Difference between men and women: It's all in the brain

[Alexander's Horse]

Not according to the latest research - males and females are genetically hard wired in their brains and physiology to behave differently.

Haven't you been paying attention UR?

[Mr. Harley]

Mike's Horse again did an excellent post with the transcripts, but they still do not successfully deal with all of the nature versus nurture issues. The studies cited in the program do an excellent job of dealing with the differences at birth. They don't do so well at sorting out the nuture, or environmental factors, from later on.

Helen Fisher: The brain is built in certain ways and then the culture moulds it in other ways but you cannot make a boy into a girl and you cannot make a girl into a boy.

Yes, the transcripts have this and other comments that look at the issues. The "at birth" studies are excellent. Some of the ones quoted later on aren't good at determining the "Why?" of the difference, but only measure the difference exists.

Here are some of the examples that measure the current differences, vs. the why of the differences.

Narration: But are the fairer sex really more sympathetic? To find out an 8 year old was left alone in a busy street and filmed with secret cameras...

Narration: To see whether there is anything in the boy and girl stereotypes, a series of controlled tests were devised. Fifty children from the ages of six to 12 pitted their wits against each other.

Even in this area of the program they give a single quote that indicates the problem.

Sebastian Kraemer: So there’s a curious gender division here that boys seem to be encouraged to find out how things work and girls are encouraged to find out how people work.

It's not that they don't acknowledge it, but when you read it through carefully, you see that the majority, in excesss of 90% of the text and examples, they are supporting the biological differences between the sexes, with periodic caveats like the quote above. That's intellectually dishonest, when the program heavily pushes the biological basis.

Even some of the apparently good studies for at birth differences quoted in this program have weaknesses. I'll give you an example (please note: I helped design the protocols for my wife's thesis, which she did very well on, in metal health. Those of you in the field know all about the issues of isolating cause and effect, the perennial bogey for mental health studies).

While she was developing in the womb, Alexandra Lobb, like all girls produced small amounts of testosterone from her adrenal glands. Unfortunately, these glands were overactive, flooding her developing brain and leaving her with an ambiguous reproductive system.

Alison Lobb: She’s been through long spells, spells where she’s being boisterous, refuses to wear a dress, she’s always off outside, disappearing up a tree, stuck at the bottom of a ditch.

Melissa Hines: The kind of girls with CAH on the average are more like boys in their toy choices. They also, interestingly, like to play with boys more than other girls do, so girls in general, only about ten percent of their favourite playmates would be boys, whereas CAH girls, about fifty percent of their playmates are boys and fifty percent girls.

How much fo that is because : "she’s being boisterous, refuses to wear a dress, she’s always off outside, disappearing up a tree, stuck at the bottom of a ditch."

With a more active child, parents are more likely to let them outside. The child plays more boisterously, so the quiet children (majority female) aren't as interested in playing with her. But she fits in with the boisterous kids (majority male).

Here's the kicker. As this little girls grows (they used to call them tomboy's, I have no idea of the derivation of the word) how much of the difference was directly due to the testosterone, and how much due to the fact how parents deal with the associated behavior? It is more than likely a self-reinforcing feedback loop, with a genetic impetus and genetic and developmental feedback.

Problems like this abound. Boys who act out or are more assertive get more attention. Girls who are nice and quiet (language choices are DELIBERATE) are considered good. Subconsciously teachers tend to respond to male children who raise their hands more often than girls, EVEN IF THE GIRL RAISES HER HAND AS OFTEN. For the little girl, that's gotta suck.

To test my supposition, let's look at the results of all-girl schools that are not excuses to give the boys better schools.

(Long pause). Oops, this is not going to work, at least without more than the half an hour I've already spent on the web. Minimal results, mostly editorial and anecdotal. Plus, same environmental issue, with sometimes both sexes doing better, especially in high school. Can you say "distractions".

However, there is one anecdotal thing I have read. Females from same sex high schools tend to do better in life than females from coed schools. Again, though, I have to shoot myself in the foot, because you need to factor out socio-economic status and parental interaction (involved parents will by their very nature produce children, whatever the sex, who do better in life statistically as a population). I cannot even factor out the different kinds of parental factors that affect both sexes when I'd like to so as to prove my point.

The studies that would deal with all of these interrealted factors would be large and quite long, resulting in an extremely high cost. You would have to tell whoever was funding it that the interaction of factors might, at the end of twenty years, still cause you to state "we cannot tell." Guess what, I suspect there are not many of these studies.

The only way to determine how much is purely genetic, which I do not disagree plays a major role, and how much is the result of environmental interaction with those genetic determinants, probably cannot be determined under the current codes of ethics imposed on human experiments. We're going to be stuck with that, and since I'm married, I can happily treat people of all sexes equally, as individuals (as a single male I obviously treated young unattached females differently because, well, I was looking for something different ).

I was once told, when I was a de facto stepparent, "Do you expect her to be a boy." (reference taking all three kids up to the car when I was working on it so they could see the basics of how a car works). My answer was that the teenage girl needs to know how to deal with auto repairman and make it obvious that she's knows enough that she cannot be cheated easily (as had just happened to her mom).

People are people, and studies that purport to prove the differeneces are innate when all they are doing is measuing the current amount of differences are dangerous. They are being abused (which there broad and inaccurate assertions lend themselves to) to push the treatment of chidren as not equal, based on sex. Seperate is so often not equal.

edited right after posting - 10th paragraph to clarify first sentence.

[Alexander's Horse]

All I know is you give boys dolls and soon its a hostage situation, Barbie is tied up inside, the dolls house is surrounded by little cars which now belong to the police and big Ted has a loud hailer calling on the dolls to come out with their hands up.

[Mr. Harley]

My little girl, if I can humanly avoid it (it will be exceedingly tough), will not get either Barbie's or Bratz. Nor any little princess dolls. My wife concurs. The roll models and body image that these reinforce are not stuff we are paticularly interested in reinforcing. My wife is going to try to get her brother's old Tonka toys so the two of them can play together in a sandbox with them next year .

We already have given up TV except for movies, of which we've watched three in eight months. One of which was "My neighbor Totoro" which is a great movie for little girls. One of her high points every day is when daddy gets home, reading her the morning books, which include things like Beastly Verse, and "The Hippopotamus" by Odgen Nash (she loves it). Of course mommy reads to her also, at least a couple of more times a day, just depending on moods.

As an aside, our little girl has been attending services since two months of age, and is so well behaved that most of my wife's congregation miss her when she doesn't show up. We treat her like a little person, with her own quirks, foibles, and interests (including mad cries when she's put in the crib for her afternoon nap, especially is she's after the kitty!). (opinion warning) I truly believe parental interaction is the biggest factor. Yes, genetics plays a role if you're going to be the next Einstein. How many children get the environment that let's them find their maximum ability? Until we improve childhood environments, most children will never reach their genetic potential, male or female. It's sad.

Oh, and I am the cook/caretaker/homemaker plus full time employee in our household. I have the sensitive nose, and do the majority of shopping and cooking. I had to start doing it in 4th grade for my mother, when I became her hands for several months due to something that had happened. This included two of my three younger sisters, plus my older brother who didn't do as much at the time, for other reasons. Yet as my wife says, I am definitely male ;D. I also work on cars and the computers, maintaining my own home network. Environment has a huge influence.

I think temperment is set genetically (and by birth order, they have been several studies on that) which incorporates X and Y chromosones, but is not solely determined by them. Our little girl is just as stubborn as her daddy (mommy is not). Sex roles influence it on a population basis, but you would not believe how incredibly stubborn 16 pounds of little girl can be. My mother must be chortling in heaven. Good night.

[Ben Kenobi]

I wonder how well some of us would fare with the verbalisation test. How much do little boys read, anyways? I bet they read less than the girls. Nothing innate about that.

[Az]

The thing is men and women are not values of a binary variable. The fact is there is a broad spectrum and most persons are a mix of the two. At least psychologically speaking.

oh of course, of course.

[Alexander's Horse]

Well the more interesting thing about this whole debate is that science is trumping political theory.

[Dis]

but should it?

I think it is more important to give people the illusion that men and women are the same in every aspect. It helps people feel better that way.

Why tell a little girl that one day she can't grow up to be Mr. Universe? Or a young boy who wants to grow up and be a NFL cheerleader.

[Q Classic]

well, for one thing, for a little girl to become mr universe, she'd have to go through a sex change operation.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
My little girl, if I can humanly avoid it (it will be exceedingly tough), will not get either Barbie's or Bratz. Nor any little princess dolls. My wife concurs. The roll models and body image that these reinforce are not stuff we are paticularly interested in reinforcing. My wife is going to try to get her brother's old Tonka toys so the two of them can play together in a sandbox with them next year .

Why is she the one that must play with her brother's toys in order to have them play together?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
lair!

women == yin == dark == 0
men == yang == light == 1

You're not very good with the taichi diagram.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by DaShi
Why is she the one that must play with her brother's toys in order to have them play together?

Did you play with dolls when you were an infant?

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Did you play with dolls when you were an infant?

What's the price of tea in China?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by st_swithin


Sexual dimorphism? What's that? Is that some kind of dinosaur porn?

I thought it was Barney and a couply of the Tele-Tubbies in some hot Saurian on Tubby action.

[Mr. Harley]

She doesn't have a brother, yet . She will get to play with dolls, just not ones that tend to reinforce stereotypical body images that tend to mess with adolsecents heads. It's not just barbies. TV, advertising, some magazines all reinforce this. I cannot remember the specifics, but .. oh heck, I'll google it.

Eating disorders accompany television to Fiji, study finds

By ALEXIS CHIU

BOSTON (May 19, 1999 8:28 p.m. EDT) - Symptoms of eating disorders have increased fivefold among teenage girls on Fiji since television came to the Pacific island nation four years ago, a study found.

The year TV was widely introduced in Fiji in 1995, only 3 percent of girls reported they vomited to control their weight, according to the study by Harvard researcher Anne Becker. Three years later, 15 percent reported the behavior.

"They look to television characters as role models," said Becker, who presented her findings Wednesday at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting in Washington.

"While it's an everyday concept to Americans, reshaping the body is a new concept to Fijians," she said.

Though Becker cautioned that the study does not establish a definitive link between television and eating disorders, she said the increases were dramatic in a culture that traditionally has focused on the importance of eating well and looking robust.

Other warning signs were high in the follow-up study in 1998, with 74 percent of the Fijian girls reporting feeling "too big or fat" at least sometimes and 62 percent reporting dieting in the past month.

Traditionally, Fijians call noticeable weight loss "going thin," and see it as an alarming sign of illness or lack of resources, she said.

Fiji has only one TV channel, which shows mostly American, Australian and British programs. Favorites include "Melrose Place," "ER" and "Xena: Warrior Princess."

One girl in the study said the teenagers on television are "slim and very tall" and that, "We want our bodies to become like that ... so we try to lose a lot of weight."

For the study, a total of 129 girls ages 15 to 19 were interviewed, said Becker, head of research at the Harvard Eating Disorders Center and assistant professor of medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School. Researchers surveyed 64 girls in 1995 and 65 in 1998 and did not track individuals over the three-year period.

The shift by young people away from an acceptance of heaviness comes as Fijians and other South Pacific peoples battle problems brought on by a high-fat, high-volume diet, like pig meat and calorie-dense root foods like yams, cassava and taro.

Becker also found that 84 percent of village women in the study's sample were overweight or obese, and New Zealand's National Heart Foundation has said more than 70 percent of Pacific Islanders suffer from health problems related to bad diet, including heart disease, obesity and the highest diabetes incident rate in the world.

Television, however, is just one part of the cultural change taking place on the once-isolated island.

"Television is part and parcel of this rapid change and exposure to global values and media images," she said. "In a community such as Fiji, adolescents are particularly vulnerable."

"They're trying to emulate a lifestyle: Western-style clothes, haircuts and slim bodies," she said.

Dolls are fine, just not Barbies or Bratz. Try to find a Raggedy Ann or Andy at a modern US toy store .

If it turns out via playmates and the power of mass marketing, I cannot prevail, I will hope that she will have a good enough relationship with her father that it will at least partially offset the efforts of mass media. I will be up against a lot, though. Modern advertisiers high Child Psychologists, who specifically use peer pressure, the whine factor (yes, it's been measured how many whines from a child can break down parental resistance and cause them to purchase the kid whatever it is), and perceptual factors (big-eyed advertising figures, like animals are anime, are more successful in marketing to very small children).

If she likes cooking, her and daddy can have fun doing that. If she likes cars, the same. If she wants to play house with dolls, etc. daddy will have fun being with his little girl and watching her enjoy them, even if they are not quite his scene. Boring is usually only in the mind of the beholder . Yes, there are sex-based differences. Good parenting vs. bad parenting has a substantially larger affect. I know lots of little boys who like to read (in response to an earlier poster). Their parents early on made that a family activity the child loved. That is the single biggest factor in the difference in children.