When Lawrence H. Summers, the president of Harvard, suggested this month that one factor in women's lagging progress in science and mathematics might be innate differences between the sexes, he slapped a bit of brimstone into a debate that has simmered for decades. And though his comments elicited so many fierce reactions that he quickly apologized, many were left to wonder: Did he have a point?
Has science found compelling evidence of inherent sex disparities in the relevant skills, or perhaps in the drive to succeed at all costs, that could help account for the persistent paucity of women in science generally, and at the upper tiers of the profession in particular?
Researchers who have explored the subject of sex differences from every conceivable angle and organ say that yes, there are a host of discrepancies between men and women - in their average scores on tests of quantitative skills, in their attitudes toward math and science, in the architecture of their brains, in the way they metabolize medications, including those that affect the brain.
Yet despite the desire for tidy and definitive answers to complex questions, researchers warn that the mere finding of a difference in form does not mean a difference in function or output inevitably follows.
"We can't get anywhere denying that there are neurological and hormonal differences between males and females, because there clearly are," said Virginia Valian, a psychology professor at Hunter College who wrote the 1998 book "Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women." "The trouble we have as scientists is in assessing their significance to real-life performance."
For example, neuroscientists have shown that women's brains are about 10 percent smaller than men's, on average, even after accounting for women's comparatively smaller body size.
But throughout history, people have cited anatomical distinctions in support of overarching hypotheses that turn out merely to reflect the societal and cultural prejudices of the time.
A century ago, the French scientist Gustav Le Bon pointed to the smaller brains of women - closer in size to gorillas', he said - and said that explained the "fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason" in women.
Overall size aside, some evidence suggests that female brains are relatively more endowed with gray matter - the prized neurons thought to do the bulk of the brain's thinking - while men's brains are packed with more white matter, the tissue between neurons.
To further complicate the portrait of cerebral diversity, new brain imaging studies from the University of California, Irvine, suggest that men and women with equal I.Q. scores use different proportions of their gray and white matter when solving problems like those on intelligence tests.
Men, they said, appear to devote 6.5 times as much of their gray matter to intelligence-related tasks as do women, while women rely far more heavily on white matter to pull them through a ponder.
What such discrepancies may or may not mean is anyone's conjecture.
"It is cognition that counts, not the physical matter that does the cognition," argued Nancy Kanwisher, a professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
When they do study sheer cognitive prowess, many researchers have been impressed with how similarly young boys and girls master new tasks.
"We adults may think very different things about boys and girls, and treat them accordingly, but when we measure their capacities, they're remarkably alike," said Elizabeth Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard. She and her colleagues study basic spatial, quantitative and numerical abilities in children ranging from 5 months through 7 years.
"In that age span, you see a considerable number of the pieces of our mature capacities for spatial and numerical reasoning coming together," Dr. Spelke said. "But while we always test for gender differences in our studies, we never find them."
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 13551 Location: is a jerk in wyoming Gender: Female
men and women use their brains differently, and intelligence testing (IQ) is a standardized way of measuring accumulated "knowledge" not intelligence.
Women multitask better than men, men are better with spatial perception than women.
Assuming one gender is more intelligent than the other is ridiculous and ludicrous unless you can somehow raise a baby boy and a baby girl in the EXACT same environment, while at the same time completely negating any assumed social differences between gender roles within the society.
I call bullshit on anyone who's willing to say one sex is generally more intelligent than the other. There's too many external factors to take into account and too many people who are unwilling to make even comparisons between genders to begin with.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 13551 Location: is a jerk in wyoming Gender: Female
captainloveboat wrote:
I started this thread because I hear women talk amongst themselves how dumb men are.But its men who built everything.
It's men who have dominated over women for thousands of years too. might makes right in this world.
Have any idea how many women have been purposely kept from persuing the same types of study and/or careers as men? how about the number of women who weren't "Allowed" to persue ANY profession?
Want an example?
My own mother was going to be a Clinical Psychologist, not get married, not have kids, none of that.
She also happened to be born in 1928. do you think women were given much freedom to decide their fate around then?
My mother, instead of going on to become what she desired most in the world, got married and raised six children. She also instead of persuing her desired profession, got a masters in education instead, and used it to volunteer with children who's reading skills were below average.
Does that make sense to you because it never did to me.
what the hell do you think women fought so hard for with that silly idea of having equal rights?
Just because your generation doesn't remember anything about the 70s or has given up on the idea of being respected and treated equally as women of substance instead of as sex objects doesn't mean the struggle didn't happen, and for very valid reasons too.
Sorry, this isn't an attack on you, and I don't want it to sound that way, but reading something like "men built everthing"...blah, that's crap.
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