Are men’s and women’s brains ‘wired’ differently?
In this short paper, we will discover that men’s and women’s brains are wired differently through three different perspectives. The perspectives are: the physical structure of men’s and women’s brains, the hormonal effects of men’s and women’s behaviour, and the social expectations and gender stereotypes of how men and women are expected to behave. Through analysing each approach to discovering if in fact men’s and women’s brains are wired differently, it becomes more apparent and clear that in each approach they are. Although there is evidence to men’s and women’s brains being wired differently, there is still work that needs to be done to further understand why the brains take on different structures according to sex, why we are so effected by hormones, and why social expectations and gender stereotypes play such a big role in our lives.
The physical or biological structure of men’s and women’s brains hold differences which helps support the theory that men’s and women’s brains are somewhat ‘wired’ differently. The physical differences between men’s and women’s brains contribute to the understanding of sex differences.
It is shown that the male brain is on average eight percent larger than the female brain, meaning there is
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Cordelia Fine explains that even when women consciously tell themselves that they don’t want to be confined to gender roles or stereotypes, they are constantly surrounded by them and can subconsciously conform to these behaviours because of social environments and gender-relevant cues (Fine, 2011). Because women have always been surrounded by gender roles and stereotypes, it can be hard to break the pattern. The subconscious act of following these roles or stereotypes contributes to the male and female brain being ‘wired’ differently because of the history of expectations of
Engendering the Brain written by Melissa Hines provides an insight of hormonal influences and implications on brain gender. The chapter begins with explaining the differences between gender difference and sex difference, and explains the psychological factors responsible for brain gender. It describes the role of hormones in the genetic development of individuals and their sexual differentiation. It illustrates a list of hormones, such as testosterone and DHT, which are responsible for sex-related characteristics. Furthermore, the chapter gives an account of how the gonadal hormone plays a crucial role in the development of human brain and human behavior.
What is meant by the term Brain Gender is that brain gender begins taking shape, according to genetic instruction, at conception. The brain is sexually differentiated, just like genitalia are, however the difference is that genitalia are visible, and the brain is inside the skull, this means that people are not faced with the fact that it is indisputable. This essentially means that each person’s brain is hardwired to be certain gender, however it is not visible to the eye because the brain is inside the
Have you ever realized how society put us in categories, on how we should act according to our gender? Or have you ever watched commercials that actually try to break free from the gender stereotypes? If not then you should pay attention. Gender is something that strongly influences the world around us, whether it influences our behavior or how people treat us, it is still something with great power. Investigating how we are socialized in regards to gender is interesting because it is such a broad topic on how society characterizes everyone by gender.
In the essay, “Women’s Brain”, Stephen Jay Gould talks about women and how their brains differ from those of men. Gould makes use of very many studies to show us how the brains of women are smaller when compared to those of men. He then goes further to show us the point of view of other researchers for instance L. Manouvrier, who is known to have rejected the inferiority of women and went ahead to write about the feeling of the burden imposed upon the women. Later on in the essay, Gould writes explaining some studies that were used to show the difference between the weight of the women and men’s brains.
In the essay “Women’s Brains” published in 1980 in Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist, argues against the judgments against women referring to their “lack” of intelligence. He also argues that we cannot trust science to give us the full truth without missing something. Gould wrote this text in response to a study from the French professor Paul Broca when he founded that women are inferior to men because their skull size was smaller making them not as smart and Gould analyzed not only Broca’s work but also many of his followers to show that the results they found from their own work always has one flaw in their work when they argue that women aren’t as smart as men. He studied Broca’s work to argue that Broca’s conclusions
The research that has been conducted so far from biology psychologists has shown that many of the functions in the body such as sex hormones and the brains structure and function can affect human behaviour. Studies into the sex differences in behaviour from a biological perspective have also shown a relationship between genetics and human behaviour. Although there are significant studies showing the contributions of biology-psychology to the understanding of sex differences in behaviour. Previous studies in this field have also highlighted the contributions made to sex differences in human behaviour from other approaches such as behavioural, cultural and social.
Although men and women have different opinions on the difference between guys and men, Amy Chan and Dave Barry prove that there are some differences that are noticed by both
According to Broca, the average weight of 292 male brains was 1,325 grams and 1,114 grams for 140 female brains. Hence, the average weight difference between male and female brains were 181 grams. The explicit statistics Gould provided may shock his audiences and evoke their curiosity of the reason behind this dramatic difference. Gould then went on to point out the loophole in Broca’s argument that, he “made no attempt to measure the effect of size alone” and claimed that height “cannot account for the entire difference.” Evidently, Broca’s research lacked consideration towards confounding variables that have affected the results and the conclusion he drew from it, and hence his claim of women inferiority was inaccurate.
Although some inherent distinctions between the sexes exist, Orenstein mentions Eliot’s findings on neuroplasticity to suggest that nurture supersedes nature in determining a child’s behavior. A child is most impressionable during the earliest stages of life, when his or her brain is still developing. That is why learning various concepts such as language, for example, is most easily acquired before the age of puberty. Thus, an individual’s upbringing is fundamental in the development of traits and therefore, gender
Title: Mental Rotation Experiment: The effect of Gender on Mental Rotation Reaction Time Introduction: Mental rotation is an important function of visual representation in the human brain when dealing with misoriented stimuli, which is the ability to rotate two and three-dimensional objects in one’s mind. In everyday life, people’s ability to recognize faces and objects from unconventional perspectives stems from their ability to mentally rotate objects. The earliest experiment to research on the concept of mental rotation was by Shepard and Metzler (1971). In the classic experiment, participants were presented with drawings of pairs of two-dimensional figures and three-dimensional cubes that were asymmetrically assembled.
Gender roles, also known as gender stereotypes, are social and cultural norms on how females and males should conduct themselves within a society. Every culture has certain roles both genders are expected to follow. An example of this in traditional American culture is a man becoming a doctor while a female becomes a nurse or men being the hard workers and women being stay at home mothers. Gender development researchers, similar to other developmental researchers, focus on questions of change over time in gender related subjects (Ruble and Martin 1988). Research suggest that children are socialized to understand gender stereotypes at an early age.
Some folks assume that girls and boys behave and like different things based on their distinctive innate nature and physical differences. While it might be true that they identify themselves based on biological traits like their gender/sex, Penelope Eckert, the author of Learning to be Gendered, argued that receiving different treatments and nurture can have influence on how girls and boys learn to identify themselves. Penelope suggest that there’s a social matter where an individual’s gender can be a heavy label on how he or she would be like, but part of the gender label is developed by parenting while growing up. Even at birth, gender roles are conditioned by their milieu. Baby girls are given flowery or pink gifts while boys are
Although some people believe that nature affects the gender identity, others argue that, based on the education an individual receives, it is actually nurture. For example, John Moore, a teacher at a female-only school, says, “My findings suggest that, in some senses, the single-sex school is strongly feminist” (Moore, 2005). On the other hand, many societies teach the children gender stereotypes to try and limit them from becoming against what the society feels is appropriate. Gender roles or stereotypes are “a set of qualities, behaviors, and attitudes that are considered appropriate for males and females based on their biological sex” (Whalen & Maurer-Starks, 2008). Most of the time, these stereotypes are taught and explained to the children in the early stages of learning, since as mentioned above, gender identity is most likely detected after the child is two years old.
These studies suggest that children observe gender stereotypes at an early age unintentionally. Since children’s brains are constantly soaking in new information about the world around them, they have to do so in a way that they are seemingly most comfortable. Studies show that children are most comfortable learning from people who are actively in their lives and attractive movie and TV
According to sexologists John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, sex and gender are separate categories. “Sex, they argued, refers to physical attributes and is anatomically and physiologically determined. Gender they saw as a psychological transformation - the internal conviction that one is either male or female (gender identity) and the behavioral expressions of that conviction” (Sterling 4). Although there are biological differences between the two sexes, but gender roles are socially constructed. They determine how males and females should think, speak, dress, behave and interact with society.