It’s an excuse for men to be like “oh she wouldn’t understand cause her lady brain can’t grasp it” also why women are discouraged from STEM majors - men believe women are biologically inferior and we have dumber brains which just isn’t true.
I understand where you are coming from with this. The concept of brain sex can be weaponized by sexist people. However, that does not make the concept of brain sex sexist in and of itself. Those people are just misogynistic assholes. Brain sex, on the other hand, is an unbiased theory born from a multitude of scientific studies on the matter. It is purely anatomical science and does not relate to gender roles/expectations or superiority complexes.
There is no such thing as a “lady brain” or a “man brain.” Brains are brains, men can be idiots and women can be idiots.
Just because both men and women can be idiotic at times, that does not mean that our brains are exactly the same. The existence of 2 dots, one green and one blue,does not assume that the blue dot is inferior to the green dot. They are both equally beautiful,and they are both dots, but they different in subtle ways. Different is not lesser.
Our brains are the same, and saying they’re not insinuates that women are “hard-drived” to like feminine things (sexist and a lie) and males, masculine.
Female brains are not “hard-drived” to like feminine things. Our society’s concept of feminine things such as light airy clothing, the color pink, and dresses are socially constructed. That is what makes them gender roles, not gender. Gender is not socially constructed. It is only our anatomy. What brain sex covers is how a human perceives their body shape, connections between neurons, and seemingly unnoticeable primal traits like spatial awareness. Brain sex has little to do with masculinity or femininity.
Only diff between men and women are our biological bodies and therefore socialization due to how society treats us.
The brain is more than just a part of our biological bodies. It is the pilot, it controls practically every bit of our body. The brain can recognize where a limb is even when you cannot see it, and if there is something wrong with said limb. This is called proprioception ( The unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation arising from stimuli within the body itself.) It only makes sense for the brain to have to be slightly different for males and females, as our bodies have different requirements. The male brain needs to be able to tell where the male genitalia are and if they are injured. It would need to have some sort of basic understanding of what is in that region of your body to be able to control and protect it.
Since you argue that the brain is a neutral organ multiple times and I haven’t directly addressed that with sources, I’ll do it here
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811907002340
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) we found robust male/female differences in the shapes of trajectories with total cerebral volume peaking at age 10.5 in females and 14.5 in males. White matter increases throughout this 24-year period with males having a steeper rate of increase during adolescence. Both cortical and subcortical gray matter trajectories follow an inverted U shaped path with peak sizes 1 to 2 years earlier in females.
This is a summary of a book that explores a study that is the largest longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging study reported to date (829 scans from 387 subjects, ages 3 to 27 years). It is a little different than most, as it uses size-by-age trajectories of brain development rather than group averages across broad age as many other studies do.
It was able to recognize clear differences between male and female brains when relating to their development with age. If our brains were exactly the same, one would not develop earlier on average than the other.
Yes, clearly our brains do have plenty of similarities. We’ve all heard the term “mosaic” when referring to it, and that’s not necessarily wrong. To call it a mosaic is also to admit that there are parts that occur more often in one sex vs. the other, and that they have the ability to overlap depending on the person.
The concept of brain sex is not black and white. It isn’t a wild claim that says that all men function in the same exact way. It is not a sexist statement. The theory acknowledges variance of individual brains within a sex, and how they can share some similarities with brains of the opposite sex.
Here are a few more links that contain more specific information if you are interested in looking at them. (I was planning to do excerpts for each one of these, but this post is long enough as it is. The links below do not cover the topic of transsexuality. That is more difficult to find and not the point I’m making this very second. Just general brain differences.)
https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/11/6/490/370633/Normal-Sexual-Dimorphism-of-the-Adult-Human-Brain
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/6/1255.short
http://www.pnas.org/content/88/7/2845.short
http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1979-32746-001
That’s why “my brain doesn’t match my body” is ridiculously offensive and sexist.
My brain legitimately does not match my body. There is a period of time where the fetus’s brain is independently developing. During this period, it is very susceptible to hormones. Testosterone can have major influences on the undeveloped brain, even when the fetus is female. This, again, has absolutely nothing to do with personality (or even sexuality.) There are plenty of dysphoric effeminate trans men that can vouch for this.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/
(that link goes more in depth to what I’m talking about.)
http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956(10)00158-5/fulltext (this one is popular, but as a warning ahead of time: there are only 18 trans men, 24 males, and 19 females scanned.)
I could sit here and argue that claiming that the brain is a neutral organ is transphobic, as it would imply that my dysphoria is not caused by biology- which would imply that it is societal– and since much of society’s views on gender are only social constructs and not real facts, that would yet again imply that my dysphoria came from thin air, with no real grounding in anatomy. Not only is that wildly inaccurate, but it’s rather offensive as someone who suffers because, and only because, of my primary and secondary sex characteristics. Not social views, and not a dysmorphic mental illness like anorexia.
And while I do believe that, such implications were clearly not your intention at all. It is worth mentioning them either way. This is a delicate and controversial topic that may seem insignificant to others, but it has a massive effect on your life if you are trans. This could be the the line between insurance coverage vs. no insurance– which for some extreme cases is life and death.
Saying your brain doesn’t match your body is saying your personality or interests don’t match the stereotypes of a certain sex. And sexist stereotypes are something we’re trying to break, not encourage.
No. There is no such thing as a collective personality or interests of a sex. Yes, (instinctive, not random things like football) masculine behavior is more frequently observed in men than in women, which is a result of both nature and nurture. Masculinity and femininity are present in both men and women. Though there are some common grounds amongst people of the same sex, either by primal biological instincts or by newer trends, personality and hobbies are not sex-determined.
I agree that sexist stereotypes are something we are trying to break.
Instead of outright denying our differences, we should accept them and make an effort to understand them so we can better understand each other. Acknowledgment is a far healthier method of healing than denial. It might just bite us in the back one day.
(If anyone wants to expand on these studies you’re more than welcome. I had a whole bunch of them, but I can’t find them anymore and wanted to focus more on the arguments then on details.)
