Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences

by Cordelia Fine

Then, there is the sad fact that, at its most precise, functional imaging technology averages over a few seconds the activity of literally millions of neurons that can fire up to a hundred impulses a second.

‘Using fMRI to spy on neurons is something like using Cold War–era satellites to spy on people: Only large-scale activity is visible’, says Science journalist Greg Miller.

‘despite the author’s extensive academic credentials, The Female Brain disappointingly fails to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance. The book is riddled with scientific errors and is misleading about the processes of brain development,

‘All of the therapists who showed these responses happened to be women.’10 For some reason, she fails to mention that this is because only female therapists, selected from phone directories, happened to be recruited for the study.

We may never know enough to be able to do that.’40 And so, instead, we quickly find ourselves falling back on god-awful gender stereotypes.

Clearly, the genius minds behind the marketing had stumbled on the discovery that information sounds far more impressive when couched in the grand language of neuroscience.

By now, you will probably be uneasy about the idea that complex psychological skills like language, maths and geometry can be pinpointed to a single part of the brain.

The researchers aren’t explaining their result, they’re redescribing it: women are worse at spatial reasoning because women are worse at spatial reasoning.

Gender stereotypes are legitimated by these pseudo-scientific explanations. Suddenly, one is being modern and scientific, rather than old-fashioned and sexist.

This damaging effect of the genetic account, the researchers suggest, may stem from people’s assumption that genetically based differences are more profound and immutable than differences that arise from social factors.

Finally, there’s an urgent need for editors, journalists and schools to develop far more sceptical attitudes towards claims made about sex differences in the brain.

terms like hardwired – on loan from computer science where it refers to fixedness – translate poorly to the domain of neural circuits that change and learn throughout life, indeed, in response to life.4

Among white children there were, respectively, about one-and-a-half and two boys for every girl. But among Asian American kids, the pattern was different.

When I tell parents that I’m writing a book about gender, the most common response I get is an anecdote about how they tried gender-neutral parenting, and it simply didn’t work.

And this is particularly important when implicit associations don’t match the more-modern beliefs of the conscious mind. Implicit attitudes play an important part in our psychology. They distort social perception, they leak out into our behaviour, they influence our decisions – and all without us realising.

You can learn a lot from birth announcements. In 2004, McGill University researchers analysed nearly 400 birth announcements placed by parents in two Canadian newspapers,

People unconsciously place a special value on the letter that begins their own name.

In fact, no. It made no difference. But something else, unspoken,

To them, the nonverbal actions spoke louder than words.

When it comes to race, children seem to be learning from the wrong half of the half-changed mind.

They sincerely believe that boys and girls deserve to be free to develop their own interests and to become rounded individuals – gender norms be damned – yet at the same time they channel and craft their children’s ‘gender performances’, especially for boys.

Count how many times you are asked, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ You are likely to have a 100 percent hit rate if you try this one spare afternoon.

Only towards the middle of the twentieth century did existing practices become fixed.1

there seems to be no work arrangement between mothers and fathers – including his unemployment or her massive salary – that lets women off the domestic hook.

In other words, as has been long observed, men are people, but women are women.)

They found that being categorised as a Red or a Blue for just three weeks was enough to bias children’s views.

By the last few days of the experiment these girls were playing almost exclusively with the boyish toys.

suggests that the rapidity with which highly educated and privileged parents fall back on biological explanations reflects their position at ‘the vanguard of a limited sociological imagination’.