{"id":52970,"date":"2012-12-09T11:00:53","date_gmt":"2012-12-09T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=52970"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:07:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:07:09","slug":"the-truth-about-pink-and-blue-brains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/12\/09\/the-truth-about-pink-and-blue-brains\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About “Pink” and “Blue” Brains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Ms.<\/a>\u00a0and the Huffington Post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I loathe to weigh in on the “war on men” conversation, but… alas.<\/p>\n

While one can use both logic and data to poke gaping holes in Suzanne Venker’s argument that women need to surrender to their femininity<\/a>\u00a0and let men think<\/em> that they’re in charge<\/a> if they ever want to get married, I just want to point out one thing — one endlessly repeated thing — that she gets very, very wrong.<\/p>\n

Venker claims<\/a> that there has “been an explosion of brain research” that proves that men and women have different brains. \u00a0This research, she claims, shows that men are loners who like to hunt and build things and women are nurturers who like to talk and take care of people.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0false on two fronts.<\/p>\n

First, she’s wrong about the brain research. \u00a0The books and articles claiming that there are “pink” and “blue” brains are not consistent with existing research. \u00a0(They are out there because people can make a lot of money by confirming other people’s biases.)<\/p>\n

What does<\/em> the research say?<\/p>\n

It’s true that scientists have documented a number of small, average sex differences in brain anatomy, composition, and function, as well as differences in size and tissue ratios. \u00a0(Other differences — such as the size of the corpus callosum and lateralization, whether one sex uses one side of their brain more than the other — have proven to be wrong.)<\/p>\n

So, scientists do find some differences, but they have largely failed to link these to differences in men’s and women’s observed emotions,\u00a0cognition,\u00a0 or behavior. \u00a0That is, we’ve found some differences, but we have no proof that they translate into anything. Moreover, new research suggests that differences we observe may be designed not to create differences between men and women, but to reduce them. \u00a0The brain may have two strategies for achieving the same outcome or one difference may compensate for another. \u00a0(For more, see Brain Gender<\/a> <\/em>by Melissa Hines.)<\/p>\n

That’s one reason why Venker is wrong.<\/p>\n

The second reason is even more damning. \u00a0Most of the research attempting to explain gender difference assumes<\/em> that there differences to explain. \u00a0 In fact,\u00a0meta-analyses aimed at summarizing the literature on human sex differences and similarities in traits, personality, cognitive abilities, sexuality, temperament, and motor skills offer better evidence for similarity than difference. \u00a0On the vast majority of traits, men and women overlap tremendously.<\/p>\n

Janet Hyde, a pioneer in this area, did a meta-analysis of meta-analyses<\/a>\u00a0that combined the results of 7,084 separate studies. She found evidence for a large or very large difference on 8% of characteristics and evidence for medium-sized differences on 15%. \u00a0She found evidence for small differences on another 48%. \u00a0What does a small difference look like? \u00a0Here’s an example of a mid-range small difference (for self-esteem):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the final 30% of characteristics, she found no evidence gender difference. \u00a0So, on 78% of characteristics, she found teensy differences or none at all. \u00a0Wow, “opposite sexes” indeed.<\/p>\n

The truth is, men aren’t loners and women aren’t talkers. Venker assumes the stereotypes and counts on her readers to agree that they are true, but the data doesn’t back her up.<\/p>\n

Two excellent books summarize the debates over gender and neuroscience. \u00a0Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender<\/em><\/a> is great for a beginner. She’s funny and you’ll learn a lot. Rebecca Jordan-Young’s Brain Storm<\/em><\/a> is great for someone who wants and intermediate to advanced introduction to these issues. \u00a0Her book is downright brilliant. \u00a0I highly recommend both.<\/p>\n

———————<\/p>\n

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at\u00a0Occidental College<\/a>. \u00a0Feel free to take a look at her forthcoming article, “The New Science of Sex Difference<\/a>.”\u00a0\u00a0You can also follow her on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Ms.\u00a0and the Huffington Post. I loathe to weigh in on the “war on men” conversation, but… alas. While one can use both logic and data to poke gaping holes in Suzanne Venker’s argument that women need to surrender to their femininity\u00a0and let men think that they’re in charge if they ever want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[664,55,23692,129],"class_list":["post-52970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biology","tag-gender","tag-gender-biology","tag-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52970"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67792,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52970\/revisions\/67792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}