Home › Blogs › The Alpha State
« Terrorism television | Main | Muslim fanatics want Americans dead »
July 27, 2006
Men & women – different?
The July 31st edition of Newsweek magazine has a fascinating article about a new book – certain to be controversial – that dares to suggest there might be hard-wire differences between male and female brains.
Written by neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain, posits that there are biological and neurological differences between male and female brains. Ironically, Brizendine was faculty member at Harvard, where Lawrence Summers was recently forced out as president for even hinting at the same thing.
Many of us have been concerned for quite a while that “political correctness” had invaded areas of academia – including science – where it has no place, influencing research, results and published papers. If Harvard professors can be so frightened by their own president simply asking that they explore the possibility that there might be differences between men and women, imagine how many academics in lesser positions have been shut down.
The most telling statement from Brizendine is the following: “I know it’s not politically correct to say this and I’ve been torn for years between my politics and what science is telling us. But I believe that women actually perceive the world differently than men.”
The response from her peers will be enlightening and I predict angry and dismissive. Already Dr. Nancy Andreasen, psychiatrist at the University of Iowa said in response to the book, “Whatever measurable differences exist in the brain are used to oppress and suppress women.”
I wonder what the impact of Dr. Andreasen and those women who think like her will have on other women who want to explore new ideas. Any chance it will oppress and suppress them?
Summers did not merely say that men and women are different. If he had, there wouldn't have been a stink because all sorts of scientists, including brain scientists, have been able to document differences for years. No one questions that the corpus callosum is thicker in women, for example, which is posited to affect not only their perceptions of the world, but the more thoroughgoing use of women's brains in evaluating information.
Summers got in trouble because he said women weren't as good as men in math and science. Big difference. Not quite as well-founded as some of the true differences that have been documented in peer-reviewed journals, and a stupid thing to say.
Perhaps one day the researchers will tell us that women are hard-wired to be more tactful than men, and Summers' comment will finally be explained.
Posted by: Upstart at July 30, 2006 06:02 PM