Hardwired for Sexism? Approaches to Sex/Gender in Neuroscience (original) (raw)
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Sexing the Brain: The Science and Pseudoscience of Sex Differences
The Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, 2010
It is undeniable that sex differences in behavior exist and that they can be measured using a range of psychophysical tasks and questionnaires. We can't deny either that we tend to forget that those measured differences are differences between the mean values of the scores that, although significant, are always of very small magnitude, and importantly, that the distributions of the scores for women and men overlap greatly . Attention to the differences between means, while ignoring the amount of overlap of the distributions, leads to exaggeration of sex differences and oversimplifies the scientific evidence. Furthermore, any differences might depend merely on differences A recent upsurge in unitary biological explanations for gender differences in behavior (i.e. that they are "hard-wired" in the genetic code), put forward not only in books written for a general audience but also in scientific papers, makes it important to examine the fallacies of these ideas. Such genetic and hormonal explanations of human behavior, formulated with little consideration of the influences of experience, and often without taking experience into account at all, are part of a new wave of genetic explanations for a broad range of human behavior, as explained in the paper. These ideas are far from new; moreover, they are pseudoscientific and are used for political influence under the guise of science. They are a conservative social force that maintains social and educational inequalities between women and men. This paper explains that causal explanations of differences between the sexes are of two completely different types: unitary (genetic determinist) versus interactive explanations. The false reasoning used to support genetic determinist explanations of sex differences in behavior is discussed. To illustrate what biology really tells us about gender differentiation, the paper discusses the interactive roles of genetic, hormonal and environmental influences on the development of gender differences. These interactions are illustrated using two model biological systems (e.g. the intertwined influences of genes, sex hormones and experience on the development of sex differences in behavior in rats, and sex differences in neuronal connections in chickens). There is plenty of scientific evidence to show the complex interactive, and ever changing, influences of experience and genes that take place as an organism develops and throughout its life. Malleability of brain and behavior can be shown clearly using animal models, and the processes involved apply also to the development of brain and behavior in humans. We diminish our understanding of the functions of a host of contributing factors to gender differentiation by parceling out the largest portion of control to the genes. The biology and behavior of humans is dynamic and flexible and need not restrict women to inferior positions in society.
Multifaceted origins of sex differences in the brain
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016
Studies of sex differences in the brain range from reductionistic cell and molecular analyses in animal models to functional imaging in awake human subjects, with many other levels in between. Interpretations and conclusions about the importance of particular differences often vary with differing levels of analyses and can lead to discord and dissent. In the past two decades, the range of neurobiological, psychological and psychiatric endpoints found to differ between males and females has expanded beyond reproduction into every aspect of the healthy and diseased brain, and thereby demands our attention. A greater understanding of all aspects of neural functioning will only be achieved by incorporating sex as a biological variable. The goal of this review is to highlight the current state of the art of the discipline of sex differences research with an emphasis on the brain and to contextualize the articles appearing in the accompanying special issue.
Neuroethics, 2012
This special issue publishes interdisciplinary scholarship which aims to map and re-imagine the relations between neuroscience and gender studies.
A trip down memory lane about sex differences in the brain
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2016
Scientific studies funded by the United States government must now include both males and females as experimental subjects. This is a welcomed change for those of us who have been reporting on sex differences for decades. That said, there are some issues to consider; I focus on one in this review: females used in animal models of mental illness and health are almost always virgins and yet most adult females around the world, irrespective of species, are not virgins. I am not advocating that all scientists include non-virgin females in laboratory studies, but rather to consider the dynamic nature of the female brain when drawing conclusions through discovery. Stressful life experiences, including those related to sexual aggression and trauma, can have a lasting impact on processes of learning related to mental health and plasticity in the female brain. Her response to stress can change rather dramatically as she emerges from puberty to become pregnant and produce offspring, as she mu...
2002Scientific American Sex Differences In The Brain
R not only in their physical attributes and reproductive function but also in many other characteristics, including the way they solve intellectual problems. For the past few decades, it has been ideologically fashionable to insist that these behavioral differences are minimal and are the consequence of variations in experience during development before and after adolescence. Evidence accumulated more recently, however, suggests that the effects of sex hormones on brain organization occur so early in life that from the start the environment is acting on differently wired brains in boys and girls. Such effects make evaluating the role of experience, independent of physiological predisposition, a difficult if not dubious task. The biological bases of sex differences in brain and behavior have become much better known through increasing numbers of behavioral, neurological and endocrinological studies.
The Development of Brain Sex Differences: a Multisignaling Process
Behavioural brain …, 1999
In order to account for the development of sex differences in the brain, we took, as an integrative model, the vomeronasal pathway, which is involved in the control of reproductive physiology and behavior. The fact that brain sex differences take place in complex neural networks ...
Sex and/or gender? Some Neuroscientific Approaches
Traditionally, Gender Studies differentiates between the term “sex”, indicating sex differences from the biological point of view, and the term “gender”, indicating that sex differences are social and cultural constructions. In this paper I discuss some recent neuroscientific theses concerning sexual differences to sketch a path of inquiry that goes beyond the logic of the separation of biological and cultural studies.
Sex Differences in the Brain: The Not So Inconvenient Truth
Editor's Note: Toolboxes are intended to describe and evaluate methods that are becoming widely relevant to the neuroscience community or to provide a critical analysis of established techniques. For more information, see http://www.jneurosci.org/misc/ ifa_minireviews.dtl.