Thanks for providing a summary of the conference! My main takeaway is that people are very hung up (again) on the nature/nurture dichotomy when it comes to sex differences. It seems obvious that most of the development of human individuals is an interaction between innate tendencies and environmental influences. Arguments that polarize these factors are usually driven by emotional concerns arising from political and cultural pressures outside of the scientific debate. Sex-based discrimination is one of these. It would be helpful if both the scientists and the advocates for various interest groups could stop using arguments about sex differences to support positions that favor or oppose discrimination, which continues to be a real thing in our society.
Interesting to take on feminists as opposed to TRA's, but I understand the importance of being able to talk about these issues. There was a common 19th century phrase, "Classics for gentlemen, science for ladies." Computer engineering was initially thought of as a woman's job. And there have been massive increases in women in STEM, because of a concerted cultural effort to create room for them. I don't understand why these points are so often ignored. Of course there are average behavioral differences, and of course some of them are rooted in biology. But why ignore the cultural?
"In 1970, women made up 38% of all U.S. workers and 8% of STEM workers. By 2019, the STEM proportion had increased to 27% and women made up 48% of all workers.
Since 1970, the representation of women has increased across all STEM occupations and they made significant gains in social science occupations in particular – from 19% in 1970 to 64% in 2019.
Women in 2019 also made up nearly half of those in all math (47%) and life and physical science (45%) occupations."
To say that the larger brains in men indicate higher intelligence is not the sort of conclusion I would expect from educated people.
An elephant brain is 3-4 times the size of a human brain but nobody would say that elephants are more intelligent than humans. Some whale species have brains ten time the size of human brains.
Men show superior 3D visualization; this is important because while topographic intelligence, two dimensions, is inborn, the ability to think in 3D correlates with intelligence and is one of the six scales that should be used in place of the singular metric of IQ. We don't naturally think in 3D; we've been out of trees too long.
Trying to shoehorn two distinct sexes into one is a contemporary foolishness that I hope goes away soon.
There is one factor nobody mentioned; every century or so the world produces a mathematician whose insight is off the scale. Not a math genius, much more, someone who makes a century of progress in a few years. Galois was one. Two factors that all these stellar methematicians have in common:
* they do all their best work before age 20
* they are all men
There have been female math geniuses but there has never been a woman comparable to these rare men.
I don't see why someone's sex should be commented on or relevant for most things unless one is courting or seeing a doctor...I'm in agreement with Joel. One's sex is just one facet of one's identity, it might be much more relevant and interesting to be focusing on other things about a person, most of the time.
Just FYI: males given estrogen have their brains shrink--this is shown both in people
Pol, H. E. H., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Van Haren, N. E. M., Peper, J. S., Brans, R. G. H., Cahn, W., Schnack, H. G., Gooren, L. J. G., & Kahn, R. S. (2006). Changing your sex changes your brain: Influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure European Journal of Endocrinology, 155(Supplement_1), S107–S114. https://doi.org/10.1530/eje.1.02248
and rats
Gómez, Á., Cerdán, S., Pérez-Laso, C., Ortega, E., Pásaro, E., Fernández, R., Gómez-Gil, E., Mora, M., Marcos, A., del Cerro, M. C. R., & Guillamon, A. (2020). Effects of adult male rat feminization treatments on brain morphology and metabolomic profile. Hormones and Behavior, 125, 104839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2020.104839
The nonbinary, gender non-conforming, gender fluid, etc would all be aghast if they could see home movie footage of our Christmas Day, circa 1955.
They would see two of my girl cousins lovingly cradling their new dolls, while us boys played with our gifts, toy guns. We were considerably more active in our play, running about and ‘shooting’ each other. It was typical girl and boy fun at the time.
Thank goodness we have enlightened ones with us these days, who can tell the rest of us humans how wrong we have always been. Gender identity always trumps the concrete reality of one’s sex, don’t cha know. Never ever gave your gender identity so much as a nanosecond’s thought? Shows what you don’t know, doesn’t it?
my dears: I wish you cozy holidays with significant elders conversations, phones off, unless recording their unique and never recorded memories. I hope for the younger generation to renew a sense of history and of appreciation for those of us who went before you. While your tapping onto little thin boxes means the world to you, our world is soon to be lost.
Anyway this conference seems to have been a fantastic thing. Imagine fraternizing with the enemy? And realizing that they're just people too? Whoever called that conference has my deepest respect. (Two men, naturally ;-)
Hallelujah!!! Part of what leads to gender war enhanced mental illness is, again, displacement. Either/or. If we accept that gender expression has as many forms as all the other fascinating variety in our species, then we obviate the need or acceptance of stereotypical expectations. With rare exception, this would allow people to be, and to gather with, their natural selves. The truly gender dysphoric should get and deserve the mediation and support they need.
One does not need to tear everyone apart by edict in order to find a very personal place for happiness. Humility and acceptance goes a long way, for all sides.
Also, can a health provider or our endless forms not distinguish the old, young, obese, pregnant, severely disabled, etc., on those charts without unnecessary, invasive and expensive analysis? Common sense?
As a woman writing this, and seemingly a supporter of the strong biology view, how would you feel if someone were to say you shouldn’t even be here debating this, but should leave it to the men with the “bigger brains”. Surely this is the conclusion that many would come to (very wrongly, in my opinion, but I am more of a strong socialism type).
These kinds of articles and conferences are so strange: the actual question is “why aren’t women happy with low social status”. I call it “why does a shitty male programmer get paid more than a good female teacher”.
My conference summary:
Why aren’t women’s brains like men’s brains? Why don’t women get more men’s jobs? Why doesn’t medicine ignore women more? Why doesn’t erasing female sex as a concept make women happier? Why don’t we tell children more often that growing up a woman is valueless? Are women low status because of biology or social conditioning? In medicine, “Dosing women the same as men may be suboptimal, and affects men who insist they are women.”
Very important questions all, indeed Professor Higgins!
The money quote:
“Daphna Joel countered this by pointing out that women are generally happier in gender-egalitarian countries compared to those with strict gender roles, like Afghanistan and Iran.”
Translation:
Women are generally happier in societies that value them than those which don’t.
That is generally called a tautology.
Staggering insight.
Lerner and Lowe said it best in 1964, and to music!
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?
Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you're with them, you're always at ease.
Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Of course not.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Nonsense.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Never.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Well, why can't a woman be like you?
One man in a million may shout a bit.
Now and then, there's one with slight defects.
One perhaps whose truthfulness you doubt a bit,
But by and large we are a marvelous sex!
Why can't a woman take after a man?
'Cause men are so friendly, good-natured and kind.
A better companion you never will find.
If I were hours late for dinner would you bellow?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Of course not.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Nonsense.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you complain if I took out another fellow?
Pickering
Never.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be like us?
[dialog]
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps;
Ready to help you through any mishaps;
Ready to buck you up whenever you're glum.
Why can't a woman be a chum?
Why is thinking something women never do?
And why is logic never even tried?
Straightening up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don't they straighten up the mess that's inside?
One nitpick, the "infamous Google Memo" written by James Damore went out of it's way to state that the problem of women's participation in STEM had nothing to do with capability and everything to do with interest. Women aren't interested in STEM fields as much as men. As a result of this lack of interest, women therefore don't study STEM topics as much as men. Women certainly are capable of studying STEM and enter the field in greater percentages in societies that limit female advancement, such as India and China.
Thanks for providing a summary of the conference! My main takeaway is that people are very hung up (again) on the nature/nurture dichotomy when it comes to sex differences. It seems obvious that most of the development of human individuals is an interaction between innate tendencies and environmental influences. Arguments that polarize these factors are usually driven by emotional concerns arising from political and cultural pressures outside of the scientific debate. Sex-based discrimination is one of these. It would be helpful if both the scientists and the advocates for various interest groups could stop using arguments about sex differences to support positions that favor or oppose discrimination, which continues to be a real thing in our society.
Interesting to take on feminists as opposed to TRA's, but I understand the importance of being able to talk about these issues. There was a common 19th century phrase, "Classics for gentlemen, science for ladies." Computer engineering was initially thought of as a woman's job. And there have been massive increases in women in STEM, because of a concerted cultural effort to create room for them. I don't understand why these points are so often ignored. Of course there are average behavioral differences, and of course some of them are rooted in biology. But why ignore the cultural?
"In 1970, women made up 38% of all U.S. workers and 8% of STEM workers. By 2019, the STEM proportion had increased to 27% and women made up 48% of all workers.
Since 1970, the representation of women has increased across all STEM occupations and they made significant gains in social science occupations in particular – from 19% in 1970 to 64% in 2019.
Women in 2019 also made up nearly half of those in all math (47%) and life and physical science (45%) occupations."
No way in hell will we allow our entire society to be dismantled just to kowtow to a small group of psychologically disturbed misfits.
To say that the larger brains in men indicate higher intelligence is not the sort of conclusion I would expect from educated people.
An elephant brain is 3-4 times the size of a human brain but nobody would say that elephants are more intelligent than humans. Some whale species have brains ten time the size of human brains.
Men show superior 3D visualization; this is important because while topographic intelligence, two dimensions, is inborn, the ability to think in 3D correlates with intelligence and is one of the six scales that should be used in place of the singular metric of IQ. We don't naturally think in 3D; we've been out of trees too long.
Trying to shoehorn two distinct sexes into one is a contemporary foolishness that I hope goes away soon.
There is one factor nobody mentioned; every century or so the world produces a mathematician whose insight is off the scale. Not a math genius, much more, someone who makes a century of progress in a few years. Galois was one. Two factors that all these stellar methematicians have in common:
* they do all their best work before age 20
* they are all men
There have been female math geniuses but there has never been a woman comparable to these rare men.
I don't see why someone's sex should be commented on or relevant for most things unless one is courting or seeing a doctor...I'm in agreement with Joel. One's sex is just one facet of one's identity, it might be much more relevant and interesting to be focusing on other things about a person, most of the time.
Just FYI: males given estrogen have their brains shrink--this is shown both in people
Pol, H. E. H., Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Van Haren, N. E. M., Peper, J. S., Brans, R. G. H., Cahn, W., Schnack, H. G., Gooren, L. J. G., & Kahn, R. S. (2006). Changing your sex changes your brain: Influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure European Journal of Endocrinology, 155(Supplement_1), S107–S114. https://doi.org/10.1530/eje.1.02248
and rats
Gómez, Á., Cerdán, S., Pérez-Laso, C., Ortega, E., Pásaro, E., Fernández, R., Gómez-Gil, E., Mora, M., Marcos, A., del Cerro, M. C. R., & Guillamon, A. (2020). Effects of adult male rat feminization treatments on brain morphology and metabolomic profile. Hormones and Behavior, 125, 104839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2020.104839
Many women also engage in risk-taking behavior - it’s called childbirth. So I’m not sure risk-taking behavior is that useful a distinction.
The nonbinary, gender non-conforming, gender fluid, etc would all be aghast if they could see home movie footage of our Christmas Day, circa 1955.
They would see two of my girl cousins lovingly cradling their new dolls, while us boys played with our gifts, toy guns. We were considerably more active in our play, running about and ‘shooting’ each other. It was typical girl and boy fun at the time.
Thank goodness we have enlightened ones with us these days, who can tell the rest of us humans how wrong we have always been. Gender identity always trumps the concrete reality of one’s sex, don’t cha know. Never ever gave your gender identity so much as a nanosecond’s thought? Shows what you don’t know, doesn’t it?
my dears: I wish you cozy holidays with significant elders conversations, phones off, unless recording their unique and never recorded memories. I hope for the younger generation to renew a sense of history and of appreciation for those of us who went before you. While your tapping onto little thin boxes means the world to you, our world is soon to be lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stQpwGcrZPg
Dialogue is key
Anyway this conference seems to have been a fantastic thing. Imagine fraternizing with the enemy? And realizing that they're just people too? Whoever called that conference has my deepest respect. (Two men, naturally ;-)
Hallelujah!!! Part of what leads to gender war enhanced mental illness is, again, displacement. Either/or. If we accept that gender expression has as many forms as all the other fascinating variety in our species, then we obviate the need or acceptance of stereotypical expectations. With rare exception, this would allow people to be, and to gather with, their natural selves. The truly gender dysphoric should get and deserve the mediation and support they need.
One does not need to tear everyone apart by edict in order to find a very personal place for happiness. Humility and acceptance goes a long way, for all sides.
Also, can a health provider or our endless forms not distinguish the old, young, obese, pregnant, severely disabled, etc., on those charts without unnecessary, invasive and expensive analysis? Common sense?
As a woman writing this, and seemingly a supporter of the strong biology view, how would you feel if someone were to say you shouldn’t even be here debating this, but should leave it to the men with the “bigger brains”. Surely this is the conclusion that many would come to (very wrongly, in my opinion, but I am more of a strong socialism type).
No mention of the source of the gender movement. Central banks finance this. It’s global. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/
The only feminism that could possibly support transgender anything is a captured feminism. The vast majority of us don’t buy this garbage, believe me.
These kinds of articles and conferences are so strange: the actual question is “why aren’t women happy with low social status”. I call it “why does a shitty male programmer get paid more than a good female teacher”.
My conference summary:
Why aren’t women’s brains like men’s brains? Why don’t women get more men’s jobs? Why doesn’t medicine ignore women more? Why doesn’t erasing female sex as a concept make women happier? Why don’t we tell children more often that growing up a woman is valueless? Are women low status because of biology or social conditioning? In medicine, “Dosing women the same as men may be suboptimal, and affects men who insist they are women.”
Very important questions all, indeed Professor Higgins!
The money quote:
“Daphna Joel countered this by pointing out that women are generally happier in gender-egalitarian countries compared to those with strict gender roles, like Afghanistan and Iran.”
Translation:
Women are generally happier in societies that value them than those which don’t.
That is generally called a tautology.
Staggering insight.
Lerner and Lowe said it best in 1964, and to music!
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?
Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you're with them, you're always at ease.
Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Of course not.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Nonsense.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Never.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Well, why can't a woman be like you?
One man in a million may shout a bit.
Now and then, there's one with slight defects.
One perhaps whose truthfulness you doubt a bit,
But by and large we are a marvelous sex!
Why can't a woman take after a man?
'Cause men are so friendly, good-natured and kind.
A better companion you never will find.
If I were hours late for dinner would you bellow?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Of course not.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?
COLONEL PICKERING:
Nonsense.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Would you complain if I took out another fellow?
Pickering
Never.
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be like us?
[dialog]
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps;
Ready to help you through any mishaps;
Ready to buck you up whenever you're glum.
Why can't a woman be a chum?
Why is thinking something women never do?
And why is logic never even tried?
Straightening up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don't they straighten up the mess that's inside?
Why can't a woman behave like a man?
One nitpick, the "infamous Google Memo" written by James Damore went out of it's way to state that the problem of women's participation in STEM had nothing to do with capability and everything to do with interest. Women aren't interested in STEM fields as much as men. As a result of this lack of interest, women therefore don't study STEM topics as much as men. Women certainly are capable of studying STEM and enter the field in greater percentages in societies that limit female advancement, such as India and China.