
Neurosexism: The myth that men and women have different brains - fanf2
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00677-x
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Nihilartikel
Humans exhibit exterior physical sexual dimorphism. Why wouldn't we exhibit it
in our neural formations? I'm certain that human brains exhibit a wide
spectrum of modalities as well as a innate individual affinities and
aversions. Is it nature? Is it nurture? Is it any of your business? The only
reason the question is controversial is because fools like to misappropriate
scientific findings to make specious appeals to 'natural order' when trying to
force their biases and judgements on others.

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pasabagi
I think perhaps the physical dimorphism is rather easily explained by the fact
women have to carry children. Psychological dimorphism would be somewhat more
surprising - after all, both mother and father gain from looking after the
children. There's no specific biological machinery required to be a parent
after the kid is born.

That all said, I think this is over-individualizing the problem of passing on
genes. If you take a dog, and a wolf, superficially they are similar. However,
wolves are successful because of their complex social structure. So sexual
dimorphism could be really misleading, because it's not the body of the wolf
that matters, rather its social network. The sexual dimorphism could be an
unimportant, anterior characteristic, a bit like the appendix, or the colour
of the fur.

When you take humans, who have an even more complex social structure, and
more, one that has been extremely _gender_ dimorphic, then consider the organ
that's most obviously affected by social morphisms of all kinds... It sounds
like a recipe for bad research. Especially when it's a topic people have an
axe to grind about.

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insickness
The idea that men and women don't have inherent psychological differences is
an extreme one yet framed here in this article as sexism. The language alone
is problematic, implying that anyone who finds evidence that they are
different is somehow hateful.

The differences between men and women aren't extreme. You can't look at a
woman or man and assume they would be good at x, y and z. But there are
statistical differences, particularly at the extreme ends of the spectrum.

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jgwil2
Okay, but are the variations between men and women greater than the typical
variations between individuals of any sex, or even of one sex? If not, then it
is sexist to harp on the differences because they don't tell us anything
really useful. Personally, I think the subject is much more often used in bad
faith than in the spirit of scientific inquiry.

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apta
> Okay, but are the variations between men and women greater than the typical
> variations between individuals of any sex, or even of one sex?

Yes, it's trivially observable, and it has been established scientifically.

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jgwil2
Citation please. Also, I asked about statistical differences, so I don't see
how that could be "trivially observable."

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vivekd
Well there must be some differences - otherwise we wouldn't have separate male
and female chess tournaments. Plus we know that male and female animal brains
differ in structure despite looking similar.

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robomartin
If you have kids, boys and girls, expose them and offer them equal
opportunities in various domains, it is beyond obvious that we are different,
yes, including in the brain. To me the idea of labeling this conclusion as
sexist is simply laughable because any parent who is a neutral and honest
observer knows the truth.

I have a simple example of this. Two of my kids, boy and girl, one year apart.
They go to school together, play together all the time, we fish, kayak, do
martial arts, build stuff and do everything together.

I introduced both of them to Solidworks Apps for Kids (great fun!). I setup
their accounts on their computers and also setup a link to a YouTube playlist
with tutorials for them to learn the software.

I told them to watch all the videos and start doing as they learned.

They did.

She very quickly levitated towards making pretty things and surface-painting.

He very quickly went towards making more mechanical things and completely
ignored making them pretty through painting.

She wants to 3D print flowers and puppies. He wants to 3D print robots, tanks,
tools, etc.

No influence whatsoever on my part. This summer they each built beautiful
replicas of famous world buildings (check out Machitecture on Amazon, it's
great). They both loved it despite the hard work it entailed.

I realize this is a single data point but if you talk to other parents and
simply observe reality it is easy to conclude there are differences and they
are not subtle.

None of this is to say men and women can't excel at the same things. Not at
all. However, pretending we are exact clones of each other would fail to
reflect reality as well as provide opportunities to use our differences to
deliver better outcomes. Psychologist have studied this in depth. The big five
personality traits (Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
Neuroticism, Openness to experience) have been quantified and "fingerprinted"
across wide populations. The conclusions are inescapable, we are not the same
and we don't think or relate to the world in the same ways. And that's a good
thing.

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thiccly
Try explaining that to Rhea from RedHat. She seems to believe the opposite

"A skill perhaps, to which women are born vastly inferior. There are separate
categories in physical sports for a reason - men and women are not the same,
neither physically, nor mentally. In both ways one could say that women are
weaker"

[https://www.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/d61qfu/open_letter_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/redhat/comments/d61qfu/open_letter_to_the_free_software_foundation_board/)

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zygimantasdev
On the top post on that link:

"Red Hat urges the FSF board to seize the opportunity during its current
leadership succession by appointing a president and members of its board that
are more diverse, including from a national, racial and gender perspective."

at least in my country's constitution discrimination based on race/gender is
forbidden (No person should be limited by law or granted privileges based on
his sex/race/nationality/... . Statement like this is exactly that. I imagine
other countries have similar laws - how are things like that acceptable?

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loa_in_
Since MRI doesn't show "thought patterns" it's just not a good tool to look
for differences in such.

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Grue3
How does this fit in with research like this? [1] If all perceived differences
in female brain can be explained by social conditioning, how do trans people,
who are _not_ socially conditioned, show the same brain differences?

[1]
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180524112351.htm)

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guilhas
Transgender defenders might disagree

