Crockus man is back
And he’s packin’ Powerpoint:
We first met Crockus man a couple of weeks ago, and now he’s back with even more craptastic pop neuroscience (and spelling errors).
Mark Liberman has the corpus callosum issue under control, so I want to use my time at the mike to talk about a slightly different aspect of the brain-sex thing Mr. Crockus-Dude is peddling here. The ultimate fount of this nonsense is Simon Baron-Cohen,* who argues that there is something called a “male brain” (systematizing) and a “female brain” (empathizing), and that these are innate predispositions, not culturally influenced behaviors. He specifically argues that males are predisposed from birth to learn about objects and their mechanical relationships, whereas female infants are predisposed to learn about people, emotions, and personal relationships. The problem is, that’s not what the evidence shows.
Elizabeth Spelke (who is a very big wheel in infant cognition research) dealt with the issue in the first part of this paper. She noted that Baron-Cohen’s claim that male infants are more object-oriented than female infants is based on a single study which has not been replicated – an important point, since that one study contradicts several decades of research showing no such effect. That singular study also suffered from methodological flaws, which suggests that it should be taken with a grain of salt until or unless it can be replicated with better controls.
In contrast,
Over the past three decades, many experiments have investigated infants’ perception of and learning about objects. This literature has received wide attention by experimental psychologists, popular science writers, and televised science programs, but it has not figured in recent discussions of the origins of cognitive sex differences. Let us consider its findings.
Object perception begins at birth. Newborn human infants show clear, though limited, abilities to perceive the colors, shapes, sizes, and orientations of objects (e.g., Slater, Mattock, & Brown, 1990) and to perceive and extrapolate object motions (e.g., von Hofsten, 1982). Over the first six months, abilities to perceive and reach for objects develop rapidly (see Spelke, Vishton, & von Hofsten, 1995, and Johnson, 2004, for reviews). Infants also begin to represent objects that move fully out of view, to make inferences about mechanical interactions between objects, and to group objects into categories (e.g., Baillargeon, 2004; Hespos & Spelke, 2004; Quinn & Eimas, 1996). These findings are supported by multiple, converging experiments that test systematically both the existence and limits of infants’ abilities, with displays that are systematically varied to pinpoint the basis of infants’ responses and with methods that guard against potential sources of bias.
In most of these studies, the performance of male and female infants is compared systematically. Most studies find no sex differences. Some studies find an advantage for female infants, particularly in the domains of mechanical reasoning and the ages at which new abilities emerge (e.g., Baillargeon, Kotovsky, & Needham, 1995). For example, experiments have assessed infants’ understanding that an object travels farther when hit by a heavier object; female infants achieve this understanding at 5.5 months, and male infants achieve it at 6.5 months (Kotovsky & Baillargeon, 1998). Such findings do not imply that female infants are superior to male infants at mechanical reasoning, because female infants develop somewhat more rapidly across the board, and so their superior performance is not likely to be specific to objects. Moreover, research on infancy has not been subjected to the powerful techniques of meta-analysis that are needed to evaluate positive findings of sex differences. Meta-analyses of cognitive sex differences are rare in infant research because they depend on significant effects, whereas the vast majority of studies of cognitive development in infancy report no significant sex differences.
If positive conclusions concerning sex differences are not warranted by this literature, however, negative conclusions can be offered with more confidence. Thousands of studies of human infants, conducted over three decades, provide no evidence for a male advantage in perceiving, learning, or reasoning about objects, their motions, and their mechanical interactions. Instead, male and female infants perceive and learn about objects in highly convergent ways. This conclusion accords well with that of Maccoby and Jacklin (1974), whose review of an older literature led them to characterize the notion that girls are more socially oriented and boys are more object oriented as the first of many “unfounded beliefs about sex differences” (p. 349).
And yet I guarantee you somebody will read this post and still accuse me of being afraid to face “the facts.”
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*I realized in the comment thread that readers may infer that Simon Baron-Cohen is the inventor of the crockus, etc. I didn’t mean to give that impression at all. The person I’m referring to as “crockus man,” the inventor of the crockus and the creator of these Powerpoint slides, is Dan Hodgins. Simon Baron-Cohen is a psychologist and researcher whose theory of the brain apparently underlies some of this brain-sex stuff (see his book The Essential Difference), though Hodgins is bowdlerizing to a level of craptastic fantasy that boggles the mind. I don’t doubt that Baron-Cohen is a sexist asshat, and his theories are controversial, but he is a scientist in good standing and not a crackpot who would invent an entire region of the brain, as Dan Hodgins did.
69 Responses to “Crockus man is back”
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Mary Tracy9 says:
Well, that won’t be me. (the one accusing you of being “afraid to face the facts”)
WELL DONE, once again!!!
I have a dream… that one day, this Ev-Psych Bullshit will be gone.
Meanwhile, I’ll let you know of a recent book that focuses on the NON differences of men and women in language. It’s titled “The Myth of Mars and Venus”, by Deborah Cameron. I wonder HOW will the Ev-Psych fans respond to that!
Step by step, my friend, we’ll get there.
October 6th, 2007 at 5:29 am EST -
Crowlie says:
Heh, yeah there’s a bumper sticker that says “men are from earth, women are from earth, deal with it” The whole thing always struck me as more than a little circular. 1. observe how people are socialised to behave according to gender norms. 2. define said socialisation as ‘inherent’. 3. write a stupid book and make a fortune.
But what I wanted to add was a comment about the name of crockus dude. Simon Baron Cohen… All too similar to the name of Mr Borat… Sascha Baron Cohen. Could this all be a big piss take? And why was he cutting open the heads of babies anyway?
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foilwoman says:
Thank you. I wish I had something learned and intelligent to add, but I don’t. Just thank you.
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Crowlie says:
I must ask, where *did* you get the pic of the cat’s eye and the “I’m in your head watching…”? It’s brilliant! I’ve been rummaging through your archives for a few hours now and every time I look up at the top of the page I’m still laughing out loud.
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therealuk says:
I did that empathising/systemising test once and as expected, being both fairly intelligent and an actual grown up, came out high on both.
It reminded me that much of this dismissal of “empathy” as feminine is to do with the sheer idleness of the male in our culture and the insistence that everything must be fetched and carried for the poor dears while they play with their toys like two year olds.
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therealuk says:
The Observer/Guardian is running exerpts from “the myth of mars and venus”. I know nothing about the author, and it seems a bit soft (ie trying not to cause offense rather than totally hammering the stupidity out for what it is), but there are some good points in there.
For example, talking about the popular obbsession with sex differences in contrast to a difference like handedness:
“An account of how left-handers differ from right-handers would therefore lack one of the crucial ingredients that draw us to accounts of how women differ from men: it would not serve the purpose of justifying institutionalised social inequality by explaining it as the inevitable consequence of natural differences.”
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therealuk says:
OK, I’ve read some more bits and there is perhaps a bit more butt kicking in there than I’d first thought:
“why is the folk-belief that women talk more than men so persistent? The feminist Dale Spender once suggested an explanation: she said that people overestimate how much women talk because they think that, ideally, women would not talk at all.
The folk-belief that women talk more than men persists because it provides a justification for an ingrained social prejudice. Evolutionary psychology is open to a similar criticism: that it takes today’s social prejudices and projects them back into prehistory, thus elevating them to the status of timeless truths about the human condition.”
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therealuk says:
Simon Baron Cohen… All too similar to the name of Mr Borat… Sascha Baron Cohen.
They are real life cousins.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
But what I wanted to add was a comment about the name of crockus dude. Simon Baron Cohen… All too similar to the name of Mr Borat… Sascha Baron Cohen. Could this all be a big piss take? And why was he cutting open the heads of babies anyway?
Oops, I didn’t mean to give the impression that Baron-Cohen himself is the crockus dude — the inventor of the crockus and the creator of these Powerpoint slides is Dan Hodgins. Simon Baron-Cohen is a real-life psychologist and researcher whose theory of the brain is the ultimate origin of much of this stuff, though Hodgins is bowdlerizing it to an incredible extreme. Baron-Cohen is, no doubt, a sexist asshat whose theories are extremely controversial (because they’re ridiculous), but he’s a scientist in good standing and not a crackpot who would invent an entire region of the brain, as the Amazing Dan Hodgins did.
Simon Baron-Cohen is the cousin of Borat (Sasha Baron Cohen). Really.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
therealuk, we posted at the same time!
Re the Myth of Mars and Venus — I’m planning to post on that book as soon as it’s published here in the States (October 25).
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The Ghost of Violet says:
I must ask, where did you get the pic of the cat’s eye and the “I’m in your head watching…”?
It was created by the Rev. B. Dagger Lee, a long-time inhabitant of this section of the tubes and now a moderator at Twisty’s I Blame The Patriachy message board. The good doctor (whom I typically address as Ether Lord, for reasons explained here) created it when the feminist blogs were under vicious attack from Cheeto-stained dicks back in August. It is a Magical Evil Eye that wards off cheeto dicks and other miscreants.
The Rev. B. Dagger Lee has said that anyone is welcome to use it, so feel free to borrow either the small version (up top right) or the big version, which you can also see on this page.
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B. Dagger Lee says:
Absolutely, replicate away!
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Crowlie says:
LOL Yes, thanks very much I adore it.
Regarding the names, I didn’t confuse Crockus dude with Borat, though that would actually be understandable if you missed Borat’s brilliant sarcasm… It was simply too strange to ignore.
Are you serious they’re cousins? The mind boggles.
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Crowlie says:
BTW your example seemed useful… I wandered over to the Universal Church and got myself ordained. LOL
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therealuk says:
Are you serious they’re cousins? The mind boggles.
It’s not unusual for “sucessful” or “high status” individuals (males particularly) to come from a family of others similar.
Think talent(even only slightly above average)plus privilege plus the right social connections – and out of a number of brothers cousins fathers you are going to get a few high flyers.
But the privilge and connections and social structures to support these men, are ignored or denied even to exist by most people, whereas those things are really the crucial factors in their “acheivements”
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cicely says:
“why is the folk-belief that women talk more than men so persistent? The feminist Dale Spender once suggested an explanation: she said that people overestimate how much women talk because they think that, ideally, women would not talk at all.
Yep. I think Spender’s 1982 book “Women of Ideas – and what men have done to them.’ should be compulsory reading in schools! This is Jeanette Winterson’s comment on the back cover of my 1988 Pandora Press edition:
‘In the Penguin Modern History of the World, Turkey takes up more index space than do women; that is all women who have ever lived at any time. Thank God for Dale Spender.’
- a further back cover blurb:
With characteristic energy, humour and learning, Dale Spender has dug into the hidden past and uncovered shining examples of women’s creativity and intellectual prowess which were suppressed or stolen by men. Men have removed women from literary and historical records, and deprived women of the knowledge of their intellectual heritage. Now this lost history of women’s thought is set out for all to see.’
Because I’m short of time to delve, I can’t provide the name right now but one of the many women Spender talks about was the author of a required mathematics textbook for honour students at Cambridge University at a time when women were not allowed to actually attend that hallowed institution. (I found it.. Mary Somerville. Her book was published in 1832. Women weren’t permitted to attend Cambridge as full students until 1948.)
The point about Spenders book is that it lays out not only many individual women’s achievements but also the justifications and methods men used to cut women out (from recognition) and cut us off from knowledge of our sex’s amazing achievements in very different fields of endeavour – from generation to generation. It tells us exactly why we didn’t or don’t know about them.
If everyone did know about them – we could say to Hodgins – ‘and your point is…?’
Sounds like his point (beyond justification for the historical subordination of women) is – look, after all is said and done – if men don’t care about woman’s whole humanity – it’s because they can’t. Their caring membrane isn’t big enough. If a woman is trying to lift a heavy object though, because of the presence of the object rather than the woman, he’ll recognise that it would be nice if he helped!
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Tom Nolan says:
I read Baron-Cohen’s book some time ago but don’t have a copy of it to hand at the moment. But he is quite clear that those mental characteristics which he short-hands as “male” are to be found in many women too, and the book is by no means flattering to the male sex. Its main thrust, indeed, is that many undesirable behavioural and cognitive problems – autism, for example – are nothing more than extreme manifestations of mental characteristics which, though distributed amongst the two sexes, are more likely to be found in men.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Ah yes, but why does he short-hand them as the “male” brain and the “female” brain? Because he believes that most men have the male brain and most women have the female brain.
He may give the male brain a bit of a drubbing, but let’s have a look at the occupations he thinks male brains are suited for as opposed to female brains:
“People with the female brain make the most wonderful counsellors, primary school teachers, nurses, carers, therapists, social workers, mediators, group facilitators or personnel staff … People with the male brain make the most wonderful scientists, engineers, mechanics, technicians, musicians, architects, electricians, plumbers, taxonomists, catalogists, bankers, toolmakers, programmers or even lawyers.”
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Tom Nolan says:
Well yes, he does believe that the male brain is more typical of men than it is of women – in rather the same way that greater height is more typical of men than women. Which doesn’t, obviously, preclude the possibility of many, many women being taller than many, many men.
Nor from what you quote (which seems to jibe pretty well with what I remember from the book) is it obvious that Baron-Cohen thinks that “female” brains, whether possessed by men or women, are suitable only for “inferior occupations”. What’s wrong with being a nurser, carer, facilitator etc?
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The Ghost of Violet says:
For heaven’s sake, they’re all low-level mommy occupations. Nurse, kindergarten teacher, personnel staff — jesus christ. While men get to be scientists, musicians, architects, lawyers….
Deborah Cameron said it well:
If you read the two lists in their entirety, it is hard not to be struck by another “essential difference”: the male jobs are more varied, more creative, and better rewarded than their female counterparts. Baron-Cohen’s job-lists take me back to my schooldays 35 years ago, when the aptitude tests we had to complete before being interviewed by a careers adviser were printed on pink or blue paper. In those days we called this sexism, not science.
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cicely says:
My work is peripheral to car servicing and repairs – since 1992. I’ve spoken to literally thousands – maybe hundreds of thousands – of people about car servicing – and only *twice* have I ever had someone say to me that a female relative or friend is a mechanic. I hear that a male relative or friend is a mechanic at least a dozen times *a day!*
Is basic servicing of a car really all that difficult to learn? No it isn’t. My mother went to night school in the sixties to learn to do this – when she got her first car. She was a single mother of three, and wanted to not have to pay for something she could do herself. Well, hers isn’t the only story I’ve heard about being discouraged by male attitudes in this endeavour.
Another thing I hear constantly from women is that they understand themselves to be easy pickings for unscrupulous mechanics who take financial advantage of their lack of knowledge about the most basic workings of cars.
Of course you can apply this template to all kinds of trades and occupations men keep for themselves and justify doing so by referring to women’s ‘natural unsuitability’. Then the absence of women in those trades and occupations props up the beliefs, and then along comes someone like Hodgins to keep the whole cycle whirring.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Yes, exactly.
The thing is, there’s no actual evidence for Baron-Cohen’s “essential difference.” His whole theory of males having “systematizing” brains while females have “empathizing” brains is based on stereotypes of how men and women behave in our society. To the extent that those stereotypes are true at all, they reflect social pressures. There’s no reason to suppose that they’re based in biology. Simon-Cohen likes to prattle on about his one study that found female infants looking at faces longer than male infants did, but as Elizabeth Spelke makes clear, the overwhelming majority of the evidence is that there is no difference between boys and girls.
But that’s the problem with these brain-sex books. The ideas get out there, and the public doesn’t know that it’s bullshit.
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cicely says:
But that’s the problem with these brain-sex books. The ideas get out there, and the public doesn’t know that it’s bullshit.
Yes – what the hell is going on? Here’s one from The Australian newspaper last week…
Quote:
PARIS: The brain neurons of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough choices, suggesting that some political divides may be hard-wired, a new study has found….The affinity between political views and “cognitive style” has also been shown to be heritable, handed down from parents to children, said the study, published in the British journal ‘Nature Neuroscience’.
Where does one begin?
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Tom Nolan says:
While men get to be scientists, musicians, architects, lawyers….
No, no. He’s saying that people with “male” brains of either sex make better scientists, musicians, architects lawyers etc. (as well as being more likely to suffer all sorts of neurological and mental disorders).
Listen, I can understand why someone with a “patriarchal” mentality would despise “mommy” occupations. But I can’t see that Baron-Cohen does. And I can’s see why you do.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
He’s saying that people with male brains, which is most men, are good at being scientists, musicians, architects, lawyers, and in fact anything that doesn’t involve taking care of other people.
He’s saying that people with female brains, which is most women, are good at doing mommy-type jobs, like nursing and primary-school teaching and stuff like that.
That is exactly what men were saying 100 years ago, and goddamn if they’re not still saying it. “Ladies are suited to the caring occupations, but the thinking jobs must be left to us men.” And also, any woman who showed “strength of mind” (as it was called in those days) was considered to have a “man’s mind in a woman’s body.” Lo and fucking behold, has nothing changed?
But the point that I keep making is that the whole thing is bullshit. B-C’s whole brain theory is silly. The evidence isn’t there. The public thinks it makes sense because of the book, and gee, B-C is a real doctor so he can’t be just pulling this stuff out of his ass, can he? Yes, he can.
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Tom Nolan says:
Ghost of Violet
He’s saying that people with male brains, which is most men, are good at being scientists, musicians, architects, lawyers, and in fact anything that doesn’t involve taking care of other people
No, that’s wrong. He says that “male” brains are more typical of men than women. That does not imply that most men have them. Autism is more typical of men than women – would you infer that most men are autistic?
“Ladies are suited to the caring occupations, but the thinking jobs must be left to us men.”
But that’s not what Baron-Cohen is saying, is it? He says that only that a certain brain type, more typical of men (especially in its pathological forms) than of women but occurring plentifully in both sexes, is better suited to some occupations than others. And many of the most prestigious careers would, in fact, require a balance of the characteristics he shorthands as “male” and “female” – you couldn’t be a successful barrister, journalist or politician if your brain were wholly systematic and analytic: you’d need “people skills” too.
And to repeat my earlier point: what’s wrong with the occupations you deride as “mommy” jobs? It’s one thing for Victorian patriarchs to despise them as only fit for women, and quite another for a feminist like yourself to join them in their contempt.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
You’re talking about this as if Baron-Cohen somehow discovered these two brain types existing independently in the wild, identified and catalogued them, and only then noticed that one type predominated among men and the other type predominated among women.
Look, Baron-Cohen’s whole theory, including the descriptions of the “male” and “female” brain, is based entirely on his (stereotypical) impressions of the behavior of men/boys and women/girls. That’s it. He calls it the “male” brain because the very definition of the thing is based entirely on men’s behavior. He calls it the “female” brain because the definition is based entirely on women’s behavior. Caveats that some women act like men (I mean have male brains) and vice versa don’t change the fact that the whole shebang is based, 100%, on stereotypical perceptions of the real behavior of real men and women in the real world. To pretend otherwise is just special pleading. More importantly, it misses the fundamental weakness in B-C’s theory, and that’s that all he’s done is reify socially constructed gender stereotypes, label them the “male brain” and the “female brain,” and cash in with a pop neuroscience book.
This is why so many other psychologists and neuroscientists (the ones who aren’t trying to cash in on the gender thing) regard his theory with extreme skepticism. Where is the evidence? Where is the data that this is some kind of biological difference?
And for that matter, what kind of sense does it make to reduce human psychology to these limited dimensions? The idea that the systematizing/empathizing continuum is the key thing, that this is the way to categorize human minds — even aside from the gender connection — is cartoonish. Individual minds are a mix of traits, and we all have various degrees of all kinds of capabilities and inclinations. B-C’s scheme seems more like pop science than anything else. The most generous interpretation I can come up with is that it’s an outgrowth of his fixation on autistic traits.
what’s wrong with the occupations you deride as “mommy” jobs?
There’s nothing wrong with the jobs. What’s wrong is saying that’s all female brains are good for.
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Tom Nolan says:
He calls it the “male” brain because the very definition of the thing is based entirely on men’s behavior. He calls it the “female” brain because the definition is based entirely on women’s behavior
Clearly any theory of sex-related mental characteristics is going to be based on an observation of the behaviour of members of both sexes, Ghost of Violet. That’s not exactly a damning accusation.
Caveats that some women act like men (I mean have male brains) and vice versa don’t change the fact that the whole shebang is based, 100%, on stereotypical perceptions of the real behavior of real men and women in the real world. To pretend otherwise is just special pleading.
If I were to call tallness a male trait in the sense of being “more typical of men than women” but pointed out that plenty of women were taller than plenty of men, would you accuse me of being a sexist indulging in special pleading? The bone of contention between you and Baron-Cohen is, surely, whether he is actually correct to say that an innate tendency to systematizing, analytical thinking is more typical of men than women. He may be right or he may be wrong – I’m no scientist – but even if he’s wrong there’s no need to accuse him of being a “sexist asshat” for making such an affirmation.
This is why so many other psychologists and neuroscientists (the ones who aren’t trying to cash in on the gender thing) regard his theory with extreme skepticism. Where is the evidence? Where is the data that this is some kind of biological difference?
I don’t know, Ghost of Violet. So far as I can tell, after a quick internet trawl, Baron-Cohen has produced plenty of evidence to support – I don’t say conclusively prove – his theory (for example: the varying typical behaviour of boys and girls before there can be any question of cultural indoctrination, the overwhelming preponderance of boys suffering from autism) and he’s well-respected in the scientific community. Which of his peers says that he has drawn his conclusions erroneously or from insufficient evidence?
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Tom Nolan says:
G of V
There’s nothing wrong with the jobs. What’s wrong is saying that’s all female brains are good for
And who says that? All that Baron-Cohen says is that people of either sex who are more empathetically than they are analytically inclined do best in jobs that privilege empathy over analysis. Hard to disagree.
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Kiuku says:
“Tom Nolan”
It is not hard to disagree with junk science.
The real issue, and the real problem occurs when you have a junk science like Evolutionary Psychology that tries to reinforce social inequality, such as phrenology for example, that said people with large noses were predisposed to greed. Therefore, we should not have people of Jewish decent running banks.
It seems pretty innocuous, for example, to say females are more inclined toward analysis than males. But there is something deeply disturbing about “Evolutionary Psychology’s” and the general public’s obsession with gender differences that has very real negative consequences on young girls and boys that spans into adulthood.
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Kiuku says:
Based on Ghost of Violets blog and scientific references regarding the lack of gender differences, I haven’t seen this convincing evidence, nor does whether or not he is respected by his colleagues impress me, given history.
Where Baron-Cohen fails, and where you fail is in the pitting of analysis against empathy. Sure, our society views these as opposites. I would very much like to know what your “well-respected” researcher has done to determine the natural exclusiveness and opposition of one from the other;that analysis and empathy are opposites and mutually exclusive, such that females are more empathic, and therefore suffer analytically;that empathic individuals are also not good at anaylsis; That a person who is “inclined” toward empathy, is therefore less “inclined” toward analysis. Likewise, I would like to know if highly analytical individuals usually, statistically suffer from a measurable lack of empathy, and of introspective abilities.
Autism is a disease, certainly marked by lack of empathy. However, it is a -disease-. More males suffering from Autism, which is a -disease- is not proof that males are more capable in analysis or that somehow because of their so-called analytical inclinations they are more likely to be born autistic. Perhaps more males suffer from autism because more males are vulnerable to genetic disease. Again, we don’t know what causes aAtism, which is a disease. Perhaps it is because mother’s don’t hug their boy children enough. heh.
“If I were to call tallness a male trait in the sense of being “more typical of men than women” but pointed out that plenty of women were taller than plenty of men, would you accuse me of being a sexist indulging in special pleading? ”
No. I would accuse you of being sexist if you brought it up in a society that valued tallness over shortness. Otherwise, why even bring it up? And that is what the issue here is and what we all have to ask ourselves is what is the motivation of gender difference “researchers”? Is it really to go forth into a brave new world of utopian utilitarian job providing? A world where everyone gets the job they are naturally best suited for, and the paycheck that goes with it? When you say:
“people of either sex who are more empathetically than they are analytically inclined do best in jobs that privilege empathy over analysis.”
While also saying/believing that males -in general- are more analytically capable/”inclined” than females by birth, you set the stage for prejudice and discrimination in the context of what is valued by society (jobs that pay more etc) based on a person’s sex which is sexism.
But what if it’s true! What if men -are- more analytically inclined than women? Then I must ask you what if men are taller than women? What if men are more prone to genetic disease than women? What if?
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Kiuku says:
then again, I haven’t conducted a “quick internet trawl” hahahahhahahhaha
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Kiuku says:
Violet,
A really good point you brought up is the difficulty in determining the point where culture is a reasonable influence. I mean, even in pregancy women sometimes eat different foods if they are expecting a boy or a girl. It must be before mommy and daddy dress the child in pink or blue, or they take their first stroll down the segregated toy aisles..before little Sandy or little Bobby sees the boy pictures on the army green chemistry set. I can remember as early in elementary school gender binarism. “You can’t do that you’re a giiirrrrrllll.” or “that’s for boooyyyss.”
So “scientists” who for some reaosn want to find out what the natural gender differences are, if any, have to study infant behavior, which is really hard to make any kind of sound interpretation from, especially given the possibility that females develop faster, and therefore, even -if- there was a measurable difference in empathy favoring females, it may just because they learn empathy earlier.
“Thousands of studies of human infants, conducted over three decades, provide no evidence for a male advantage in perceiving, learning, or reasoning about objects, their motions, and their mechanical interactions. Instead, male and female infants perceive and learn about objects in highly convergent ways. This conclusion accords well with that of Maccoby and Jacklin (1974), whose review of an older literature led them to characterize the notion that girls are more socially oriented and boys are more object oriented as the first of many “unfounded beliefs about sex differences” (p. 349).”
The problem is these so-called Evo-psych researchers look at the way men behave in society, and the priveledge they enjoy over women in social inequality, and they try to “discover” qualities to support the status quo and declare them natural. If men are depriving women are human-status by not communicating with them, well it’s just because men aren’t good at communicating! Who would have thought with years of men ruling the discourse sphere that men just aren’t good at communicating this whole time. Meanwhile we need secretaries so women should just be secretaries because they are better at all that multi-tasking stuff. And didn’t you know that men are good at moving furniture so you should do the dishes! Ok everyone get to work.
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Tom Nolan says:
But what if it’s true! What if men -are- more analytically inclined than women? Then I must ask you what if men are taller than women? What if men are more prone to genetic disease than women? What if?
There is no “what if”. Nothing follows from this – human beings should be judged on their merits. That’s really what’s bugging me about this discussion: It is assumed that Baron-Cohen’s theories must have deleterious consequences for women if they are taken seriously and that they therefore must be derided as pseudo-science etc. But both the premise and the conclusion are wrong. BC never suggested other than that your average, socially functional man or woman has a mix of the characteristics short-handed as male and female: nobody could use his research as a basis for sexual discrimination unless they were to wilfully misread it. He might be right or wrong. I repeat, I’m no scientist. But what he wrote is anyway innocuous.
then again, I haven’t conducted a “quick internet trawl” hahahahhahahhaha
Well, I’m glad I brought a little sunshine into somebody’s life. But perhaps you can answer the question I asked G of V:
Which of his peers says that he has drawn his conclusions erroneously or from insufficient evidence?
Given that it’s all pseudo-science, and given that you will have come to that conclusion based on a reading of Baron-Cohen’s book and critiques of it, that shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?
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Amy's Brain Today says:
Do we have bingo yet for chrissake?
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Which of his peers says that he has drawn his conclusions erroneously or from insufficient evidence?
Given that it’s all pseudo-science, and given that you will have come to that conclusion based on a reading of Baron-Cohen’s book and critiques of it, that shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?
Ahem. I’m going to take it then that you haven’t read the post and the links attached. This post, I mean, the one that you’re commenting on, the one that this thread is attached to. You can read Elizabeth Spelke’s paper, which summarizes much work, and you can read the Language Log post I linked to which also summarizes and links to a number of studies.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
It is assumed that Baron-Cohen’s theories must have deleterious consequences for women if they are taken seriously and that they therefore must be derided as pseudo-science etc.
No, sorry, logical error. I don’t deride his work on gender as pseudo-science because if may have deleterious consequences for women, but because of the work itself, which is largely fact-free and stereotype-heavy. If his conclusion was that all women were geniuses who should rule the world and all men were morons, his work would still be pseudo-science.
nobody could use his research as a basis for sexual discrimination unless they were to wilfully misread it.
His work has already been used to support the idea, for example, that the reason women are underrepresented in tenured science positions is because relatively few women have what it takes to be good scientists. And that isn’t a misrepresentation at all, wilful or otherwise.
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Kiuku says:
It is assumed that Baron-Cohen’s theories must have deleterious consequences for women if they are taken seriously and that they therefore must be derided as pseudo-science etc.
No Evo-Psych and Pop Neuroscience are derided as pseudo-science because it often is.
And we aren’t the only ones asking the question:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-142683388.html
I deride this because I realize it is the same old “Men are Logical/Women are Emotional” present with a different fucking bow.
Given that it’s all pseudo-science, and given that you will have come to that conclusion based on a reading of Baron-Cohen’s book and critiques of it, that shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?
So I have to read the book or can I just do a “quick internet trawl” to come to my conclusion? If statistics of genetic disorders like Autism are among his strongest supportive evidence, I really don’t think it is necessary.
This:
Elizabeth Spelke (who is a very big wheel in infant cognition research) dealt with the issue in the first part of this paper. She noted that Baron-Cohen’s claim that male infants are more object-oriented than female infants is based on a single study which has not been replicated – an important point, since that one study contradicts several decades of research showing no such effect. That singular study also suffered from methodological flaws, which suggests that it should be taken with a grain of salt until or unless it can be replicated with better controls.
is meaningful.
human beings should be judged on their merits.
Human beings should not be discriminated against, or face prejudice because of their sex.
It is assumed that Baron-Cohen’s theories must have deleterious consequences for women if they are taken seriously
It has and does have negative effects. These so-called studies, and the culture behind them have always had deleterious effects on women and girls, and disastrous consequences for the entire human race. When women are denied a voice, discouraged from scientific enterprise, erased from history books, girls are denied authentic women role models and the entire human race suffers from a lack of female contribution. Who would not think there are disastrous consequences when half of the human race is discouraged from fields of power and influence or enterprise? Hildegard proposed a heliocentric universe 300 years before Copernicus and she wrote of universal gravitation 500 years before Newton. But she was a nun, and a woman. Even women’s “contributions” to the field of computers are forgotten and the whole field has become a misogynist shit pile. People do not know that the so-called inventor of the computer worked with a woman, and then later four women worked on the ENIAC. Most people do not know that most computer operators were women in the beginning, and that some of the early programming languages were written by women to include COBOL and FORMAC. Because women typically invent practical things to make their lives easier, it’s hard to dismiss women’s actual contribution of computer science, yet I fail to find their presence known. Do you think this has deleterious consequences for our future? Do you think it is any coincidence our technological leaps since the emancipation of women?
Do you honestly think a so-called “study” with all the posturing of science of academia behind the “researcher” telling boys and girls that girls just aren’t inclined to be analytical is innocuous and without ill motivation? What do you think this researcher believes are the practical applications of his research? What do you think are the practical applications of your statement:
“And who says that? All that Baron-Cohen says is that people of either sex who are more empathetically than they are analytically inclined do best in jobs that privilege empathy over analysis. Hard to disagree.”
It’s actually very simple to disagree and very arguable that people do best in jobs that, while they may not be so-called “naturally inclined” to do, are none-the-less very good at doing or enjoy doing. However, I want to get back to your it’s innocuous stuff. Do you also believe that Psychology’s past research into whether or not black Americans were -naturally- more prone to violence and their conclusions were also innocuous?
Do you think the lack of educational toys in the girl aisle is similarly innocuous?
We live in a society where women suffer social inequality and discrimination in every facet of life. Similarly we live in a society where black Americans face discrimination and social inequality. When you have an Evo-Psych researcher admit in a public forum that when he -sees- a woman he finds her automatically less likable. What do these so-called studies do other than reinforce the already negative stereotypes and persistent misogyny?
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The Ghost of Violet says:
If I were to call tallness a male trait in the sense of being “more typical of men than women” but pointed out that plenty of women were taller than plenty of men, would you accuse me of being a sexist indulging in special pleading? The bone of contention between you and Baron-Cohen is, surely, whether he is actually correct to say that an innate tendency to systematizing, analytical thinking is more typical of men than women.
You are right that a bone of contention is whether he is actually correct, but you keep missing the fallacy in the way he has constructed his whole problem. Tallness isn’t the right analogy, given that that’s an independent physical variable which exists with non-humans as well as humans, etc., etc.
A better analogy would be a researcher who announced his theory that there are two kinds of brains: Jew brains and Gentile brains. He would say, “I’m sure you’ve all noticed, as I have, that Jews tend to be greedy and Gentiles tend to be generous. It’s true, isn’t it? We see it every day! Jews are great with money, tend to be very, very clever — they run all the banks, they’re at the top of the professions — and they’re also rather sneaky and cruel. Gentiles, on the other hand (and we’ve all seen this, haven’t we?) are generous, trusting, and kind. Of course these are extreme stereotypes, with most people having a mix of Jew brain and Gentile brain characteristics, but still — the Jew brain predominates among Jews, and the Gentile brain predominates among Gentiles. These are innate differences hard-wired into the brain, as I showed with my study of one-day old Jew and Gentile infants, in which the Jew babies looked at the pile of money for an average of 1.5 seconds longer than the Gentile babies did.
“Indeed, all people have either Jew brains or Gentile brains or a mix of these characteristics hard-wired into their brains. Jews or Jew-brain people are wonderful at running banks and being scientists and cheating people, or really doing anything that requires lots of smarts and sneakiness, and Gentiles are wonderful at running soup kitchens and doing charity work.
“Now, please buy my book about the Jew brain/Gentile brain, and go to the BBC and take the handy test I’ve designed to figure out where you fit on the Jew/Gentile continuum.”
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Kiuku says:
“The Essential Difference” = “Men are from Mars;Women are from Venus” + crack
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K.A. says:
I believe both Simon and Sascha Baron-Cohen are extremely sexist, but the latter has positioned himself so as to look like some sort of anti-bigotry hero. But that’s beside the point; Simon Baron-Cohen has disturbed me for quite sometime before I found your blog, to the point that I had posted a response to the ONE negative review I was able to find on Amazon that ripped into his gender essentialist nonsense. Here is my old review:
K. A. says:
I agree. If his theory is specifically that autism increases as testosterone exposure in utero increases, then his theory should say that; putting forth “male” and “female” brains reveal his own incompetence and sexism. The whole theory is based on a logical fallacy–only male entitlement could allow a scientist to get away with BS like this.Calling someone good in the sciences “male” is absolutely a sexist remark, and not too far from when women pre-lib wanted to do such crazy things as “working” or “being doctors,” they were considered “non-women” by definition. He’s promoting an updated version of the True Scotsman fallacy, as it has historically been perpetrated against women. He is assigning preconceived sexist notions of what proper dimorphism ought to look like. The fact that women are also engineers and that women also get autism too makes calling their brains “male” preposterous; I don’t say women who are tall have “male” heights. Some may be tall because of a high-testosterone endocrine issue, but many because of genetics. ONE CAN INHERIT THESE TRAITS INDEPENDENT OF HORMONE LEVELS, EVEN IF HORMONE LEVELS CAN ALSO MEDIATE THE TRAIT. That’s a pretty obvious, important distinction that Baron-Cohen doesn’t seem to get, and that’s why he reveals his blatant sexism.
To always assign someone who does not exhibit “proper” signs of dimorphism compared to oneself as the necessarily the wrong sex is more about the individual’s inadequacy and has nothing to do with maleness or femaleness. Traditionally in a misogynist society, this has been lorded over females with males considered the default people, with women who fail to meet the dimorphic expectation considered aberrant one, not the other way around.
Can you imagine how in prior eras, the conception of what is appropriate male or female roles, behavior, or personal traits caused men to select against women who exhibited said traits because they were not the arbitrary definition of what females were allowed to be in that time? In prior societies, women were considered dumber than males, so women smarter than a suitor would be avoided so as the male could maintain his proper “male” dimorphism of being superior in intelligence. These false constructs are bad for society, and though Baron-Cohen takes great pains to say he is not sexist, he reveals his sexism nonetheless.
As another example, women are 10% lighter-skinned on average, so Indian and African women must have “male” skin, right? There are many modes of phenotypic expression for traits that are also hormonally correlated.
Baron-Cohen is a gay man who has repeatedly revealed his disdain for women in the book every time he finds subtle ways to call women stupid, infantile, or frivolous. For example, he says women like to shop and chat about each other’s dresses and throw supper parties with their friends. He takes little jabs at his decidedly technology-retarded nanny, who thought cars were the “root of all problems in the world.” Throughout the book he finds little ways to call women frivolous and stupid in spite of his introductory pre-apology, which has managed to convince all but the more intelligent readers. It’s really nothing new–men are always finding new ways to tell women that estrogen makes them stupid. His claims to the contrary do not erase the evidence of his beliefs.
I would be more accepting of his theory if he were saying that high testosterone in utero exclusively was the culprit, but upon further review, that is not the case.
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Kiuku says:
That’s awesome K.A! But what strikes me the most about his sexism is that Autism is a DISEASE. It’s not normal. Sure it can be characterized by “systemitizing” but classifying Autism as disorder of extreme systemitizing lacks perspective and is so terribly problematic. No one knows what causes it. I wouldn’t be surprised if males were more prone to get this disorder, environmental or genetic, but that is what the statistics say and that is all they say. Yet the news is already saying that fetal testosterone leads to Autism when his research isn’t even completed. It is just so wrong to make generalizations about healthy men and women based on a disease. I don’t see how prevalence of disease in males could possibly be turned around on women in a sexist way by any normal reasonable thinking person. Autistic people could hardly be called “smart”, save for savants. Even mildly Autistic people need a lot of work. It amazes me that he uses his so-called Autistic research as leverage for his sexism.
What you say here:
“Baron-Cohen is a gay man who has repeatedly revealed his disdain for women in the book every time he finds subtle ways to call women stupid, infantile, or frivolous. For example, he says women like to shop and chat about each other’s dresses and throw supper parties with their friends. He takes little jabs at his decidedly technology-retarded nanny, who thought cars were the “root of all problems in the world.” Throughout the book he finds little ways to call women frivolous and stupid in spite of his introductory pre-apology, which has managed to convince all but the more intelligent readers. It’s really nothing new–men are always finding new ways to tell women that estrogen makes them stupid. His claims to the contrary do not erase the evidence of his beliefs.”
I believe it. The lengths, and the mental acrobatics that men will go through to justify their sexist beliefs is really stunning. Sickening. I’m just so sick of it.
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Kiuku says:
Guess what I just found out? There is a greater prevalence of Down-Syndrome in male live borns. The male: female ratios among liveborns with Down syndrome favors males. Maybe mental retardation is just extreme male?
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Infidel says:
There is a greater prevalence of commiting rape among males, which is certainly indicative of mental retardation, and it isn’t even a disease. Oh wait, we don’t have a corpus collosum, so basically we don’t give a @&%$ and retarded.
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K.A. says:
Kiuku: the reason there is a 4:1 male-female ratio of many diseases is because the mutation for those disorders lies on the X-chromosome. Because women get two of them, the normal one tempers the potentially negative effects of the aberrant one. So the extra X acts as an insurance system for women. The fact that Baron-Cohen ignores this well-known fact about many diseases other than autism is more proof of his grandiose incompetence. I didn’t know you could build a career on a blatant logical fallacy (one that ought to be apparent even to people who are not scientifically inclined), but male privilege has afforded many incompetent men undeserved academic opportunities.
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K.A. says:
One more thing, Kiuku. I understand what you’re saying about him downplaying autism as a disease in favor of positing it as a haywire version of “men’s” greatest “strength” (why, their innately superior intelligence, donchaknow!). But the most striking aspect of the whole thing to me is the logical fallacy of arbitrarily labeling two things that look the same on the surface as being the same thing underneath as well, even though the causes mediating them are very different. It would be like a racist Baron-Cohen seeing jaundiced white babies and saying they had extreme Asian disease, whereby the mother had too much MSG in the womb, thus hyperChinafying the child. That’s still not a perfect analogy because there really is a skin tone difference between Asians and whites on average, but this analogy would only hold if there was some sort of historical system of white people forcing Asians work in an enormous tanning bed that was actually making their skin a different color. So the non-pathological difference would be caused by whites oppressing the Asians, whereas the diseased white babies were jaundiced, which had nothing to do with Asians. God, fuck this analogy. Do you know what I mean? I’m trying to make an analogy similar to my height-can-be-mediated-by-genetic-and-environmental-
factors-other-than-hormones one, but it’s not perfect. I’ll clarify my point if you want. -
Kiuku says:
Yes K.A that is an excellent point. I also wondered, in the case of environmental diseases, if the male tendency to develop slower than females might make the male more vulnerable to environmental toxins.
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K.A. says:
BETTER analogy: think of societies where women are not allowed to be educated, so only the males are literate. No one in all the living generations has ever seen a literate female, so women are also presumed incapable of it, which further justifies not educating them (circular reasoning that only John Stuart Mills-types figure out is bogus). The sexist culture modifies the environment, the ill effects of which are conflated with women’s innate ability. Then imagine there are boys with learning disabilities who can’t learn to read. Instead of calling them dyslexic, they are called Hyperfemale-brained.
Masculine-feminine abilities are socially constructed. In societies where women do all the outdoor manual labor, to dress in a utilitarian manner or anything associated with being outdoorsy is considered “womanish.” Baron-Cohen is simply superimposing an arbitrary, sexist, invented SYSTEM upon this phenomenon (some competent systematizer he is!). He’s ignorant and projecting his bigoted beliefs upon the unknown. It’s just like any historical anecdote we’ve seen where one scientific phenomenon is understood, and so everyone starts trendily thinking exclusively in those terms, and any other unknown phenomena have the former system projected on it to explain it away. This is as ridiculous as the archaic refrigerator mother theory behind autism, and lord knows THAT didn’t have the sexist beliefs predominating the times superimposed upon it. This hate speech is so damaging to women, so I genuinely hate this misogynist pseudoscientist Simon Baron-Cohen. This has the potential to do as much long-term damage as incorrect “penis envy” type theories, even though Baron-Cohen obviously has not got the chops to at least get SOME things right, as Freud did.
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K.A. says:
Baron-Cohen also has a problem with Occam’s Razor. It has been so well-established that the fundamental feature common to autistics/Aspergers is sensory integrative dysfunction, so any high amount of sensory stimuli causes anxiety, discomfort, and pain, whether it be sounds, textures, bright lights, eye contact, feelings of injustice, betrayal, strong emotions, etc. They can only process one thing at a time. People are wired to have intense visceral reactions while relating to people, especially when we make eye contact with them. Autistics tend to take an avoidant approach to these potentially painful stimuli, which includes people. SO we really do understand the causative aspect of why autistics are not sociable and tend to focus on one thing at a time. Calling this “male” is arbitrary, like the way the romance languages label things as male or female, and intellectually dishonest.
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Kiuku says:
K.A you are very articulate. I hope you continue in your pursuits. You have explained it very well.
First, classifying Autism as a disorder of extreme systematizing is a problematic and incorrect “oversimplification”.
Second, Simon Cohen is an asshole.
Third, Autism is a disease, and you can’t make generalizations about healthy individuals from a diseased population.
Fourth, you can’t compare symptoms of a disease with similar appearances in healthy populations, as you have articulated well. Albino people are not extremely caucasian.
Fifth, Simon Baron Cohen is sexist and does not understand what logic is, doesn’t understand what systematizing is, and doesn’t understand what rational is. Fails to understand the human condition, and fails to understand the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. He doesnt’ understand that empathy and logical are not oppositional. Autistic people are not little computers. If he does understand any of this, he ignores it in favor of his sexism like he ignores social factors.
I stand by my original assessment:
The Essential Difference=Men are from Mars;Women are from Venus + crack.
Fifth, Simon Cohen ignores other male:female ratio of disease statistics.
And I think that is a good summary of all the problems with his “work”.
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Kiuku says:
But if he’s right I’d really like to know where all the rational and logical men are.
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Kiuku says:
The Essential Difference, if it exists, sure isn’t helping Simon out any.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
K.A you are very articulate. I hope you continue in your pursuits. You have explained it very well.
Just want to say I agree. K.A., your Amazon review of Baron-Cohen’s book is so good I’m going to find it and give it the Amazonian thumbs up (“Did you find this review helpful?”).
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Kiuku says:
“No, no. He’s saying that people with “male” brains of either sex make better scientists, musicians, architects lawyers etc. (as well as being more likely to suffer all sorts of neurological and mental disorders).”-Tom Nolan
Calling it a male brain is sexist, and saying that men are likely more apt to do things of enterprise in society is sexist. I mean forget that they came out with a book in 1940, or so, called “The Boy Engineer” to encourage -men- to become engineers. Forget that in order to be a musician, you have to think holistically. Our very enjoyment of music is not at all systematic, deductive, or even inductive/scientific. It’s based on holistic principles in such a way that you cannot isolate one note, or one sound from the other, but must be enjoyed as a total sensory experience AND therefore a good musician/composer must also be a holistic “thinker”.
Engineers must be “abstract” thinkers. In addition to understanding geometry and math, that, while based on universal axioms, being an engineer involves more than “systematic/deductive/logical” thought process.
The same thing goes for inventive minds, and writers which relies more on inspiration.
Others have pointed out the problem with the lawyer example. But I’m really surprised to see musicians and scientists make this list.
Basically it seems that the so-called female brain is more apt to be any of those professions than the so-called male brain.
Good idea Violet!
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Infidel says:
The brain has about as much to do with it as the hands. If only one could correlate number of ribs to ability there would be definitive statistics.
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Infidel says:
…but they wouldn’t be sex specific.
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K.A. says:
I actually didn’t review the book, but I responded in the comments section to the ONE negative review I could find to say I agreed with her! Her review got an abysmal feedback score from all the idiots out there. So you have to look at the comments section for a 1-star review. But you can vote that my comment was helpful!
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K.A. says:
Whoops, you’ll have to copy and paste the link above and fix the portion where the hyperlink ends and the cr of the regular text begins. The underscores are disappearing: (“ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt/”)
Bah, it’s easier just to find the one low review and click “comments.”
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Kiuku says:
Figures. This is what people really -want- to believe. Unfortunately, The “Logical Man” “Emotional Woman” crap has been around far too long. It dates back to, probably, the Victorian Era where education made its impact and the difference between men and women most profound. Because women could not discourse on an intellectual level, they were considered like animals, emotional, and the literature about women reflected that frame of mind.
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Kiuku says:
I found this gem from the Amazon conversation:
“But WHY do you consider it to be an insult to be told that you and/or your daughter have a “masculine” brain? ”
Because I don’t. I have a female brain, which is just as rational and “systematic” as a man’s.
Amazing.
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Kiuku says:
I think Black people would be very insulted if Black engineers were considered to have White brains. Friggin amazing.
Men are threatened by women at their very core. Something intrinsic in men makes them know that women are their natural superiors, in everything, and this is why misogyny and hatred for women persists. Quite simply, men are afraid of women.
Men are not rational, and they are not logical. There may be some rational and logical men, who perhaps have devoted their lives to being rational and logical, yet most men are driven not by rationale or logic, but by some very base emotions, like women as well. The only difference it seems, due to socialization, that men are driven more by negative emotions like fear/insecurity/need for affirmation/ (male) respect/hate. Women are motivated by seeking positive experiences, and are pretty content. Men do not often “feel whole” but women do, and the funny thing is men project this feeling this “lack” onto women.
It is no wonder that the society’s in which women participate more, have a greater voice, are those which are more ethical and progressive in all arenas. When misogyny starts rearing its ugly head again, and women persecuted, we see a slip in progress. The answer for this is not that better men are more ethical, but that women’s input is necessary for a great society.
Where would we be without women’s input? Women were the first to practice medicine. We already know what happened when women were persecuted for practicing, or knowing medicine. Women were the keepers of the loom, the first artists. Women were probably the first to get educations and give educations, as they needed to educate their daughters on the tribe’s history, on practical medicine and child rearing. Now that we understand women in the past as creative innovators, honestly where would we be without women?
No math. Think Enheduanna, mathemetician, astronomer, adviser, and disciple of Inanna. No geometry. Think Theano, mathemetician discoverer of the golden mean, Pythagorean Theorem, and the creator of Pythagoras school of mathematics. Sure men could have come up with it themselves, like thousands of years later after erasing women’s history (and therefore humanity’s) men give medicine a try.
Today I cringe to think of where we would be without women. No radium. No double helix. No polonium. No appliances. No using X rays to discover molecular structures. Perhaps we wouldn’t have won wars without Hedy Lammar’s pioneer work in secret communications systems. No medical syringe. No isolation of human stem cells. No computers or operators. No computer science. No COBOL. No FORMAC. No artificial intelligence.
And that’s really just some of it…a small knowledge of what is actually women’s contribution.
But what is worse..is you really have to wonder where we aren’t because of women’s oppression. Where we could actually be today? And where we are not because of men like Simon Baron Cohen and Baumeister.
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K.A. says:
Good points, Kiuku. Black kids who read and study often are called “acting white” or referred to as an “Oreo.” Of course there is no system of science dedicated to backing the biological truth of schoolyard insults (though gnxp-men sure like to point out that American blacks are 30% white whenever faced with their intellectual successes).
When I say “men,” I obviously don’t mean all men, but men as a class and historical/present day cultural tour de wretched force.
The only gender essentialist truism that could possibly be seriously drawn from observation without experimentation is that men inherently try to control, kill, torture, or leverage social authority (e.g., as an academic) against the competition that makes them look incompetent by comparison–whether the competition be other men or women. Ev-psych nuts, if they were intellectually sincere, would be looking into that one and not women’s cognitive deficiencies. That they don’t investigate the only obvious possible ev-psych difference between men and women is very telling about their real agenda, intellectual ability, and biases. Women at the very least match, and likely surpass, all male mental abilities, and men deeply resent that, just as they likely resent the “female choice” aspect of mammalian mating, which is why at some point they robbed women of personal agency (chattel) to remove that boundary via enslavement. They are inherently drawn to oppressing the competition (possibly a survival/sexual-selection thing) even though it’s not genuine competition outside of their biological neurotic deficiencies. They are basically like petulant little bitey monkeys with the immature ego of a 5-year-old child. One might even call it, well, EMOTIONAL! Irrational, perhaps? But all of society suffers for having to have men in any type of power. Westernized society/patriarchy is the worst, most destructive meme history has seen. The environment is ruined, hierarchies are enforced, violence is de rigeur, women starve themselves to death after imbibing men’s psychological carcinogens (to save stalking homicidal partners and rapists the trouble), individual agency is diminished (but they sure pat themselves on the back for the individual rights afforded by The Constitution–alas, whatever men taketh away, they will surely pat themselves on the back for “inventing” when merely returning them). I’m sick of lionizing any man in all of Western history when all he has done is enslave and destroy and torture and regress and take credit for something a woman wasn’t allowed to do better.
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Kiuku says:
“Of course there is no system of science dedicated to backing the biological truth of schoolyard insults (though gnxp-men sure like to point out that American blacks are 30% white whenever faced with their intellectual successes).”
There was a system of science dedicated to backing the so-called biological truth of the inferiority of black people during their slavery and recently following their emancipation. We were saturated in it. Just like during the holocaust, there was a system of science dedicated to backing the biological truth of Jewish inferiority. It was and is called Psychology/Psychiatry. Anthropology was guilty of it too, but Anthropology matured, unlike Psychology.
This is how people justify oppression. The priveledged class of people, who enjoy certain rights and freedoms, realize that they enjoy them, and thus must justify depriving other people of them. The only way you can justify it is if the oppressed class is really inferior/subhuman.
“The only gender essentialist truism that could possibly be seriously drawn from observation without experimentation is that men inherently try to control, kill, torture, or leverage social authority (e.g., as an academic) against the competition that makes them look incompetent by comparison–whether the competition be other men or women.”
Exactly. We really need to be looking at the socialization of men which causes them to become criminal/misogynist. Jackson Katz is a leading Feminist on this topic.
“That they don’t investigate the only obvious possible ev-psych difference between men and women is very telling about their real agenda, intellectual ability, and biases.”
Very.
I’m not going to try and figure out which culture/society/state harbors the worst expressions of misogyny. The Constitution was an idea men had about their rights, and the rights a human being, by virtue of being born, is entitled to, but it took women to realize that dream. I do know that women were fundamentally necessary to achieve democracy, were instrumental in the ending of slavery in America, and our emancipation the driving force behind our technological leaps. The fact is, though, that our culture is getting more misogynist and we are experiencing a dangerous Feminist backlash which can only bring about a slip in progress if not stopped.
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Kiuku says:
Do you see the similarity between Ev-Psych’s arguments that women really WANT to stay in the home/cook/clean up your laundry, shop, carry pink briefcases etc, and Psychology’s arguments during slavery about how black-slaves really WANT to be slaves. I do.
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K.A. says:
I do see the similarities! Women are so behind in civil rights progress compared to some other groups that have made substantial progress, but this is just as it has always been historically–through no fault of our own, of course. It’s just been the pace from the very beginning.
A lot of the rights we are afforded now were originally accidents! Whenever some amendment was in the works to protect a racial group or sexual orientation, gender was only slapped on towards the end in order to KILL the bill, as it was usually an effective means of doing so. So the ones that ended up passing anyway included women as an afterthought.
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kiuku says:
Exactly K.A
And I can’t believe I missed this sentence from Violet:
“The public thinks it makes sense because of the book, and gee, B-C is a real doctor so he can’t be just pulling this stuff out of his ass, can he? Yes, he can.”
This is the best sentence ever!
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Daki says:
Hello,
just wanted to chime in into the discussion.
I’ve read much of S. Baron-Cohen’s stuff and a lot about the current discussion in terms of empathy, innateness etc.
I think a few things are important to know:
1) There is no conclusive evidence that women are more empathic (on average) or men more systemizing.
Tests on theory of mind etc. have brought diverse results. E.g. one recent study in higher order theory of mind has produced a male advantage. The researcher was ‘surprised’ (why?). And asked whether the questions asked might have been of more interest to boys although all kids were attentive. (Never have I seen such a question asked when the result were the other way round). SBC’s own test questions, I think, are so biased, they can’t really be taken seriously. It’s mostly semantic static. I hope to comment on that some time in extenso. Most importantly, however,
2) there is no evidence *whatsoever* to link any of the alleged differences to actual brain differences or wiring. There is no hardwiring. A recent study with 1000+ twins indicated that there is no genetic relation to ToM (Theory of mind) whereas environment played a huge role. I link to those studies in a follow-up post. Ok, some more points:
3) It is abundantly clear that empathy etc. can change and improve. The invention of different brain types doesn’t explain variation in the normal population. Autism is a special condition and must be dealt with specially.
4) The myth about women and science is just that. There are areas in the world where women far outperform men in mathematics etc. just because they typically take those jobs in those societies.
5) Lastly, we should realize how easily we’re manipulated. We’re expected to perform in certain ways. (Therefore, many questions in SBC’s questionnaire will be answered accordingly by men and women, just because they’re expected to be caring or handicrafty…). There’s a German study where students were asked to do spatial rotation tasks etc. Stuff that men supposedly do better. 2 tests were taken. In the first, students had to answer the question: Who do you think will do better ? Men or women ?. In this test men did better than women. Before the second test, the question was: Who do you think does better, Americans or Germans ? In the second test, both men and women did equally well. In fact, during the first test blood samples indicated higher levels of testosterone in men. While in the second both males and females had elevated levels. Clearly, performance is linked to motivation, expectation. It’s a truism in psychology but the brain guys don’t usually seem to take this into consideration.
6) The really bad, destructive, debilitating and ghettoizing thing about SBC’s theories is that they put people into cages and negate the all too obvious freedom or at least possibility of various development. Personally, I wonder why someone comes up with such theories. They aren’t good for anything or anyone. Maybe it’s the (hopefully) last attack of fear against more developmental freedom. It probably also has deep personal reasons. Whenever I read Simon Baron Cohen, I keep thinking: If you’d just once, just for a second really love another person, really feel connected with another person, you’d know that empathy is boundless and understanding ensues. For men and women alike. And you wouldn’t brain poison the world but rather be a little empathic and do some good. Now, this may sound kitschy, but that’s how I feel. Duh. -
Daki says:
Ah, and one last comment on development. So Baron-Cohen makes a big deal about how girls have (on average!) a larger vocabulary at age 3. Now, first off, that’s an average and it doesn’t say much. Also, there are studies that contradict those findings. Most importantly, to echo what Kiuku wrote – girls are born with a development advantage. They start to walk earlier too. (Probably to look people into the eyes whereas boys are still interested in the little objects spilled on the floor ;). Seriously though, SBC connects this to the hardwiring and empathy (!). Now, this argument is beautifully self- defeating because boys do catch up later and at age 6+ they are the same. So, if there was indeed hardwiring, why would the ‘advantage’ evaporate ? Also, girls do better at spatial tasks as well earlier one but there again boys catch up. So what’s the deal? Selective use of ‘facts’ deprived of context. All that to further a dubious theory, or rather, as I think it is, a profound personal neurosis in the line of: “Hey, I’m Simon and I feel I’m not ok. But you know what, you’re not ok either, hehehe”.
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Daki says:
Ok, it’s me again. First off, I’d like to say that I’m happy I found your blog. At last some people with sense in their heads. You’ve elicited many of the things that had occurred to me as well. Thank you again for making such excellent points.
It is interesting that mostly women get publicly pissed at SBC. For good reasons, of course. However, I think the discrimination against the male brain is just as bad. Indeed, depriving humans of their emotionality is basically depriving them of their humanity. This is tough. SBC attempts on salvaging the ‘brain difference’ idea, on the other hand, are hilarious (cf. the Science article) which is full of unwarranted suppositions and unproven (sorry: yet to be corroborated) connections. It is true that mirrored parts of the brain light up in empathic reactions but this isn’t hampered by ‘too many male neurons’. Nor has it anything to do with lateralized language processing. Of course, in the article these things are just juxtaposed so as to suggest a connection. It isn’t explicitly made, beccause there is none. Also, why would more neurons translate into ‘more specially focused activity’ ? This is really pre-scientific stuff and I do wonder, just like some of you why this guy gets away with it. If this is political pro-male or whatever bias, to hell with it. And I’m saying this as a man. Just how emotionally dead can a person be to describe his fellow males as basically walking machines ? Oh, ‘inferior’ is the term he likes to use for both men and women respectively. It’s really a Kafkaesque scenario. You’re guilty of inferiority without choice. You’re born that way. Unless you belong to the brainly chosen few. It is heartening to see that the myth of innateness is now vigorously debunked by http://www.blackwell-synergy.c.....05.00850_a
a study that includes at least one researcher from Cambridge. Apparently they haven’t all gone bonkers yet. Interestingly, SBC turns everything upside down. When it’s interesting to look why people do differently for social reasons and so on, he just says it’s innate. I think it’s amply clear where certain ideas come from, what role nurture plays. But there are more things. It would be interesting to consider the impact of world wars on the male and female psyche, for example. Can’t do that here but I think it’d be interesting. It would also be interesting to consider whether things like the Holocaust have influenced SBCs idea of ‘men just not being empathic for no reason whatsoever. You don’t have to think of the real reasons. Understandably, this is so painful that one might prefer a simple answer. This is of course just speculation and it doesn’t excuse anything. In fact,
I sometimes wonder whether he really believes his dreck or whether he just tries to defend it till the last to be in the press. Certainly he’s useful to Cambridge because he makes them money. But does he truly think he’s an impaired male ? Rather, he probably thinks he’s terribly empathic. (“I would weep if…”). For me, he’s a DMW, a dead man walking. Let’s see whether his silly theory will ever be abandoned. That’s bets are on.
