Stay away from the Nancy Grace post – one slip of your mouse pointer and you might have a real problem.
WOMEN HAVE EYES?!?!?! /s
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hear hear!
At least Newsweek is somewhat responsive – they fixed the caption under the main subjects’ photo (they had the names reversed). Had it fixed a few hours after I submitted a correction.
I don’t assume much of anything. Perhaps its my analytical, devil’s advocate nature to assume only that most writing is going to be loaded with bias and contradictions. I have never believed in simple “good guys” versus “bad guys” partisanship as being a real thing.
It seems cynical to you probably because you have become a cultural critic! Popular culture seems to me obvious designed to encourage complacency, or sell a controlled illusion of change while maintaining a status quo.
I think it’s mostly a matter of “perceptions management”. To offer what seems like a free marketplace of ideas, which is actually controlled sufficiently to maintain background control. This can encourage some people to engage in petty conflicts amongst other little groups. But this seems to occur mostly through promoting suspicion and fear rather than proper cynicism, because cynicism tends to result in critical thinking, pragmatism, and other difficult to control behaviors. It’s what I call the art of Nontroversy, fighting over superficial differences that don’t matter in context of the real narrative. While everybody is busy fussing over playing Where’s Waldo to find the terrorists, Trotskyists, infidels, Jews, immigrants, pedophiles, etc - everything is snatched out from under them, leaving them with marginal influence. Witch hunts are a diversionary tactic. While superficially resembling cynicism, it’s really more of a reflex than a thought process. But it works because people tend to latch onto easy answers.
I’m not sure I understand, are you saying that women’s and men’s brains are different, in a detectable pattern, but you say that women vs. women and men vs men brains are more different than men vs women brains? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. A women’s brain is more similar to another woman’s brain, than the similarity between a woman’s brain and a man’s brain.
From webmd.com:
(I also suggest reading wikipedia for reference: Neuroscience of sex differences - Wikipedia )
[quote]Females and males maintain unique brain characteristics throughout life. Male brains, for instance, are about 10% larger than female brains. But bigger doesn’t necessarily mean smarter.
Disparities in how certain brain substances are distributed may be more revealing. Notably, male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter – sometimes called 'thinking matter" – than women. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much white matter, the stuff that connects various parts of the brain, than male brains. That’s not all. “The frontal area of the cortex and the temporal area of the cortex are more precisely organized in women, and are bigger in volume,” Geary tells WebMD. This difference in form may explain a lasting functional advantage that females seem to have over males: dominant language skills.[/quote]
After actually taking an interest in it because of you, Humbabella, I did a little googling and learned a little about the medical differences in men’s and women’s brains. Thank You!
Like I said though, people like ChickieD exist that don’t exactly fit the profile. I like to think of myself as one 
Actually, this statement isn’t true. What is true is that if a trait has a variance between the sexes, then “the mean for women is more similar to the mean for women [that is, they are the same] than the mean for men is to the mean for women [since these are not the same]”. But, if you actually pick two individual women and a man, there is no great cause to guess that the man does not fall between the two women, meaning that woman A and woman B are more dissimilar than either is to the man. For some extremely sex linked characteristics it may be a safer bet that the man does not fall between, but there really aren’t any characteristics where it is impossible that the man falls between.
I thought my graphs would explain what I meant. Take any sex-linked characteristic and find the women who least exemplifies it (W-), the women who most exemplifies it (W+), the man who least exemplifies is (M-) and the man who most exemplifies it (M+).
The difference between W- and W+ is greater (usually much, much greater) than the difference between W+ and M+. However you pair it, the - and the + are greater determinants than the M and the W.
I have taken at least three different tests to determine if I have a “male” or “female” brain and consistently get a result that does not match my genetic sex (I assume genetics is thought to be the determinant here). You’d have better luck in my case if you based it on physical characteristics I have, but I know lots of tall women and short men too.
Like I said, if you know a trait shows up more often in men than in women and you enter a challenge where you have to bet you dollar on a person with that trait being a man or a woman, then yes, you go with your statistical knowledge (unless you think it’s a trick to make a point… damn the meta-game).
But, if you meet a woman who behaves the way that you think women behave, or shows a trait that WebMD says women show, and you think “That’s because she’s a woman” that just isn’t true. Usually, at best, you can say, “Hey, being a woman made her very slightly more likely to have that trait.” It’s one thing to acknowledge that having different genetics leads, on average, to physical differences (I think we knew that) but the way people typically use that information is all wrong.
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That WebMD blurb is riddled with half-truth and misinformation. It certainly doesn’t agree with the Wikipedia page you referenced, which includes:
Women have a higher percentage of GM, whereas men have a higher percentage of WM and of CSF (cerebrospinal fluid).
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But if you were put under an fMRI your brain would show up as female from the anatomy, according to what I posted above, just like it would for the transsexual lesbian writer of “Whipping Girl” to show up as a male’s brain. However, there is the definite chance that your brain possible could show up with some more male dominate traits in the physiology of the brain, and likewise opposite for Julia Serano’s brain.
Bottom line is your brain’s physiology would be more like a female’s typical brain’s physiology than a male’s typical brain’s physiology, under an fMRI.
That is probably because I just posted it here.
I cited two sources, and didn’t quote wikipedia. Would you like me to go find some real scientific papers that back up what I say? I can go post crazy with all the information about this subject out there…
Edit: it is up for me now 11:51 EST
PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
[quote]Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain
Madhura Ingalhalikara,1, Alex Smitha,1, Drew Parkera, Theodore D. Satterthwaiteb, Mark A. Elliottc, Kosha Ruparelb, Hakon Hakonarsond, Raquel E. Gurb, Ruben C. Gurb, and Ragini Vermaa,2
aSection of Biomedical Image Analysis and
cCenter for Magnetic Resonance and Optical Imaging, Department of Radiology, and
bDepartment of Neuropsychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; and
dCenter for Applied Genomics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Edited by Charles Gross, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved November 1, 2013 (received for review September 9, 2013)
Significance
Sex differences are of high scientific and societal interest because of their prominence in behavior of humans and nonhuman species. This work is highly significant because it studies a very large population of 949 youths (8–22 y, 428 males and 521 females) using the diffusion-based structural connectome of the brain, identifying novel sex differences. The results establish that male brains are optimized for intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric communication. The developmental trajectories of males and females separate at a young age, demonstrating wide differences during adolescence and adulthood. The observations suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.
Abstract
Sex differences in human behavior show adaptive complementarity: Males have better motor and spatial abilities, whereas females have superior memory and social cognition skills. Studies also show sex differences in human brains but do not explain this complementarity. In this work, we modeled the structural connectome using diffusion tensor imaging in a sample of 949 youths (aged 8–22 y, 428 males and 521 females) and discovered unique sex differences in brain connectivity during the course of development. Connection-wise statistical analysis, as well as analysis of regional and global network measures, presented a comprehensive description of network characteristics. In all supratentorial regions, males had greater within-hemispheric connectivity, as well as enhanced modularity and transitivity, whereas between-hemispheric connectivity and cross-module participation predominated in females. However, this effect was reversed in the cerebellar connections. Analysis of these changes developmentally demonstrated differences in trajectory between males and females mainly in adolescence and in adulthood. Overall, the results suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.[/quote]
The National Center for Biotechnology Information [.gov]
[quote]Abstract
The underlying assumption in popular and scientific publications on sex differences in the brain is that human brains can take one of two forms “male” or “female,” and that the differences between these two forms underlie differences between men and women in personality, cognition, emotion, and behavior. Documented sex differences in brain structure are typically taken to support this dimorphic view of the brain. However, neuroanatomical data reveal that sex interacts with other factors in utero and throughout life to determine the structure of the brain, and that because these interactions are complex, the result is a multi-morphic, rather than a dimorphic, brain. More specifically, here I argue that human brains are composed of an ever-changing heterogeneous mosaic of “male” and “female” brain characteristics (rather than being all “male” or all “female”) that cannot be aligned on a continuum between a “male brain” and a “female brain.” I further suggest that sex differences in the direction of change in the brain mosaic following specific environmental events lead to sex differences in neuropsychiatric disorders.
…
Sex differences in brain structure are indeed well documented. There are sex differences in the size of the brain and of specific brain regions, and in composition of neurons, neurotransmitter content, morphology of dendrites, number of receptors, etc. (for recent reviews see Cahill, 2006; Cosgrove et al., 2007; McCarthy, 2009; Rhodes et al., 2009; Sakuma, 2009; Lenroot and Giedd, 2010; I will use the term brain characteristics to refer to all the characteristics of the brain that may show a sex difference). Yet, the idea that sex differences in the brain lead to sex differences in behavior and cognition has been challenged by several authors on various grounds, including lack of consistency in the literature on sex differences in brain structure; the difficulty to find a simple relation between a sex difference in brain structure and a sex difference in function; demonstrations that some sex differences in brain structure serve to prevent, rather than cause, sex differences in behavior and cognition; and the possibility that sex differences in the adult brain may be the result of sex differences in life experience (e.g., Byne et al., 1988; Rogers, 2001; Fitch and Bimonte, 2002; De Vries, 2004; Hines, 2004; Vidal, 2005; Cahill, 2006; de Vries and Sodersten, 2009; Rhodes et al., 2009; Jordan-Young, 2010). However, most of these authors also adhere to the view that anatomically, human brains can take one of two forms, “male” or “female.”[/quote]
“what they perceive to be the most popular”
… which makes it not a tautology at all. It’s not about what is actually popular, but about what people expect other people to like. Which means that people modify their won behaviour in order to be more like “normal people”.
See also Keynesian beauty contest.
Yes, it does.
I’m taking brain size as an example because it is so relatively easy to measure, not because it is particularly important.
From Wikipedia:
a study of 46 adults aged 22–49 years and of mainly European descent, found an average brain volume of 1273.6 cm3 for men, ranging from 1052.9 to 1498.5 cm3, and 1131.1 cm3 for women, ranging from 974.9 to 1398.1 cm3.[2]
The difference between the male and female averages is about 130cm^3, while the difference between the differences between the smallest and largest observed size are about 425 to 450 cm^3.
Another example: White Europeans look different depending on which country they are from. if you point me to a single person, I won’t be able to tell you which country they grew up in just from how they look. If a bus full of tourists arrives, you’ll notice that a French tourist group looks completely different from a German tourist group, which in turn looks completely different from an Austrian tourist group.
The same thing is true for almost all measurable things that people use as an excuse for discrimination. Even if you have a proven statistical statement about a group of people, it’s going to be unfair to a large minority among those people if you just apply it to everyone.
Link or it didn’t happen ;-). As far as I could tell so far, all the known differences are in the “yes, it’s definitely true, on average” range, not in the “I can tell for sure from a single example” range.
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[quote=“zathras, post:76, topic:50915”][quote=johnphantom]
Bottom line is your brain’s physiology would be more like a female’s typical brain’s physiology than a male’s typical brain’s physiology, under an fMRI.[/quote]
Link or it didn’t happen . As far as I could tell so far, all the known differences are in the “yes, it’s definitely true, on average” range, not in the “I can tell for sure from a single example” range.
[/quote]
Well they talk about things like men’s brain’s hemispheres being internally wired better than women’s brain’s, and women’s brain’s wiring being better across the hemispheres than men’s brain’s. There are so many significant differences that I could see some women’s brain’s having some aspects of a man’s brain’s and vice-versa, but overall the build of the brain will be indicative of what gender it is.
Wow! 
(If only more men realized how attractive a lot of women find an attitude like that.)
As for an explanation of why, well, imagine various illustrative options for a Newsweek cover story on racism. And then imagine a parallel image in terms of racism to this sexist one (an image that drove at least one commenter here, at least metaphorically, to his bunk) – an image that say, portrays a black person with huge lips, and maybe a basketball under one arm and watermelon slice in the other. And so on. I mean, I could go on, but can you see the problem?
Actually, this parallel problem came up when the New Yorker ran this cover; yes, it’s satire of right-wing beliefs and claims about the Obamas, obvs, but that doesn’t mean those who objected to it didn’t get the satire (duh!). They objected to its confirmation and promulgation not only of misconceptions about this couple, but also of pernicious stereotypes.
Reading up on the controversy about that cover could help a person understand the problem with the Newsweek cover.
Take away: doing something sexist or racist in order to critique sexism or racism, especially in a way that can be easily taken out of context (like, you know, on a popular magazine’s cover) isn’t doing it right, because ironically enough, you’d be doing the very thing you’re critiquing.
ETA: Or as rasmussen_brian said so well upthread, “you cannot have your sexism cake and eat it too.”
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Not necessarily. Research has shown that environmental factors affect brain development – synapses strengthen or atrophy based on what you experience over time – so showing that 30-year-old brains have genderized differences doesn’t prove anything. Hint: newborn brains don’t have those differences.
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That’s not the bottom line at all. First of all: Lack of generalizability of sex differences in the fMRI BOLD activity associated with language processing in adults - PMC. Basically, the sex differences don’t really allow people to guess the sex of a brain accurately.
Open up some studies that show the differences between men and women in fMRI testing. Instead of reading the conclusion go look at the data. If they have tables look at the error bars. They usually overlap massively. I’ll call a friend of mine who does fMRI research tonight to ask how reliable she thinks she would be at guessing the genetic sex of a person based on fMRI and I’ll tell you what she says. My guess is it’s not that much better than 50-50, but if she says, “Oh, it’s 100% easy,” I’ll be shocked (and have to come back with my tail between my legs I suppose).
When you read something like that WebMD article that says, “Men are X, Women are Y” there are no error bars, no data. All we can really guess is that in some studies measuring that particular thing there was a statistically significant difference between the means. That is extremely little information. A more interesting question might be something like, “If you picked a random man and random woman from the population, how likely would the man be to be more X than the woman.” Recent studies have suggested that for strongly sex-linked mental characteristics the answer is about 53%, which is kind of a big difference if you think about it, but it’s not something to bet the farm on.
Also, the whole use of “men” and “women” is problematic. I am assuming they are going with has-Y-chromosome or does-not-have-Y-chromosome. But they are probably specifically excluding transgender people, people on hormone replacement, and other cases that they feel might confuse their data. Any of these differences could be genetic, they could be hormonal, and in many cases they could be strongly culturally influenced. The brain, after all, is extremely changeable. When someone says “men are X and women are Y”, if they are leaving it up to me to guess what “man” and “woman” mean in that context then their results are pretty suspicious.
What I’m saying is that guessing that people decide what to like based on what they perceive to be most popular as opposed to what they really like is going into a kind of radical “people are sheep” explanation for a tautological fact that most people like what is popular. What if so many people like Katie Perry because they actually like her music, not because they are doing some kind of fifth level guessing about what the average person is likely to guess the average person is likely to guess … is most popular?
It’s a little hard to fathom. How could people actually like Katie Perry? But without a pretty damn good reason to think otherwise, the most likely conclusion is that other people actually just do things they like. Second, third, and higher level guessing is probably something Keynes engaged in because that’s the way he thought. My interactions with people have led me to believe that most people do what they want.
That’s not at all to say that what we like isn’t a result of what is popular. I might listen to a song because I think the instrumentation is great or I might listen to it because it reminds me of a highschool dance where someone I liked kissed me. I might listen to it because it reminds me of my university life, because it was popular when I was in university and I heard it everywhere back then. I might listen to it because it sounds like those songs that I listened to when I was in highschool, or because it sounds so different from songs that were on the radio when I was in highschool. What is popular has a huge impact on us, I don’t see how it could avoid doing so, we are social animals. But that doesn’t mean we don’t honestly make choices for ourselves.
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The multitasking studies has been shown to be mostly inconsistent and inconclusive (in some of them, it was the men who were better) and that in general, most people suck at multitasking. However, many believe they are very good at it.
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So seeing that the discussion seems to be going in this direction, have there been fMRI studies on the brains of transsexuals? Considering that there is a range of traits with a lot of overlap, it wouldn’t necessarily follow that a trans woman’s brain would look like a typical man’s brain.
Or even on Newsweek!
What if the cover had depicted the objectifying Silicon Valley male executive instead?
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