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Neuroscientist Larry Cahill on the ‘neurosexism’ debate

dijit 8y ago
I feel like it might be a cause of being a bit older but my (single) mother always said that women and men were equal in worth not aptitude. Her exact words were “men and women are equal but different, in many ways they’re complimentary” she then explained that some men look down on women because they didn’t value how women think about things. She also said the same is true of some women viewing men. Later she would say that men and women are equally shitty to each other (when I was being abused at school by girls who knew I could not physically retaliate). I currently hold these views and neither feminism nor men’s-rights-activists seem to ascribe to those values, at best they pay lip service to the notion that we’re (on average, and grossly generalising) complimentary. I remember a small blurb about “judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree” in reference to our education system- Maybe it’s a old way of thinking. Maybe my mum wasn’t right at all, but I don’t understand why we can’t celebrate our differences instead of expecting women to fit in to men sized roles. Or alternatively making a “middle-ground” box which has to fit both sexes. If anyone wants to alter my way of thinking; I’m completely open to it- I am perfectly willing to accept that I’m old fashioned or incorrect here.
- jstanley 8y ago
  I don't really have a horse in this race, but the reason women might want to fit in to man-sized roles is because all the high-paying roles are man-sized.
  - mpfundstein 8y ago
    And because money (and power) is all that counts nowadays right? There was a time where it was not a shame if a woman chose to stay at home. Nowadays, people toll their eyes if my wife tells them about her (very own) choice..
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      I think this post was made in bad faith to the argument of the poster. Money and therefore power matter a lot in a society in which you must purchase almost all of your basic goods with it. housing, food, water, etc. Up to a certain point money does track with quality of life, and the point in which it ceases to be the case is well above median wealth. If we were to evaluate that it is normal for women to have less paying jobs because women’s work is worth less pay, then the knock off effect is that women aren’t worth a quality of life equal to men on average. Also, I am under the impression that rolling ones eyes at a choice to stay at home is a continued devaluation of women’s work. The upkeep of a living location and the caring of any little humans is a significant labor, such that upon outsourcing is often equivalent to a median yearly salary of a single person. However because there isn’t a common framework to evaluate worth beyond money in the society I live in, unpaid labor isn’t valued.
    - wccrawford 8y ago
      While I fully agree that people should accept that some people are driven by things other than money, and even beyond that, it should be perfectly socially acceptable to be driven by other goals instead... People who are driven by money, no matter gender, skin color, etc shouldn't be held back from it because of preconceptions about their ability. Only their actual ability should matter.
    - UncleMeat 8y ago
      Yet the us does not have mandatory maternity leave. Money is choices. That people must sacrifice it in order to do things like raise children is evidence that our society does not value homemaking.
      - AvocadoPanic 8y ago
        Or that our society values self-sufficiency and two-parrent households where one parent cares for the children in the home.
        amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  - dijit 8y ago
    I don't really have a solid response to that argument other than that I think we as a society need to stop emphasising traits that are predominantly held by men and start appreciating the traits that are predominantly held by women, those traits are incredibly valuable. To give a concrete example: Dame Caroline Haslett who was the President of the Women's Engineering Society in Britain created objectively the safest electrical outlet and plugging mechanism ever conceived (as long as you don't step on one). There was no such mandate for it to be so safe, you could argue that a man could have done exactly the same but I'd rather consider that she was being extremely empathetic as to how the device would be used and that safety in this area would quite literally save the lives of men, women and children. A world without her contribution would be a lesser one, but I would argue that it was made with her femininity, not with how much she filled a man-shaped role.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      >but I'd rather consider that she was being extremely empathetic Believing science is one thing, but that sounds like exactly the sort of "gendered narrative building" that feminists are trying to fight against. When they say stuff like "gender roles are fictional," a large part of it is due to people inventing stories in their heads about gender roles that aren't true. I think that it's fair to not try to add anything beyond what's demonstrably there.
      - deleted 8y ago
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      - AlexB138 8y ago
        > I think that it's fair to not try to add anything beyond what's demonstrably there. Why? If peoples' experiences and psychology (in my layman's understanding of agreeableness) show that women tend to be more empathetic than men, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to suggest that that may have benefited an inventor in a fantastic discovery they made. People have no obligation to buy into others' narratives. Groups can claim whatever they want is fictional, it doesn't mean everyone else has to censor their speech accordingly. I thought the person you were responding to was making a very thoughtful point, and one that was very respectful of women and the valuable insight some of them have that is often overlooked.
  - threeseed 8y ago
    Did you choose your role just because it is high-paying ? Or were there are other factors e.g. stimulating, flexible, empowering, creative etc. Because pretty sure women are selecting roles for a range of different factors as well. You know because all women aren't the same. Just like all men aren't the same.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Definitely the money. I can think of several career paths that likely would likely have made me happier but I didn't pursue them because I was able to do computer programming and why throw that potential money away.
      - dijit 8y ago
        That's actually quite sad. But you said it yourself: "several career paths would likely have made me happier". What's the point in living if not to be happy? Money is just a means to avoid unhappiness. It's been proven time and time again that after a decent income money does not increase happiness.
        dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        I've yet to find the point where more money doesn't make me happier. Money buys a lot of things that make you happy. Money is also more much more capable of making one's family happy than a job I like more than my current one is. It's not like I hate my job. I just like it less than the blue collar stuff I did before I got my degree. I don't have a trust fund. I have to make my own living and I optimized for doing that. Waxing poetic about "occupational fulfillment" is something the upper classes do after they've been upper class long enough to forget how well they have it. I don't care what other people think. Money is making me happy. My property is covered in classic cars in various states of disrepair, my fridge always has beer in it. My life is quite comfortable thanks to money. The ease with which money can be converted into things that bring me joy is unparalleled. Not taking all that for granted probably helps a lot.
  - tomohawk 8y ago
    The worst jobs out there are male dominated, and we don't see some big push to get more women working in them. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/20/the-worst-jobs-in-america/39364439/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/20/the-worst-jo...
    - burkaman 8y ago
      Did you actually look at this list? 1. Taxi Driver: Uber and Lyft have significantly increased the number of women, and there are lots of efforts to get more women involved. https://www.gosafr.com/ https://www.gosafr.com/ is one example. 2. Logger: This is probably the kind of job you were thinking of. Logging is completely male dominated, but there are some small efforts at change: https://www.pressherald.com/2019/03/17/the-axe-women-loggers-of-maine-emphasize-maines-forestry-heritage/ https://www.pressherald.com/2019/03/17/the-axe-women-loggers... and https://www.tigercat.com/between-the-branches/logger-girl/ https://www.tigercat.com/between-the-branches/logger-girl/ 3. Newspaper reporter: Majority male, but not overwhelmingly. Definitely a big push to equalize the field: http://www.womensmediacenter.com/reports/the-status-of-women-in-u.s.-media-2017 http://www.womensmediacenter.com/reports/the-status-of-women... 4. Retail salesperson: Majority women. 5. Enlisted military personnel: Hard to summarize here, but issues around women in the US military come up quite frequently in Congress and elsewhere, and the history of increasing participation and equality is long. 6. Corrections officer: Women were 37% of adult officers and 51% of juvenile officers in 2007 (http://www.corrections.com/articles/21703-women-as-corrections-professionals http://www.corrections.com/articles/21703-women-as-correctio...). There is a push to increase equality: https://www.correctionsone.com/women-in-corrections/ https://www.correctionsone.com/women-in-corrections/ 7. Disc jockey: Hard to find exact stats, but it's the same story as everywhere else in modern society. Used to be completely male dominated, now women are increasingly entering the industry and fighting against entrenched stereotypes. A random article: https://www.laweekly.com/music/women-djs-are-out-there-clubs-and-festivals-just-need-to-book-them-7091548 https://www.laweekly.com/music/women-djs-are-out-there-clubs... 8. Broadcaster: Feel like I'm starting to repeat myself. It's the same story as everywhere else in the media. Look at the Women's Media Center and other organizations for evidence of a push. 9. Advertising salesperson: Is this the kind of job you thought was on this list? Majority women, apparently: https://datausa.io/profile/soc/112011/#demographics https://datausa.io/profile/soc/112011/#demographics 10. Painter: Seems to be similar to logging. I honestly don't know why. Presumably it's historically male (like everything), and it's not a particularly desirable career for anyone. etc. Industries like logging and painting are outliers. There are some jobs that are so physically demanding that men have a significant innate advantage, but there's no natural reason for any industry to be 95+% male.
  - squish78 8y ago
    We need more women on the oil rigs
  - roenxi 8y ago
    But are the high paying roles man-sized or are the men shaping themselves to the high-paying roles? There is evidence that women are judged by appearance and men by financial success. Even a mild effect would be more than enough to skew the outcomes; it would impact the more competitive representatives of each gender.
    - MRD85 8y ago
      If being an aged care nurse suddenly paid handsomely I would bet that you'd find the field full of men in a mid term. Men make a habit out of taking whatever work makes them the best money.
  - strictfp 8y ago
    This. I think we have to dismantle roles which have extreme expectations. If you're expected to be available 24/7 and basically abandon your family for your job, it's something which overwhelming selects for men, who have that classic role in society. I think this is the most important question to solve if we want more equal outcome in worklife.
  - belorn 8y ago
    It not about high-paying roles. The industries that are talked about in gender segregation discussions are those that are high-paying, high social status jobs. A big difference. When I was young the highest paying job direct out of high school was underwater welder. Not many teenage girls are signing up for that program, nor are there much political interest to get 50/50 gender ration for jobs that work in the dark, dangerous, on rusty oil rigs far away from land. In a bit of irony, the same can be said for professions dominated by women. Hired midwifes during the summer vacation months here in Sweden are getting salaries up to 9k a month. Very few people here in Sweden has a monthly pay that high. Demand can skyrocket when you only recruit from half the population, at which point the employer will pay what the market demands.
- threeseed 8y ago
  It's not just an old way of thinking. It's frankly a dumb one. There are many women who are physically, emotionally and intellectually stronger than many men. And they are more than capable of doing a "men sized role" just as well as any man. And the situation applies vice versa as well. If you want to celebrate the differences between men and women, whatever that ever means, well then knock yourself out. But generalising the traits of billions of people is frankly insane and guaranteed to insult some decent size proportion of them.
  - harimau777 8y ago
    I don't really know much about the science behind how men and women as populations differ. However, I wonder if it would be possible for society to have a more nuanced approach to these issues: Encourage men and women as individuals to pursue roles that match their aptitudes and personalities even if they do not line up with their sex. Provide wisdom or rules of thumb based on how men and women as populations may differ. However, the problem that I would see with this approach is that humans tend to be lazy in their thinking, so general rules of thumb tend to become absolute rules.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> I feel like it might be a cause of being a bit older but my (single) mother always said that women and men were equal in worth not aptitude. My (also single) dad says that men are smarter and more ambitious than women, that womens' place is at home, taking care of the children and that society is broken because women are trying to do the things that men are naturally better at doing and don't want to do what they're good at. Your mom against my dad. Who wins?
  - Veen 8y ago
    The one who holds an opinion that’s roughly in line with the modern scientific understanding of gender differences.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
      Are you saying that the OP's mom has the opinion she has because she is aware of modern scientific understanding of gender differences? That was not the impression I got from the OP's comment. Not to mention that there seems to be considerable scientific controversy on what this "modern scientific understanding" is -and how else could it be? Science is a debate- I doubt we can settle it by listening to what our moms and dads say.
      - dijit 8y ago
        I believe the difference between our comments is that I have never had to discard her words before; thus I'm sharing them and trying to illicit a response which is either contradicting or confirmational. your comment: > My (also single) dad says that men are smarter and more ambitious than women, that womens' place is at home, taking care of the children and that society is broken because women are trying to do the things that men are naturally better at doing and don't want to do what they're good at. Men are smarter at what exactly? Mathematics? Although the question of whether there is a gender difference in math seems like a simple one, the answer is complicated. Overall there are only small differences in boys’ and girls’ math performance; those differences depend on the age and skill level of the student, what type of math they are attempting and how big of a dissimilarity is needed to say that boys’ and girls’ math performance is truly different. Ambitious? Again, Ambitious at what? travelling the world? starting and sustaining a family? or is it solely on what dollar amount is ascribed to an hour of your day? A womans place is at home is about as sexist an argument I have ever heard. By that logic my "place" is running around the jungle with a spear? please don't argue such bad faith. If I were to try to dig into what your argument actually is then I would assume you dislike my comment because it leans heavily on what my mother said. We're I arguing in bad faith I would probably say that you're rejecting her logic so outrightly because she is a woman. But I'm going to try to argue something else. I'm going to ask what smart and ambitious mean mean to you.
- erentz 8y ago
  > and neither feminism nor men’s-rights-activists seem to ascribe to those I’m not that old yet but feminism to me growing up was always that men and women should have the same opportunities and treatment, but never that they were the same. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s more of a recent phenomenon which claimed for itself the title of feminism - I doubt the original feminists would agree with it, but I don’t know. (I find it sad because to me it’s turned a serious movement for which very brave women had to fight hard into a joke.)
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    The conundrum for modern feminists is that we are becoming more aware that we are becoming more aware of the power of genetic outcomes. So when equality of treatment and opportunity doesn't get all the way to equality of outcome, then more radical ideas become tempting, and science can get tossed out the window.
    - deleted 8y ago
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    - Viliam1234 8y ago
      If some differences are caused by biological reasons, and some differences are caused by social reasons, then by removing the social reasons for inequality we achieve two things at the same time: 1) men and women become more equal; 2) the remaining reasons for inequality become predominantly biological (because the social ones are reduced, while the biological ones remain). But it is easy to make a completely opposite conclusion, such as: "if some differences are social, then all differences have to be social". And then, when trying harder does not change things anymore, it is only a proof that we need to try even harder.
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        The history has informed our intuitions here. Many things used to be described as biological that we now suspect are social. And those things have been used to prevent people from doing things they wanted to do. My take is: don't describe things as biological unless you are damn well sure that they are. We (as a society) have been wrong too many times before.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >I currently hold these views and neither feminism nor men’s-rights-activists seem to ascribe to those values, at best they pay lip service to the notion that we’re (on average, and grossly generalising) complimentary. Interesting. I've never really got the impression that Men's Rights Activists ascribe to any specific notion like that. To me the movement seems to be about shedding light on the injustices of our legal systems where men get screwed over: divorce court, custody of a child, alimony, punishments seemingly not being equal between the sexes. I guess they also have an element of fighting against social injustices such as false claims. I might be wrong though. I might simply be seeing only the things I care about in their movement, since I see it so rarely.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    If you follow the men's right movement you will notice that they regularly have to spend a small amount of time shutting down those going beyond "divorce court, custody of a child, alimony, punishments seemingly not being equal between the sexes" to those who want to put women "back in their place". Most seem to be the former, but the later does exist too and they want to join the group.
    - belorn 8y ago
      The feminist movement has their share of misandry, but society tend to ignore that minority of the movement and focus on the social issues that the movement highlight. In the end it doesn't matter if either movement has bad apples. What matter is if we want a society that make abortion illegal or a legal system that base judgement on gender.
- Nav_Panel 8y ago
  > I feel like it might be a cause of being a bit older but my (single) mother always said that women and men were equal in worth not aptitude. I actually like this line a lot, because it points to several of the problems in modern society. It makes you ask the question: "on what grounds is worth judged?" And then you realize that, without a clear way of thinking about "worth" (which is something organized religions provided), we, at least in the US, fall back on "economic value", which is determined by "aptitude". So we can pretty quickly see the philosophical pit we've fallen into: if "worth" and "aptitude" are intertwined, then the statement admits women are indeed "worth less". I want to agree with that statement. But, there's a problem: how can we come up with a method of judging worth that doesn't rely on some sort of "over-human validator" (e.g. God)? Or alternatively, how can we come up with a broadly acceptable method of judging human worth, without falling into the pitfalls of Abrahamic religious practices?
  - davrosthedalek 8y ago
    I'm not so sure if human being should have the attribute of "worth" (I formulate it like this because "have no worth" has a different meaning). If they do, you can make ugly calculations: It's worth to kill 300 PAX to save 1000s in the skyscraper the plane is going to fly into. It's worth to kill one prisoner in interrogation because he knows where his partner might have the hostage (or two?).
    - Nav_Panel 8y ago
      Worth doesn't have to be absolute nor quantifiable. To use a mathematics analogy, you can have an ordered set without addition and subtraction, and it could even be roughly ordered so you can't tell the difference between two adjacent elements.
      - bluGill 8y ago
        Worth doesn't even have to be one measure. In math you can have two different ordering functions which give different results on the same input.
  - 8y ago
- brlewis 8y ago
  > I don’t understand why we can’t celebrate our differences instead of expecting women to fit in to men sized roles. Who's asking you to "expect" anything? I think if you assess people's abilities individually everybody's happy.
  - wtdata 8y ago
    > I think if you assess people's abilities individually everybody's happy. It doesn't look like it. A lot of people in science are demanding equality of outcomes for groups (when the outcome is positive). They are well done pass asking for equality of opportunities.
  - commandlinefan 8y ago
    > if you assess people's abilities individually Well, James Damore got fired from Google (and, apparently, blackballed out of the employment market entirely) for insinuating that Google was assessing people's abilities individually. While I think you're correct, the problem is that too many people seem to try to evaluate whether or not everybody's abilities are being assessed individually by looking at the end result rather than looking at the individuals involved.
- drb91 8y ago
  “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” Equity, not equality.
  - tbrownaw 8y ago
    So where's that from, and how well has it worked out?
    - wtdata 8y ago
      It worked great in the West at least, the world was never as equitable and meritocratic as it is today and it is continuously progressing for better according to all factual data.
      - ionised 8y ago
        I'm still confused as to why people are holding meritocracy up as something we should aspire to. Meritocracy was originally devised as a negative concept, simply because the idea of what constitutes 'merit' is subjective and complex.
    - Frondo 8y ago
      What? Really? I can think of no better thing for humanity as a species to aspire to than this. "Do your best, help out the world, and your needs will be taken care of." As a goal for structuring society, if that isn't in your top 2 of "things to collectively strive for," I don't think it's a very good society. I grew up on the Star Trek vision of utopia, though, and hope that some day humanity still gets there.
      - Frondo 8y ago
        In addition to downvoting, I would really appreciate hearing from folks about what's a better way to structure society than "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"; and specifically, why wouldn't you want to make sure each individual's needs in the society are met?
- didibus 8y ago
  I think both are relevant and need debating. The idea of being equal in worth is interesting. How do you define it? Is it a kind of humanitarian worth? That all people are deserving of basic rights, decency and respect? Such would be the case even for handicapped or mentally challenged individuals? Or are you saying that their set of aptitudes, while not identical, sum up to an equal worth in utilitarian terms? Say, for example, taking one of the very strong stereotype, that child bearing is so useful to our societies, that it makes women as worthy as even the strongest of men and their aptitude for heavy lifting? Now, the idea of equal aptitude is relevant as well. There's two main reasons for that. The first is that, some aptitudes, like intelligence, such as talents in mathematics, or decision making in general, has historically been thought of as inferior for women. Yet, there's never been evidence of this as far as I know. In fact, now that we admitted women in higher education, they are out outclassing men in most fields when it comes to grades. So this is a very relevant debate, because bias still exist, that a pretty young woman can't be as smart as a young man. The other reason is the wash of the average. Lots of women are physically stronger then lots of men. Similarly, lots of men are emotionally more adept then lots of women. Thus aptitude shouldn't be characterised by gender, but it should be more individualized. This applies in some scenarios, like not giving women applicants a chance at very physical jobs. Even though some women have the necessary aptitudes.
high_derivative 8y ago
Might as well directly read Cahill's piece which the above article refers to: https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of-sex-differences/ https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of...
tlear 8y ago
Well he did not have sjw mob outside his office he will now.
- dijit 8y ago
  Because I believe in commenting on why when I downvote: This comment is not constructive or engaging a debate in good faith.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
MrScruff 8y ago
I think the point of the article is that the science supports the fact that there are sex differences in the brain. Ideas that the article does not propose include: - Men are better than Women or vice versa. - Men are better suited to X activity or job. The point was that the science should be evidence lead and defended from ideologues regardless of your view on the broader political issues. Ideologues attempt to bend all evidence to support a pre-existing conclusion, and the politicisation of science is bad in all cases because it undermines the entire process. It's depressing that a publication such as Nature should be affected in this way.
- pryce 8y ago
  If your ideology is that any measured sex differences in the brain should be automatically interpreted as 'innate' facts about men and women, rather than -say- the cumulative result of a combination of gene expression (including sex chromosomes), developmental biology and (in anything other than newborns) socialization, then you're still imposing an ideology on the available data. 'Blank slate theory' simply isn't what feminists are arguing; they are arguing that our society has a woefully poor record of hastily ascribing traits to a kind of biological determinism, and further claims of that type should be heavily scrutinised.
  - MrScruff 8y ago
    I believe at least some of the studies mentioned were dealing with rats rather than humans. I didn't read anything from the sourced article that overstepped the bounds of what could be said from the research. It seemed like all the interpretation was being done by the non-scientists.
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    They're not just saying they should be heavily scrutinized. At least some are saying that it's flat out bad science to acknowledge the differences, or perform research into the subject at all. They're denying science for ideological ends. It's pretty much the same thing as conservatives with climate change. They don't like what science has to say, so they're trying to shut it down. I'm generally pro-feminism, but no 'side' has a monopoly on bad opinions.
trombonechamp 8y ago
A serious problem is that in 99.9% of things that you study in the brain, there will be no sex difference. However, every researcher records sex information in the data they collect. So even if there isn't a scientific reason to think there might be a sex difference in whatever you are studying, you might as well test it because it is zero extra effort. That means that about 1/20 studies will show an effect with $p<.05$.
- zaroth 8y ago
  What you are stating is factually at odds with TFA, and your example of tracking sex in research studies is interesting because the NIH tweets: Sex can influence health & disease in many ways, which is why NIH requires that researchers consider sex as a biological variable (SABV) in all stages of research: http://bit.ly/2KXGL7k http://bit.ly/2KXGL7k
- deleted 8y ago
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- jmcgough 8y ago
  It's not zero extra effort. If you want to maintain your statistical power for both male and female, that means doubling your sample size. And it's unlikely that they'll be identical 99.9% of the time. The article suggests that we'd see frequent, small differences, but there haven't been enough studies of this type to know for certain.
etatoby 8y ago
"there are people on this campus in the Gender Studies Department who use books by one of these ideologues and literally have classes basically saying that what I’m saying is wrong." Q1. What purpose does a Gender Studies Department serve. Q2. Why are its teachings based not on science, but apparently on the opposite?
- threeseed 8y ago
  1) Gender Studies is about the discussion of gender. And the purpose is to satisfy the needs of students who want to learn about it. No different to studying art, computers, music. 2) It's not based on the opposite. It's based on a superset of factors of which science is just one. We don't interact with other people according to purely scientific algorithms and so dealing with the emotional, political and philosophical aspects are equally as important as the scientific.
  - claytongulick 8y ago
    Are you claiming that the emotional, political and philosophical interactions of humans can not be evaluated scientifically? If the scientific process does not apply to Gender Studies, that's fine I suppose, it can be considered part of the arts. However, it would be an error to then consider forming policy based on it - similar to forming policy based on music or painting. In order for us to make policy decisions or recommendations, there needs to be academic rigor, otherwise we may as well be a theocracy. I know you didn't directly bring up anything about forming policy, so those points aren't necessarily directed at you. I bring them up because I see a lot of material from the field of Gender Studies being used to form policy, law and social expectations.
    - throwaway2048 8y ago
      Science doesn't have a monopoly on truth or validity, in academic contexts, or otherwise. https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-religion/what-scientism https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-re...
lukev 8y ago
I think the article misrepresents the feminist position a bit. When they protest the study of "sex differences", it's not (usually) in a flat-earth or creationist sense of literally denying the science and claiming a-priori that all brains are identical. Rather, they are observing that the notion of one sex being biologically "superior" (or at least more suitable for high-prestige roles) has a long and oppressive history in our society, and that incautious "research" can be used to bolster types of sexism that we had hoped were behind us. Indeed, we see this happening on this very site all the time, whenever the topic comes up. It's not that sex differences might not exist. It's that the instant you publish anything on the the topic, conservatives will inevitably and immediately latch onto it as proof that the traditional gender roles have been correct all along. Even if that's not what the studies show (and there's actually no reason to think they would, as the article points out.) Basically, the point of feminists is that society is so fraught on this issue, and there's so much latent bias, that it is extremely difficult to perform research objectively, let alone have it be received objectively and proportionately by an audience outside the field.
- merpnderp 8y ago
  Kind of like the not so latent bias you have against conservatives? Where is the conservative movement to keep women out of industry? What conservative of any importance says women aren't qualified to be scientists, doctors, lawyers or presidents? Saying conservatives support sexist gender roles is like saying liberals support anti-vaxxers - wrong.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >society is so fraught on this issue, and there's so much latent bias, that it is extremely difficult to perform research objectively That's exactly what global warming skeptics say, along with every conservative that doesn't support one of the non-conservative positions that is associated with science. This is not to say who is right in their accusations, just that it's the same accusation. If you want to disagree with "The Scientific Consensus (TM)" but can't do it on scientific grounds, that claim is automatically the option you have to go with. Of course, it may also be true in some cases.
bparsons 8y ago
As soon as I saw that he published in Quillette, I knew this person was a crank. It is a bizarre collection of malcontents who cannot stop obsessing about trans people.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  This feels like a pretty bad faith attack. > Cahill, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California at Irvine, is considered one of the world’s leading researchers on the influence of biological sex. I mean, he doesn't sound like a crank, and he's also written for Scientific American. Does that mean he's acceptable after all?
Jun8 8y ago
This was the takeaway for me from this interesting interview: "Q: Is there a battle between actual scientists and science journalists who may be in thrall to a progressive or woke ideology? A: No, because most scientists are blissfully unaware..." As long as scientists stay away from these discussions, the field will be left to "ideologues" as Cahill calls them, i.e. people who either have little knowledge of the subject they're discussing or else have such a strong agenda that it strongly biases their views and prior probabilities.
- bjourne 8y ago
  Calling those who disagree with you "ideologues" is not a great way of debating. The op-ed he was railing against was written by two professors, one in neuroscience and the other in history and the philosophy of science. The book review he also criticized was written by a professor of neuroscience. There is little evidence for that these people deserve to be called "ideologues". https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brains-mosaic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brain... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x
  - int_19h 8y ago
    His review claims that the book cites numerous already-debunked studies while ignoring large swaths of research that contradicts its thesis, which is hard to square with a scientific approach regardless of author's credentials. Which is to say, one can be a scientist and an ideologue at the same time. Of course, so can Cahill. But is there similar evidence that he cherry-picks studies to arrive at predetermined conclusions (not a rhetorical question; genuinely curious)?
    - bjourne 8y ago
      Yes, his review is scathing. "I started to laugh in the methods section. The authors constructed their key measure (called “internal consistency”) to make it essentially impossible for them to not get the results they got. Or put another way, the study was basically rigged (although not necessarily consciously so), as subsequently shown by three other groups also published in PNAS." So he accuses those he disagrees with of having committed science fraud. Not only that, this fraudulent science has passed peer review and been published in PNAS. It is odd that it has not been retracted if it was so laughable as Cahill claims! He also claims that these "ideologues" have such a strong grip on academia that they will destroy your career if you oppose them: "Senior colleagues warned me as an untenured professor around the year 2000 that studying sex differences would be career suicide." It is smearing, which he offers no evidence for, hoping that the readership will already "know" it is true. Maybe he is right, maybe he is not, I can't tell. If he is right then I hope more neuroscientists speak up about the bullying and that journals like PNAS stops publishing junk science.
legulere 8y ago
If differing hormones lead to different brains why can’t different roles in society lead to different brains? How is it possible to differentiate the two effects?
- Viliam1234 8y ago
  You could compare different societies, for example Saudi Arabia and Sweden. If some gender differences remain, it is still not certainty, but it is quite likely that they are caused by some brain chemistry. (Unless you believe that Sweden is just as patriarchal as Saudi Arabia, in which case I guess there is no argument that could possibly convince you.) Another possible approach is to examine what happens to transgender people after they start taking hormones.
  - wtdata 8y ago
    The science points towards many of the differences in the brain taking place in utero. Hormone therapy in adults won't change those.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> No one seems to have a problem accepting that, on average, male and female bodies differ in many, many ways. Why is it surprising or unacceptable that this is true for the part of our body that we call “brain”? Because the differences between male and female "bodies", meaning anatomical differences like sex characteristics, are obvious and self-evident, while differences in brain structure are not and therefore require careful study. Further, because there are well-known and deeply entrenched cultural biases that risk derailing this careful study and therefore any initial assumptions that coincide with these cultural biases must be eliminated before serious work can begin. Finally, because any result that just so happens, completely by chance, and despite the scientists' best effort, to agree with preconceived notions about "how things are" should be considered extremely suspicious and scrutinised again, and again, and again, and again, and noone who really wants to understand the relevant subjects should feel comfortable accepting such results as settled, much less defend them as "scientific orthodoxy". In other words, because "bias" is as much a problem in science as it is in society, and because in the science of sex differences it is doubly so.
- tynpeddler 8y ago
  And just to show how complicated science in general is, your thinking is another example of bias. Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science. The burden of proof must be equally high for everyone. The real problem here isn't the science, is the pseudo-science and the journalism. It's pretty common for people to take single studies out of context and act as if their cherry picked study is the final word. Science journalists are supposed to bridge the gap between experts and laymen, but there seems to be very few good science journalists, and there seems to be lots of hacks and conmen.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    >> Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science. That is not my comment. My comment claims that cultural bias can influence the result of scientific studies and we must be vigilant not to let this happen. Do you disagree?
rdlecler1 8y ago
When I was visiting Pre-schools for my son to enter at 18 months I asked them how they handle discipline and behavior. They said that sometimes they have a class which is mostly boys and it’s quite chaotic. If the class is mostly girls it’s much more calm. That’s at 18-30 months.
- wtdata 8y ago
  Yes, and they are increasingly diagnosing those children with ADHD and putting them under drugs to control them (roughly 60% of diagnosed children with ADHD are under medication, 84% of them are boys): https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/gender/ https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/gende...
  - criddell 8y ago
    Have the outcomes been studied? Are those kids better off with the medication?
  - asark 8y ago
    I'm worried about this outcome for my 4-year-old. He needs several hours a day to run himself tired or he acts like a crazy person. I don't think that means he is a crazy person, or has ADHD, or whatever. I think it just means he needs to run himself tired for several hours a day. Hell, I'd probably be saner and healthier if I did the same. Meanwhile the kindergarten he'll attend has cut recess to once per day, something like 20-25min, and if they do indoor "recess" due to weather they often just watch a movie. Even if he cools off some by the time he goes, he's gonna need like 4x that much running around outside or in a gym per day, minimum, to not end up medicated or constantly in trouble.
deleted 8y ago
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jpmoyn 8y ago
"One of the things that blows students’ minds is to realize that women disproportionately, about twice as much, suffer from all anxiety and depression disorders relative to men, and almost all our models for studying anxiety disorders are based on male animals." This right here is one of the concrete reasons for why we NEED to recognize neurological sex differences, and have studies that focus specifically on genders. We could discover loads about treatment differences by gender, and really help a lot of people who are suffering from depression (something that is becoming more prevalent by the day).
- Balgair 8y ago
  The NIH has moved the requirements in rodent research recently. Previously, using only male rodents (bucks) was considered just fine. After some really alarming studies out of McGill [0], much of the field has changed. Now, you must garner a waiver to only use one sex vs. the other in rodent studies. The effects of this change remain to be seen, but are generally thought of as positive. Some context is needed though. The estrous cycle of dams is fairly complicated[1]. Controlling variables in hormones, hydration, etc. is much easier in bucks. Since the experiments are easier to control for, you need less rodents and therefore you need less funding for rodent care and housing, and you need to sacrifice less rodents to do the experiment (generally). Hence why they have been the 'preferred' rodent sex historically, among many other reasons. Additionally, rodents are some of the 'first' level in vivo models, but are far from the last in the long line of research that is human applicable. It is very common that research done in rodents will not translate to other mainstay research vertebrates like dogs and monkeys, let alone into humans. The differences in the sexes are vastly outweighed by the differences in species. Generally, yes, it is good that we are now defaulting to having to use both sexes of rodents. However, costs and sacrifices per experiment have risen as a result. All things have trade-offs in our world. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=mcgill+pain+mice+research+males&oq=mcgill+pain+mice+research+males&aqs=chrome..69i57.11887j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=mcgill+pain+mice+research+ma... [1] https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Estrous_Cycle https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Estr...
User23 8y ago
From the article: “To see that headline, honestly, knowing what I know about the dramatic change in neuroscience in the past 15 to 20 years, it’s not a lot different than seeing a headline like “The Myth That Evolution Applies to Humans.” That would be comparable.” That made me chuckle.
WhompingWindows 8y ago
If there is a sex-defined bi-modal distribution of neurological characteristics, meaning for instance in IQ, then there are two separate but overlapping curves for the sexes, then it's true that there is both overlap and difference between the sexes. This difference is clearly evident in physical traits like height, which is an objective measurement, whereas the utility of IQ will be debated for decades, most likely. We can't argue that IQ is non-overlapping though, there are low and high outliers in each sex or in every subgroup that will overlap with every other subgroup (same goes for race, economic status, education, any socio-dem slice you can think of). Given large populations, this is practically a certainty. IMO, the problem arises in the subjectivity of psycho-metrics, which can be very lackluster tools. IQ, cognitive function, working memory, long term memory, and on and on -much harder to establish a clear difference between these across the two sexes, given with such imprecise and arbitrary measures.
int_19h 8y ago
One thing of note. The cited review by Cahill says this: "Rippon does not mention Udry’s work, or its essential replication by Udry’s harshest critic, a leading sociologist who has described herself as a “feminist” who now “wrestles” with testosterone." But the person in question had this to say: "This totally misrepresents my re-analysis of Udry data. (I’m the feminist who wrestles with testosterone). Might misrepresent much else as well?" (https://twitter.com/bjrisman/status/1112534702362165251 https://twitter.com/bjrisman/status/1112534702362165251)

I feel like it might be a cause of being a bit older but my (single) mother always said that women and men were equal in worth not aptitude. Her exact words were “men and women are equal but different, in many ways they’re complimentary” she then explained that some men look down on women because they didn’t value how women think about things. She also said the same is true of some women viewing men. Later she would say that men and women are equally shitty to each other (when I was being abused at school by girls who knew I could not physically retaliate). I currently hold these views and neither feminism nor men’s-rights-activists seem to ascribe to those values, at best they pay lip service to the notion that we’re (on average, and grossly generalising) complimentary. I remember a small blurb about “judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree” in reference to our education system- Maybe it’s a old way of thinking. Maybe my mum wasn’t right at all, but I don’t understand why we can’t celebrate our differences instead of expecting women to fit in to men sized roles. Or alternatively making a “middle-ground” box which has to fit both sexes. If anyone wants to alter my way of thinking; I’m completely open to it- I am perfectly willing to accept that I’m old fashioned or incorrect here.

jstanley 8y ago
I don't really have a horse in this race, but the reason women might want to fit in to man-sized roles is because all the high-paying roles are man-sized.
- mpfundstein 8y ago
  And because money (and power) is all that counts nowadays right? There was a time where it was not a shame if a woman chose to stay at home. Nowadays, people toll their eyes if my wife tells them about her (very own) choice..
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    I think this post was made in bad faith to the argument of the poster. Money and therefore power matter a lot in a society in which you must purchase almost all of your basic goods with it. housing, food, water, etc. Up to a certain point money does track with quality of life, and the point in which it ceases to be the case is well above median wealth. If we were to evaluate that it is normal for women to have less paying jobs because women’s work is worth less pay, then the knock off effect is that women aren’t worth a quality of life equal to men on average. Also, I am under the impression that rolling ones eyes at a choice to stay at home is a continued devaluation of women’s work. The upkeep of a living location and the caring of any little humans is a significant labor, such that upon outsourcing is often equivalent to a median yearly salary of a single person. However because there isn’t a common framework to evaluate worth beyond money in the society I live in, unpaid labor isn’t valued.
  - wccrawford 8y ago
    While I fully agree that people should accept that some people are driven by things other than money, and even beyond that, it should be perfectly socially acceptable to be driven by other goals instead... People who are driven by money, no matter gender, skin color, etc shouldn't be held back from it because of preconceptions about their ability. Only their actual ability should matter.
  - UncleMeat 8y ago
    Yet the us does not have mandatory maternity leave. Money is choices. That people must sacrifice it in order to do things like raise children is evidence that our society does not value homemaking.
    - AvocadoPanic 8y ago
      Or that our society values self-sufficiency and two-parrent households where one parent cares for the children in the home.
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
- dijit 8y ago
  I don't really have a solid response to that argument other than that I think we as a society need to stop emphasising traits that are predominantly held by men and start appreciating the traits that are predominantly held by women, those traits are incredibly valuable. To give a concrete example: Dame Caroline Haslett who was the President of the Women's Engineering Society in Britain created objectively the safest electrical outlet and plugging mechanism ever conceived (as long as you don't step on one). There was no such mandate for it to be so safe, you could argue that a man could have done exactly the same but I'd rather consider that she was being extremely empathetic as to how the device would be used and that safety in this area would quite literally save the lives of men, women and children. A world without her contribution would be a lesser one, but I would argue that it was made with her femininity, not with how much she filled a man-shaped role.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    >but I'd rather consider that she was being extremely empathetic Believing science is one thing, but that sounds like exactly the sort of "gendered narrative building" that feminists are trying to fight against. When they say stuff like "gender roles are fictional," a large part of it is due to people inventing stories in their heads about gender roles that aren't true. I think that it's fair to not try to add anything beyond what's demonstrably there.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - AlexB138 8y ago
      > I think that it's fair to not try to add anything beyond what's demonstrably there. Why? If peoples' experiences and psychology (in my layman's understanding of agreeableness) show that women tend to be more empathetic than men, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to suggest that that may have benefited an inventor in a fantastic discovery they made. People have no obligation to buy into others' narratives. Groups can claim whatever they want is fictional, it doesn't mean everyone else has to censor their speech accordingly. I thought the person you were responding to was making a very thoughtful point, and one that was very respectful of women and the valuable insight some of them have that is often overlooked.
- threeseed 8y ago
  Did you choose your role just because it is high-paying ? Or were there are other factors e.g. stimulating, flexible, empowering, creative etc. Because pretty sure women are selecting roles for a range of different factors as well. You know because all women aren't the same. Just like all men aren't the same.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Definitely the money. I can think of several career paths that likely would likely have made me happier but I didn't pursue them because I was able to do computer programming and why throw that potential money away.
    - dijit 8y ago
      That's actually quite sad. But you said it yourself: "several career paths would likely have made me happier". What's the point in living if not to be happy? Money is just a means to avoid unhappiness. It's been proven time and time again that after a decent income money does not increase happiness.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        I've yet to find the point where more money doesn't make me happier. Money buys a lot of things that make you happy. Money is also more much more capable of making one's family happy than a job I like more than my current one is. It's not like I hate my job. I just like it less than the blue collar stuff I did before I got my degree. I don't have a trust fund. I have to make my own living and I optimized for doing that. Waxing poetic about "occupational fulfillment" is something the upper classes do after they've been upper class long enough to forget how well they have it. I don't care what other people think. Money is making me happy. My property is covered in classic cars in various states of disrepair, my fridge always has beer in it. My life is quite comfortable thanks to money. The ease with which money can be converted into things that bring me joy is unparalleled. Not taking all that for granted probably helps a lot.
- tomohawk 8y ago
  The worst jobs out there are male dominated, and we don't see some big push to get more women working in them. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/20/the-worst-jobs-in-america/39364439/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/04/20/the-worst-jo...
  - burkaman 8y ago
    Did you actually look at this list? 1. Taxi Driver: Uber and Lyft have significantly increased the number of women, and there are lots of efforts to get more women involved. https://www.gosafr.com/ https://www.gosafr.com/ is one example. 2. Logger: This is probably the kind of job you were thinking of. Logging is completely male dominated, but there are some small efforts at change: https://www.pressherald.com/2019/03/17/the-axe-women-loggers-of-maine-emphasize-maines-forestry-heritage/ https://www.pressherald.com/2019/03/17/the-axe-women-loggers... and https://www.tigercat.com/between-the-branches/logger-girl/ https://www.tigercat.com/between-the-branches/logger-girl/ 3. Newspaper reporter: Majority male, but not overwhelmingly. Definitely a big push to equalize the field: http://www.womensmediacenter.com/reports/the-status-of-women-in-u.s.-media-2017 http://www.womensmediacenter.com/reports/the-status-of-women... 4. Retail salesperson: Majority women. 5. Enlisted military personnel: Hard to summarize here, but issues around women in the US military come up quite frequently in Congress and elsewhere, and the history of increasing participation and equality is long. 6. Corrections officer: Women were 37% of adult officers and 51% of juvenile officers in 2007 (http://www.corrections.com/articles/21703-women-as-corrections-professionals http://www.corrections.com/articles/21703-women-as-correctio...). There is a push to increase equality: https://www.correctionsone.com/women-in-corrections/ https://www.correctionsone.com/women-in-corrections/ 7. Disc jockey: Hard to find exact stats, but it's the same story as everywhere else in modern society. Used to be completely male dominated, now women are increasingly entering the industry and fighting against entrenched stereotypes. A random article: https://www.laweekly.com/music/women-djs-are-out-there-clubs-and-festivals-just-need-to-book-them-7091548 https://www.laweekly.com/music/women-djs-are-out-there-clubs... 8. Broadcaster: Feel like I'm starting to repeat myself. It's the same story as everywhere else in the media. Look at the Women's Media Center and other organizations for evidence of a push. 9. Advertising salesperson: Is this the kind of job you thought was on this list? Majority women, apparently: https://datausa.io/profile/soc/112011/#demographics https://datausa.io/profile/soc/112011/#demographics 10. Painter: Seems to be similar to logging. I honestly don't know why. Presumably it's historically male (like everything), and it's not a particularly desirable career for anyone. etc. Industries like logging and painting are outliers. There are some jobs that are so physically demanding that men have a significant innate advantage, but there's no natural reason for any industry to be 95+% male.
- squish78 8y ago
  We need more women on the oil rigs
- roenxi 8y ago
  But are the high paying roles man-sized or are the men shaping themselves to the high-paying roles? There is evidence that women are judged by appearance and men by financial success. Even a mild effect would be more than enough to skew the outcomes; it would impact the more competitive representatives of each gender.
  - MRD85 8y ago
    If being an aged care nurse suddenly paid handsomely I would bet that you'd find the field full of men in a mid term. Men make a habit out of taking whatever work makes them the best money.
- strictfp 8y ago
  This. I think we have to dismantle roles which have extreme expectations. If you're expected to be available 24/7 and basically abandon your family for your job, it's something which overwhelming selects for men, who have that classic role in society. I think this is the most important question to solve if we want more equal outcome in worklife.
- belorn 8y ago
  It not about high-paying roles. The industries that are talked about in gender segregation discussions are those that are high-paying, high social status jobs. A big difference. When I was young the highest paying job direct out of high school was underwater welder. Not many teenage girls are signing up for that program, nor are there much political interest to get 50/50 gender ration for jobs that work in the dark, dangerous, on rusty oil rigs far away from land. In a bit of irony, the same can be said for professions dominated by women. Hired midwifes during the summer vacation months here in Sweden are getting salaries up to 9k a month. Very few people here in Sweden has a monthly pay that high. Demand can skyrocket when you only recruit from half the population, at which point the employer will pay what the market demands.
threeseed 8y ago
It's not just an old way of thinking. It's frankly a dumb one. There are many women who are physically, emotionally and intellectually stronger than many men. And they are more than capable of doing a "men sized role" just as well as any man. And the situation applies vice versa as well. If you want to celebrate the differences between men and women, whatever that ever means, well then knock yourself out. But generalising the traits of billions of people is frankly insane and guaranteed to insult some decent size proportion of them.
- harimau777 8y ago
  I don't really know much about the science behind how men and women as populations differ. However, I wonder if it would be possible for society to have a more nuanced approach to these issues: Encourage men and women as individuals to pursue roles that match their aptitudes and personalities even if they do not line up with their sex. Provide wisdom or rules of thumb based on how men and women as populations may differ. However, the problem that I would see with this approach is that humans tend to be lazy in their thinking, so general rules of thumb tend to become absolute rules.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> I feel like it might be a cause of being a bit older but my (single) mother always said that women and men were equal in worth not aptitude. My (also single) dad says that men are smarter and more ambitious than women, that womens' place is at home, taking care of the children and that society is broken because women are trying to do the things that men are naturally better at doing and don't want to do what they're good at. Your mom against my dad. Who wins?
- Veen 8y ago
  The one who holds an opinion that’s roughly in line with the modern scientific understanding of gender differences.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    Are you saying that the OP's mom has the opinion she has because she is aware of modern scientific understanding of gender differences? That was not the impression I got from the OP's comment. Not to mention that there seems to be considerable scientific controversy on what this "modern scientific understanding" is -and how else could it be? Science is a debate- I doubt we can settle it by listening to what our moms and dads say.
    - dijit 8y ago
      I believe the difference between our comments is that I have never had to discard her words before; thus I'm sharing them and trying to illicit a response which is either contradicting or confirmational. your comment: > My (also single) dad says that men are smarter and more ambitious than women, that womens' place is at home, taking care of the children and that society is broken because women are trying to do the things that men are naturally better at doing and don't want to do what they're good at. Men are smarter at what exactly? Mathematics? Although the question of whether there is a gender difference in math seems like a simple one, the answer is complicated. Overall there are only small differences in boys’ and girls’ math performance; those differences depend on the age and skill level of the student, what type of math they are attempting and how big of a dissimilarity is needed to say that boys’ and girls’ math performance is truly different. Ambitious? Again, Ambitious at what? travelling the world? starting and sustaining a family? or is it solely on what dollar amount is ascribed to an hour of your day? A womans place is at home is about as sexist an argument I have ever heard. By that logic my "place" is running around the jungle with a spear? please don't argue such bad faith. If I were to try to dig into what your argument actually is then I would assume you dislike my comment because it leans heavily on what my mother said. We're I arguing in bad faith I would probably say that you're rejecting her logic so outrightly because she is a woman. But I'm going to try to argue something else. I'm going to ask what smart and ambitious mean mean to you.
erentz 8y ago
> and neither feminism nor men’s-rights-activists seem to ascribe to those I’m not that old yet but feminism to me growing up was always that men and women should have the same opportunities and treatment, but never that they were the same. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s more of a recent phenomenon which claimed for itself the title of feminism - I doubt the original feminists would agree with it, but I don’t know. (I find it sad because to me it’s turned a serious movement for which very brave women had to fight hard into a joke.)
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  The conundrum for modern feminists is that we are becoming more aware that we are becoming more aware of the power of genetic outcomes. So when equality of treatment and opportunity doesn't get all the way to equality of outcome, then more radical ideas become tempting, and science can get tossed out the window.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Viliam1234 8y ago
    If some differences are caused by biological reasons, and some differences are caused by social reasons, then by removing the social reasons for inequality we achieve two things at the same time: 1) men and women become more equal; 2) the remaining reasons for inequality become predominantly biological (because the social ones are reduced, while the biological ones remain). But it is easy to make a completely opposite conclusion, such as: "if some differences are social, then all differences have to be social". And then, when trying harder does not change things anymore, it is only a proof that we need to try even harder.
    - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
      The history has informed our intuitions here. Many things used to be described as biological that we now suspect are social. And those things have been used to prevent people from doing things they wanted to do. My take is: don't describe things as biological unless you are damn well sure that they are. We (as a society) have been wrong too many times before.
Mirioron 8y ago
>I currently hold these views and neither feminism nor men’s-rights-activists seem to ascribe to those values, at best they pay lip service to the notion that we’re (on average, and grossly generalising) complimentary. Interesting. I've never really got the impression that Men's Rights Activists ascribe to any specific notion like that. To me the movement seems to be about shedding light on the injustices of our legal systems where men get screwed over: divorce court, custody of a child, alimony, punishments seemingly not being equal between the sexes. I guess they also have an element of fighting against social injustices such as false claims. I might be wrong though. I might simply be seeing only the things I care about in their movement, since I see it so rarely.
- bluGill 8y ago
  If you follow the men's right movement you will notice that they regularly have to spend a small amount of time shutting down those going beyond "divorce court, custody of a child, alimony, punishments seemingly not being equal between the sexes" to those who want to put women "back in their place". Most seem to be the former, but the later does exist too and they want to join the group.
  - belorn 8y ago
    The feminist movement has their share of misandry, but society tend to ignore that minority of the movement and focus on the social issues that the movement highlight. In the end it doesn't matter if either movement has bad apples. What matter is if we want a society that make abortion illegal or a legal system that base judgement on gender.
Nav_Panel 8y ago
> I feel like it might be a cause of being a bit older but my (single) mother always said that women and men were equal in worth not aptitude. I actually like this line a lot, because it points to several of the problems in modern society. It makes you ask the question: "on what grounds is worth judged?" And then you realize that, without a clear way of thinking about "worth" (which is something organized religions provided), we, at least in the US, fall back on "economic value", which is determined by "aptitude". So we can pretty quickly see the philosophical pit we've fallen into: if "worth" and "aptitude" are intertwined, then the statement admits women are indeed "worth less". I want to agree with that statement. But, there's a problem: how can we come up with a method of judging worth that doesn't rely on some sort of "over-human validator" (e.g. God)? Or alternatively, how can we come up with a broadly acceptable method of judging human worth, without falling into the pitfalls of Abrahamic religious practices?
- davrosthedalek 8y ago
  I'm not so sure if human being should have the attribute of "worth" (I formulate it like this because "have no worth" has a different meaning). If they do, you can make ugly calculations: It's worth to kill 300 PAX to save 1000s in the skyscraper the plane is going to fly into. It's worth to kill one prisoner in interrogation because he knows where his partner might have the hostage (or two?).
  - Nav_Panel 8y ago
    Worth doesn't have to be absolute nor quantifiable. To use a mathematics analogy, you can have an ordered set without addition and subtraction, and it could even be roughly ordered so you can't tell the difference between two adjacent elements.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      Worth doesn't even have to be one measure. In math you can have two different ordering functions which give different results on the same input.
- 8y ago
brlewis 8y ago
> I don’t understand why we can’t celebrate our differences instead of expecting women to fit in to men sized roles. Who's asking you to "expect" anything? I think if you assess people's abilities individually everybody's happy.
- wtdata 8y ago
  > I think if you assess people's abilities individually everybody's happy. It doesn't look like it. A lot of people in science are demanding equality of outcomes for groups (when the outcome is positive). They are well done pass asking for equality of opportunities.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  > if you assess people's abilities individually Well, James Damore got fired from Google (and, apparently, blackballed out of the employment market entirely) for insinuating that Google was assessing people's abilities individually. While I think you're correct, the problem is that too many people seem to try to evaluate whether or not everybody's abilities are being assessed individually by looking at the end result rather than looking at the individuals involved.
drb91 8y ago
“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” Equity, not equality.
- tbrownaw 8y ago
  So where's that from, and how well has it worked out?
  - wtdata 8y ago
    It worked great in the West at least, the world was never as equitable and meritocratic as it is today and it is continuously progressing for better according to all factual data.
    - ionised 8y ago
      I'm still confused as to why people are holding meritocracy up as something we should aspire to. Meritocracy was originally devised as a negative concept, simply because the idea of what constitutes 'merit' is subjective and complex.
  - Frondo 8y ago
    What? Really? I can think of no better thing for humanity as a species to aspire to than this. "Do your best, help out the world, and your needs will be taken care of." As a goal for structuring society, if that isn't in your top 2 of "things to collectively strive for," I don't think it's a very good society. I grew up on the Star Trek vision of utopia, though, and hope that some day humanity still gets there.
    - Frondo 8y ago
      In addition to downvoting, I would really appreciate hearing from folks about what's a better way to structure society than "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs"; and specifically, why wouldn't you want to make sure each individual's needs in the society are met?
didibus 8y ago
I think both are relevant and need debating. The idea of being equal in worth is interesting. How do you define it? Is it a kind of humanitarian worth? That all people are deserving of basic rights, decency and respect? Such would be the case even for handicapped or mentally challenged individuals? Or are you saying that their set of aptitudes, while not identical, sum up to an equal worth in utilitarian terms? Say, for example, taking one of the very strong stereotype, that child bearing is so useful to our societies, that it makes women as worthy as even the strongest of men and their aptitude for heavy lifting? Now, the idea of equal aptitude is relevant as well. There's two main reasons for that. The first is that, some aptitudes, like intelligence, such as talents in mathematics, or decision making in general, has historically been thought of as inferior for women. Yet, there's never been evidence of this as far as I know. In fact, now that we admitted women in higher education, they are out outclassing men in most fields when it comes to grades. So this is a very relevant debate, because bias still exist, that a pretty young woman can't be as smart as a young man. The other reason is the wash of the average. Lots of women are physically stronger then lots of men. Similarly, lots of men are emotionally more adept then lots of women. Thus aptitude shouldn't be characterised by gender, but it should be more individualized. This applies in some scenarios, like not giving women applicants a chance at very physical jobs. Even though some women have the necessary aptitudes.

high_derivative 8y ago

Might as well directly read Cahill's piece which the above article refers to: https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of-sex-differences/ https://quillette.com/2019/03/29/denying-the-neuroscience-of...

tlear 8y ago

Well he did not have sjw mob outside his office he will now.

dijit 8y ago
Because I believe in commenting on why when I downvote: This comment is not constructive or engaging a debate in good faith.
- deleted 8y ago
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MrScruff 8y ago

I think the point of the article is that the science supports the fact that there are sex differences in the brain. Ideas that the article does not propose include: - Men are better than Women or vice versa. - Men are better suited to X activity or job. The point was that the science should be evidence lead and defended from ideologues regardless of your view on the broader political issues. Ideologues attempt to bend all evidence to support a pre-existing conclusion, and the politicisation of science is bad in all cases because it undermines the entire process. It's depressing that a publication such as Nature should be affected in this way.

pryce 8y ago
If your ideology is that any measured sex differences in the brain should be automatically interpreted as 'innate' facts about men and women, rather than -say- the cumulative result of a combination of gene expression (including sex chromosomes), developmental biology and (in anything other than newborns) socialization, then you're still imposing an ideology on the available data. 'Blank slate theory' simply isn't what feminists are arguing; they are arguing that our society has a woefully poor record of hastily ascribing traits to a kind of biological determinism, and further claims of that type should be heavily scrutinised.
- MrScruff 8y ago
  I believe at least some of the studies mentioned were dealing with rats rather than humans. I didn't read anything from the sourced article that overstepped the bounds of what could be said from the research. It seemed like all the interpretation was being done by the non-scientists.
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  They're not just saying they should be heavily scrutinized. At least some are saying that it's flat out bad science to acknowledge the differences, or perform research into the subject at all. They're denying science for ideological ends. It's pretty much the same thing as conservatives with climate change. They don't like what science has to say, so they're trying to shut it down. I'm generally pro-feminism, but no 'side' has a monopoly on bad opinions.

trombonechamp 8y ago

A serious problem is that in 99.9% of things that you study in the brain, there will be no sex difference. However, every researcher records sex information in the data they collect. So even if there isn't a scientific reason to think there might be a sex difference in whatever you are studying, you might as well test it because it is zero extra effort. That means that about 1/20 studies will show an effect with $p<.05$.

zaroth 8y ago
What you are stating is factually at odds with TFA, and your example of tracking sex in research studies is interesting because the NIH tweets: Sex can influence health & disease in many ways, which is why NIH requires that researchers consider sex as a biological variable (SABV) in all stages of research: http://bit.ly/2KXGL7k http://bit.ly/2KXGL7k
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jmcgough 8y ago
It's not zero extra effort. If you want to maintain your statistical power for both male and female, that means doubling your sample size. And it's unlikely that they'll be identical 99.9% of the time. The article suggests that we'd see frequent, small differences, but there haven't been enough studies of this type to know for certain.

etatoby 8y ago

"there are people on this campus in the Gender Studies Department who use books by one of these ideologues and literally have classes basically saying that what I’m saying is wrong." Q1. What purpose does a Gender Studies Department serve. Q2. Why are its teachings based not on science, but apparently on the opposite?

threeseed 8y ago
1) Gender Studies is about the discussion of gender. And the purpose is to satisfy the needs of students who want to learn about it. No different to studying art, computers, music. 2) It's not based on the opposite. It's based on a superset of factors of which science is just one. We don't interact with other people according to purely scientific algorithms and so dealing with the emotional, political and philosophical aspects are equally as important as the scientific.
- claytongulick 8y ago
  Are you claiming that the emotional, political and philosophical interactions of humans can not be evaluated scientifically? If the scientific process does not apply to Gender Studies, that's fine I suppose, it can be considered part of the arts. However, it would be an error to then consider forming policy based on it - similar to forming policy based on music or painting. In order for us to make policy decisions or recommendations, there needs to be academic rigor, otherwise we may as well be a theocracy. I know you didn't directly bring up anything about forming policy, so those points aren't necessarily directed at you. I bring them up because I see a lot of material from the field of Gender Studies being used to form policy, law and social expectations.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    Science doesn't have a monopoly on truth or validity, in academic contexts, or otherwise. https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-religion/what-scientism https://www.aaas.org/programs/dialogue-science-ethics-and-re...

lukev 8y ago

I think the article misrepresents the feminist position a bit. When they protest the study of "sex differences", it's not (usually) in a flat-earth or creationist sense of literally denying the science and claiming a-priori that all brains are identical. Rather, they are observing that the notion of one sex being biologically "superior" (or at least more suitable for high-prestige roles) has a long and oppressive history in our society, and that incautious "research" can be used to bolster types of sexism that we had hoped were behind us. Indeed, we see this happening on this very site all the time, whenever the topic comes up. It's not that sex differences might not exist. It's that the instant you publish anything on the the topic, conservatives will inevitably and immediately latch onto it as proof that the traditional gender roles have been correct all along. Even if that's not what the studies show (and there's actually no reason to think they would, as the article points out.) Basically, the point of feminists is that society is so fraught on this issue, and there's so much latent bias, that it is extremely difficult to perform research objectively, let alone have it be received objectively and proportionately by an audience outside the field.

merpnderp 8y ago
Kind of like the not so latent bias you have against conservatives? Where is the conservative movement to keep women out of industry? What conservative of any importance says women aren't qualified to be scientists, doctors, lawyers or presidents? Saying conservatives support sexist gender roles is like saying liberals support anti-vaxxers - wrong.
whatshisface 8y ago
>society is so fraught on this issue, and there's so much latent bias, that it is extremely difficult to perform research objectively That's exactly what global warming skeptics say, along with every conservative that doesn't support one of the non-conservative positions that is associated with science. This is not to say who is right in their accusations, just that it's the same accusation. If you want to disagree with "The Scientific Consensus (TM)" but can't do it on scientific grounds, that claim is automatically the option you have to go with. Of course, it may also be true in some cases.

bparsons 8y ago

As soon as I saw that he published in Quillette, I knew this person was a crank. It is a bizarre collection of malcontents who cannot stop obsessing about trans people.

TulliusCicero 8y ago
This feels like a pretty bad faith attack. > Cahill, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California at Irvine, is considered one of the world’s leading researchers on the influence of biological sex. I mean, he doesn't sound like a crank, and he's also written for Scientific American. Does that mean he's acceptable after all?

Jun8 8y ago

This was the takeaway for me from this interesting interview: "Q: Is there a battle between actual scientists and science journalists who may be in thrall to a progressive or woke ideology? A: No, because most scientists are blissfully unaware..." As long as scientists stay away from these discussions, the field will be left to "ideologues" as Cahill calls them, i.e. people who either have little knowledge of the subject they're discussing or else have such a strong agenda that it strongly biases their views and prior probabilities.

bjourne 8y ago
Calling those who disagree with you "ideologues" is not a great way of debating. The op-ed he was railing against was written by two professors, one in neuroscience and the other in history and the philosophy of science. The book review he also criticized was written by a professor of neuroscience. There is little evidence for that these people deserve to be called "ideologues". https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brains-mosaic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/male-female-brain... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x
- int_19h 8y ago
  His review claims that the book cites numerous already-debunked studies while ignoring large swaths of research that contradicts its thesis, which is hard to square with a scientific approach regardless of author's credentials. Which is to say, one can be a scientist and an ideologue at the same time. Of course, so can Cahill. But is there similar evidence that he cherry-picks studies to arrive at predetermined conclusions (not a rhetorical question; genuinely curious)?
  - bjourne 8y ago
    Yes, his review is scathing. "I started to laugh in the methods section. The authors constructed their key measure (called “internal consistency”) to make it essentially impossible for them to not get the results they got. Or put another way, the study was basically rigged (although not necessarily consciously so), as subsequently shown by three other groups also published in PNAS." So he accuses those he disagrees with of having committed science fraud. Not only that, this fraudulent science has passed peer review and been published in PNAS. It is odd that it has not been retracted if it was so laughable as Cahill claims! He also claims that these "ideologues" have such a strong grip on academia that they will destroy your career if you oppose them: "Senior colleagues warned me as an untenured professor around the year 2000 that studying sex differences would be career suicide." It is smearing, which he offers no evidence for, hoping that the readership will already "know" it is true. Maybe he is right, maybe he is not, I can't tell. If he is right then I hope more neuroscientists speak up about the bullying and that journals like PNAS stops publishing junk science.

legulere 8y ago

If differing hormones lead to different brains why can’t different roles in society lead to different brains? How is it possible to differentiate the two effects?

Viliam1234 8y ago
You could compare different societies, for example Saudi Arabia and Sweden. If some gender differences remain, it is still not certainty, but it is quite likely that they are caused by some brain chemistry. (Unless you believe that Sweden is just as patriarchal as Saudi Arabia, in which case I guess there is no argument that could possibly convince you.) Another possible approach is to examine what happens to transgender people after they start taking hormones.
- wtdata 8y ago
  The science points towards many of the differences in the brain taking place in utero. Hormone therapy in adults won't change those.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

>> No one seems to have a problem accepting that, on average, male and female bodies differ in many, many ways. Why is it surprising or unacceptable that this is true for the part of our body that we call “brain”? Because the differences between male and female "bodies", meaning anatomical differences like sex characteristics, are obvious and self-evident, while differences in brain structure are not and therefore require careful study. Further, because there are well-known and deeply entrenched cultural biases that risk derailing this careful study and therefore any initial assumptions that coincide with these cultural biases must be eliminated before serious work can begin. Finally, because any result that just so happens, completely by chance, and despite the scientists' best effort, to agree with preconceived notions about "how things are" should be considered extremely suspicious and scrutinised again, and again, and again, and again, and noone who really wants to understand the relevant subjects should feel comfortable accepting such results as settled, much less defend them as "scientific orthodoxy". In other words, because "bias" is as much a problem in science as it is in society, and because in the science of sex differences it is doubly so.

tynpeddler 8y ago
And just to show how complicated science in general is, your thinking is another example of bias. Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science. The burden of proof must be equally high for everyone. The real problem here isn't the science, is the pseudo-science and the journalism. It's pretty common for people to take single studies out of context and act as if their cherry picked study is the final word. Science journalists are supposed to bridge the gap between experts and laymen, but there seems to be very few good science journalists, and there seems to be lots of hacks and conmen.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> Requiring a higher burden of proof for findings that someone might be uncomfortable with is bad science. That is not my comment. My comment claims that cultural bias can influence the result of scientific studies and we must be vigilant not to let this happen. Do you disagree?

rdlecler1 8y ago

When I was visiting Pre-schools for my son to enter at 18 months I asked them how they handle discipline and behavior. They said that sometimes they have a class which is mostly boys and it’s quite chaotic. If the class is mostly girls it’s much more calm. That’s at 18-30 months.

wtdata 8y ago
Yes, and they are increasingly diagnosing those children with ADHD and putting them under drugs to control them (roughly 60% of diagnosed children with ADHD are under medication, 84% of them are boys): https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/gender/ https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/gende...
- criddell 8y ago
  Have the outcomes been studied? Are those kids better off with the medication?
- asark 8y ago
  I'm worried about this outcome for my 4-year-old. He needs several hours a day to run himself tired or he acts like a crazy person. I don't think that means he is a crazy person, or has ADHD, or whatever. I think it just means he needs to run himself tired for several hours a day. Hell, I'd probably be saner and healthier if I did the same. Meanwhile the kindergarten he'll attend has cut recess to once per day, something like 20-25min, and if they do indoor "recess" due to weather they often just watch a movie. Even if he cools off some by the time he goes, he's gonna need like 4x that much running around outside or in a gym per day, minimum, to not end up medicated or constantly in trouble.

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jpmoyn 8y ago

"One of the things that blows students’ minds is to realize that women disproportionately, about twice as much, suffer from all anxiety and depression disorders relative to men, and almost all our models for studying anxiety disorders are based on male animals." This right here is one of the concrete reasons for why we NEED to recognize neurological sex differences, and have studies that focus specifically on genders. We could discover loads about treatment differences by gender, and really help a lot of people who are suffering from depression (something that is becoming more prevalent by the day).

Balgair 8y ago
The NIH has moved the requirements in rodent research recently. Previously, using only male rodents (bucks) was considered just fine. After some really alarming studies out of McGill [0], much of the field has changed. Now, you must garner a waiver to only use one sex vs. the other in rodent studies. The effects of this change remain to be seen, but are generally thought of as positive. Some context is needed though. The estrous cycle of dams is fairly complicated[1]. Controlling variables in hormones, hydration, etc. is much easier in bucks. Since the experiments are easier to control for, you need less rodents and therefore you need less funding for rodent care and housing, and you need to sacrifice less rodents to do the experiment (generally). Hence why they have been the 'preferred' rodent sex historically, among many other reasons. Additionally, rodents are some of the 'first' level in vivo models, but are far from the last in the long line of research that is human applicable. It is very common that research done in rodents will not translate to other mainstay research vertebrates like dogs and monkeys, let alone into humans. The differences in the sexes are vastly outweighed by the differences in species. Generally, yes, it is good that we are now defaulting to having to use both sexes of rodents. However, costs and sacrifices per experiment have risen as a result. All things have trade-offs in our world. [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=mcgill+pain+mice+research+males&oq=mcgill+pain+mice+research+males&aqs=chrome..69i57.11887j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=mcgill+pain+mice+research+ma... [1] https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Estrous_Cycle https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Estr...

User23 8y ago

From the article: “To see that headline, honestly, knowing what I know about the dramatic change in neuroscience in the past 15 to 20 years, it’s not a lot different than seeing a headline like “The Myth That Evolution Applies to Humans.” That would be comparable.” That made me chuckle.

WhompingWindows 8y ago

If there is a sex-defined bi-modal distribution of neurological characteristics, meaning for instance in IQ, then there are two separate but overlapping curves for the sexes, then it's true that there is both overlap and difference between the sexes. This difference is clearly evident in physical traits like height, which is an objective measurement, whereas the utility of IQ will be debated for decades, most likely. We can't argue that IQ is non-overlapping though, there are low and high outliers in each sex or in every subgroup that will overlap with every other subgroup (same goes for race, economic status, education, any socio-dem slice you can think of). Given large populations, this is practically a certainty. IMO, the problem arises in the subjectivity of psycho-metrics, which can be very lackluster tools. IQ, cognitive function, working memory, long term memory, and on and on -much harder to establish a clear difference between these across the two sexes, given with such imprecise and arbitrary measures.

int_19h 8y ago

One thing of note. The cited review by Cahill says this: "Rippon does not mention Udry’s work, or its essential replication by Udry’s harshest critic, a leading sociologist who has described herself as a “feminist” who now “wrestles” with testosterone." But the person in question had this to say: "This totally misrepresents my re-analysis of Udry data. (I’m the feminist who wrestles with testosterone). Might misrepresent much else as well?" (https://twitter.com/bjrisman/status/1112534702362165251 https://twitter.com/bjrisman/status/1112534702362165251)