Making the rounds this evening is a study of male and female brains that reveals — you’d better sit down for this — that they are actually wired up, and operate, rather differently. There’s an article about it in The Independent, here.
A great deal of costly and coercive public policy is based on the assumption that males and females are, in every respect except their reproductive anatomy and gross physical dimorphism, perfectly identical — and that therefore all statistical disparities between men and women with regard to behavior, life choices, representation in the workforce, social and recreational activities, and so on, are due entirely to, at the very least, obsolete cultural traditions that are remediable by aggressive re-education and social engineering, and at worst, malevolent bigotry on the part of men.
The organizing principle of nearly every human society that ever existed, until a collective, hallucinatory insanity overtook the developed world in the 20th century, is that men and women are biological and psychological complements. Throughout human history, always and everywhere, the fusion of their complementary aspects has been understood not only as necessary for the generation of life itself, but also as the psychic and social substrate upon which all societies — from the smallest tribes to the mightiest civilizations — were erected. Nowadays, though, this is a dark and dangerous heresy — the sort of opinion that can cost you your job.
It was a surprise, then, to see this comment from one of the researchers:
“It’s quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are,’ said Rubin Gur of Pennsylvania University, a co-author of the study.
Yes, you could knock me down with a feather! Not the complementary part, mind you — that’s just common sense. But it’s awfully surprising to see it said.
12 Comments
I groaned when I read this article because I knew it would be seized upon by many bloggers of a particular persuasion, but I was naive enough to think that you would not take the bait.
Without going into the limits of this ‘research’ which asserts that men can read maps and women can remember what was said, may I just feebly protest. How womanly is that?
The brain may be wired differently, but that is not as significant as the life circumstance or reality which, until quite recently, put the woman in the home raising the kids. I do think that birth control changed that dynamic.
Underneath your very convincing writing, I sense a man who wants a return to the norm. I don’t think that will happen because some change is inexorable.
You don’t like Barack, you won’t like Hilary and obviously, that will be problematic for you because she is coming. Do you acknowledge the stability that Merkle has brought to Germany? Janet Yellen (or is it Yelland?) will be a thorn in your side.
Lazy research aside, I am not a clever person and I can’t compete with you in words department, but let me just say this: many women are at least as intelligent as their male counterparts. Some are better. These days they can’t be kept down, however much people try to justify it by citing dubious science.
Define “dubious”.
Hmmm.
My goodness, Disappointed, of course they are. Why, I have a wife and daughter who are both more intelligent than I am.
Have you really misunderstood me so? I’ll have to confess that I’m a little ‘disappointed’ myself.
Here are two propositions:
I am strongly inclined toward 2), and I think this research supports it. However, the prevailing orthodoxy is 1), which has led to a great deal of warped social, educational, and governmental policy (a lot of which, I think it should be said, has also decreased the happiness of a great many women).
I do not argue for some sort of coercion that “puts” women anywhere — just that we have many good reasons to doubt proposition 1). The fact is that some of us are getting more than a little tired of being blamed for every statistical incongruity between human populations. It’s fatiguing. Some things are not our fault.
To the extent that the ‘norm’ is a natural, organic reflection of actually existing innate differences between men and women generally (and that ‘norm’, I’ll point out, is not some freakish outworking of any particular ideology, but has rather been a feature of nearly every society anywhere, ever, which surely tells us something) — then yes, I do think we defy and reject it at some significant cost in terms of happiness and social stability.
Yes, some change is inexorable, and that’s fine. Not all change is for the better, though — and some skeptical circumspection from the loyal opposition may turn out, in retrospect, to have been a blessing in disguise.
Approaching this issue from a feminist viewpoint leads to either dismissing the study as fundamentally flawed or else it’s an insidious patriarchal attempt to undermine women’s arduous journey to full equality in all aspects of their lives.
So much effort has been invested in the indoctrination that no amount of scientific data or obvious facts based on thousands of years of history and studying societies all around the world, where the nuclear family thrived as the societal norm will ever sway the feminist ideologues. For them the belief has taken on the mantle of a religion – take their views on faith and science be damned.
Yes, you could say that.
May God help this nation and people if that awful woman comes to power.
I just have to comment on the juxtaposition of Clinton and this discussion. There is a video of Hillary cowering in Bill’s arms after a studio light crashed to the floor during an interview they were doing. This woman was terrified to the point of being incapacitated because a lamp fell on the floor. If she can’t handle this kind of crisis, she is not qualified to handle the crises that a Commander in Chief is expected to deal with. I have tried to find this video online without success. I have found images of Julia Gillard in a man’s arms fleeing in terror from a minor demonstration.
@Disappointed. The only way women are going get the equal share of the pie that they demand is to do it the same way men did it: create their fair share of the pie. If women had created their fair share of the businesses and jobs, then they would be equally represented in management because they would be CEOs of their own companies. The glass ceiling exists because women are totally dependent on men to promote them. If women have not shown an equal ability to create successful businesses, why should men assume that they are equally qualified to run them. Don’t forget, our form of capitalism relies on very aggressive, cutthroat competition to regulate itself.
This goes for all of the other non-white male groups who don’t create their fair share of the pie, claiming victim status because they don’t think they are getting an equal share of the pie. The word “equality” has been perverted from equal opportunity based on merit, to equal outcomes based on race and gender. This is because only white men can create white cultures and only white men can maintain them.
Malcolm, Thank you for your thoughtful response. For the record, I have three sons and I am not a rabid feminist. I do see though, in the course of my daily life, men who are very threatened by the emergence of women into positions of influence or power.
I think that Marc Presco’s parting shot very effectively makes my point.
I have no doubt at all that you do.
Men and women approach life differently on average, from birth thru death. What observant, intelligent, independent-minded, and honest person ever believed differently?
Disappointed and those like her cannot think for themselves, no big surprise. Universities have discouraged independent thought in their students for over 40 years now, with their speech codes and political correctness. The dronification percolated through society via the media and government policy. Idiocracy on parade.
Hi Alice, and thanks for joining in.
That’s a lot of qualifiers there. Here’s a different question:
How many “educated” people nowadays are observant, intelligent, independent-minded, and honest?
I’m sure the “educated” One-eyed jerk thinks he is one of them. But he fails to pass muster on all accounts.