a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
Saydrah  ·  4848 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not “Crazy”
According to Dr. Godfrey Pearlson, author of multiple studies comparing adult male and female brains, "Only when we look at very large populations and look for slight but significant trends do we see the generalizations. There are plenty of exceptions, but there's also a grain of truth, revealed through the brain structure, that we think underlies some of the ways people characterize the sexes."

I don't dispute that certain innate differences exist; however, as Pearlson cautions, it is unwise to assume that we can differentiate between the capabilities of individuals in the same way the we can predict patterns of ability in very large populations. Nor does it mean social factors don't play a role--women may be better (statistically, in very large populations) at language skills and empathy, but how many women psychologists or authors were there at a time when the employment of women in fields outside nursing or teaching was socially unacceptable?

There's a relevant XKCD I'm sure you've seen -- "You're really bad at math!" vs. "Women are really bad at math!"

I think you're doing a little bit of the same thing here: "My daughter proves that women are inherently more talkative!" rather than, "My daughter is very talkative! On average, when studying large populations, women are much more talkative."

Not nearly as dangerous, but again I would caution you to keep Dr. Pearlson's statements in mind when generalizing about gender differences. In nearly all cases, individual differences (like your difference from your wife) will be greater than the difference between the averages of large populations. It is unlikely that any individual's abilities in any area can be meaningfully judged based on studies dealing with an average of thousands or millions who happen to share their gender.

Source: http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-ho...