikki Kendall's #solidarityisforwhitewomen battle cry; by once again insisting that a conversation created to facilitate discussion about the issues of WoC, be centered around the feelings of white women.
Modern evolutionary psychology is demonstrating, once again, that an uncritical enthusiasm for the geneâs-eye point of view can easily lead to conceptual excesses that go far beyond the available evidence. Seven major flaws in the evolutionary psychology agenda are outlined. With its enthusiasm for human inclusive-fitness issues, this variant of sociobiology has expressed little interest in what we already know about the brains and behaviors of non-human ani- mals--facts that should be of foundational impor- tance for thinking about many human abilities. To create a lasting understanding of âhuman natureâ, we must incorporate the lessons from the past half-centu- ry of research on subcortical emotional and motiva- tional systems that all mammals share. Seven examples of how a study of these systems can high- light some of the core problems of evolutionary psy- chology are outlined. From this perspective, the developmental interactions among ancient special- purpose circuits and more recent general-purpose brain mechanisms can generate many of the âmodu- larizedâ human abilities that evolutionary psychology has entertained. By simply accepting the remarkable degree of neocortical plasticity within the human brain, especially during development, genetically-dic- tated, sociobiological âmodulesâ begin to resemble products of dubious human ambition rather than of sound scientific reasoning.
Introducing Moving the Race Conversation Forward, a new research report by Race Forward, the amazing Jay Smooth talks about one way that we can talk about race productively: by focusing on systems, rather than individuals.
Researchers have found that, more often than not, African Americans and women tend to minimize experiences of discrimination, subconsciously denying or knowingly ignoring bias. When other people mistreat them because they are Black or female, they often find it less painful to heap blame on themselves than to acknowledge the racist or sexist animus that led to the situation.
For example, in a series of laboratory experiments, Karen Ruggiero of Harvard University and her colleagues asked volunteer subjects to take a test. The experimenter informed the Black research subject that one member of a panel of white judges would evaluate his or her test. The experimenter also confided that either none, some, or all of the members of the panel discriminate against Blacks. Similarly, in the gender study, women research subjects were told that one member of a panel of male judges would evaluate their test, and that either none, some, or all of the members discriminate against women.
After the test had presumably been graded by one of the panelists, the test booklet was returned to the subject with the grade F. Subjects were then asked to complete measures that assess how they make sense of the feedback and how they feel about themselves. Ruggiero and her colleagues found that although Black people and women sometimes perceived discrimination, they were more likely to minimize discrimination and to blame themselves for their failures.
A similar study with white males as the subjects had rather different findings. White males were substantially less likely to blame themselves and more likely to see discrimination as the reason for their poor performance.
Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Shifting (via wretchedoftheearth)
Lemme just repeat that for youâŠ
"Ruggiero and her colleagues found that although Black people and women sometimes perceived discrimination, they were more likely to minimize discrimination and to blame themselves for their failures.
âŠ.White males were substantially less likely to blame themselves and more likely to see discrimination as the reason for their poor performance.â
This is behavior that's been programmed into women by society our entire lives, so it won't be easy to un-learn. I've internalized much of this myself. Us girls, we're victims -- victims of a society that constantly tells us we're too fat (but we can't be too skinny, either), too ugly (but don't wear too much make-up or you'll look "fake"), that your clothes have to be amazing (but caring about fashion is petty and shallow), that you can't be a doormat (but if you're too assertive, you're a total bitch); a society that screams at us from every billboard and magazine cover: YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. And because we perceive each other as threats, we rip each other to shreds.
But I think recognizing this behavior is the first step to overcoming it. I think that once you've become aware that you're only mentally sizing a girl up because she's pretty and confident, you can stop yourself in your tracks. You can take control and not let this nonsense get the better of you. Imagine a world where girl-girl relationships were better, where women could work together for the betterment of their gender instead of hating each other. Imagine walking into a room and not caring who has a nicer butt than you! Viva la revolucion!
Once I embraced the idea that other women are not my natural enemies, my relationships with them improved drastically and so did my confidence in myself. I could focus on my own personal growth rather than stunting that of others. It's a perspective that has lead to me making wonderful, supportive friends who feel the same way. And friends are good, because no one wants to smash the patriarchy alone.
The study looked at the difference between male brains and female brains, with expert brain scientists studying the differences. Scientist, Professor Brains, explained how the study worked:
âBrain scientists took photocopies of brains and a packet of felt tips. first they thought about male brains whilst drawing on the illustration. As you can see, when thinking about male brains the scientists took a conservative colour, blue, and scribbled in an orderly way all over the brain picture.
âNext the brain scientists looked at female brains. Unable to stay focussed on the brains, the scientists kept changing felt tip colour, and just scribbled all over the picture.â
Yesterday was a fantastic day for one group of researchers (Ingalhalikar et al.)* who specialize in looking at sex differences in the brain. Their paper was popularized the way a cure for cancer would be, and that is because the authors made de-lic-ious comments about their study as proving that the hardwiring differences between male and female brainz had been found, that they are GIGANTIC!!! and they gave us all PICTURES which show this so very very clearly.
Another thoroughly awesome debunking of the most recent neurosexism occurrence.
A recent, high-profile study makes the provocative claim that there are fundamental differences in how male and female brains are wired. Not so fast, says Wired Science blogger Christian Jarrett, who explains why the study's interpretations are flawed.
Scientists discover the difference between male and female brains
Britainâs Independent today actually made that their front page. They went on to discuss âthe hardwired difference that could explain why men are âbetter at map readingââ. The rest of the worldâs media were no less excited.
It is surprising that the authors did not test whether differences in propensity for movement might be driving the group differences. Such differences have been observed in resting state functional MRI data between males and females, and head motion as measured from the MRI data has been shown to be a relatively stable trait for individuals (Van Dijk, Sabuncu &Buckner 2011, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.044). Indeed, several of the current authors reported motion bias with age in a recent re-analysis of data from a development study (Satterthwaite et al. 2013, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.045), while in an earlier report they found systematic age-related differences in head motion (Satterthwaite et al. 2012, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.12.063). The preceding studies were all on resting state fMRI data, but diffusion imaging is motion-sensitive by design and is susceptible to bias from motion. A recent paper reports significant groupwise motion effects in a diffusion imaging study of autism, and proposed a method - regression of motion parameters - to reduce the bias (Yendiki et al. 2013, DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.11.027). Consideration of motion along these lines is imperative before I can have confidence in the results and the conclusions.
Evidence has long suggested that âhardwiringâ is a poor metaphor for brain development. But the metaphor may be an apt one for the dominant paradigm for researching sex differences, which pushes most neuroscience studies of sex/gender inexorably towards the âdiscoveryâ of sex/gender differences, and makes contemporary gender structures appear natural and inevitable. The argument we forward in this paper is twofold. In the first part of the paper, we address the dominant âhardwiringâ paradigm of sex/gender research in contemporary neuroscience, which is built on broad consensus that there are important âoriginalâ sex differences in brain structure and function, organized by sex-differentiating prenatal hormone exposures. We explain why this consensus is both unscientific and unethical. In the second part of the paper, we sketch an alternative research program focused not on the origins of sex/gender differences but on variability and plasticity of brain/behavior. We argue that interventional experiments based on this approach will address more tractable questions, and lead to much more satisfactory results than the brain organization paradigm can provide.
This are a few comments on this paper on sex differences in the human connectome, published in PNAS. Cor, ain't it been popular in the press though, guvnor.
1. The participants are aged between 8-22yrs, and the analysis splits them into six groups (male and female groups, and three different age groups). Nonetheless, a parametric factor of age would seem absolutely essential and means the movement issues pointed out by @practicalfMRI are a real issue. This also seem problematic as the authors themselves suggest that here are sex-related differences in brain development (effects which they donât find, I think, see below)
2. The connectivity is base on parcellation of 68 cortical and 27 subcortical regions per subject, and these are used as the nodes for the DTI analysis. This is a very coarse grained analysis of the human brain and assumes that this level and anatomical structure of parcellation is the correct one to address brain connectivity.
3. I canât find any analysis of the effects which are found across both men and women, either as two groups or in terms of main age effects â i.e. results are described in terms of sex differences, not the regression results. This means that itâs hard to judge the meaning of the results â sex is important, but we know age is important, too. And other studies have claimed that age is even more important than sex. NB there is no age-by-sex interaction in the connection based analysis, which is surprising.
4. What does it mean to say that the male brain is optomised for interhemispheric processing? There are great big structures in the brain which connect the left and right hemispheres â are we to assume that these are non-functional in males, like nipples?
5. You might also assume that weâd get a hint of such processing differences in the clinical literature, but other than some diseases affecting men and women differently in terms of numbers, the effects of stroke, Parkinsonâs disease etc. are the same for men and women.
The latest neuroscience study of sex differences to hit the popular press has inspired some familiar headlines. The Independent, for example, proclaims that:
The hardwired difference between male and female brains could explain why men are âbetter at map readingâ (And why women are âbetter at remembering a conversationâ). The study in question, published in PNAS, used a technology called diffusion tensor imaging to model the structural connectivity of the brains of nearly a thousand young people, ranging in age from eight to 22.
suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.
One important possibility the authors donât consider is that their results have more to do with brain size than brain sex. Male brains are, on average, larger than females and a large brain is not simply a smaller brain scaled up.
