I am of the opinion that gender roles are primarily social constructs, although I do think that hormones make a difference from puberty onwards to a certain extent. I also think it is normal for children to look up to adults of the same sex as themselves for guidance (this seems to happen in other primates too), in order to fit into cultural norms of what their gender does, even though such norms can vary enormously between cultures and species and hence are not inherently important, whereas keeping within norms seems to be).
However, what people need to know is that the supposed 'science' of neural gender differences is in fact not particularly scientific and often based on presupposition of gender differences and poor statistical significance. Furthermore, we know so little about the brain that we cannot tell whether any genuine differences seen are not due to differences in ability but rather compensating for biological differences. And even differences that do seem to be significant suffer from over reporting (noone reports negative results) and the 'dead trout syndrome' (look this one up - basically researchers showed how brain imaging research can lead to dodgy results through insufficient controls and overinterpretation by showing that a DEAD trout shown pictures of humans had statistically significant differences in brain activity depending upon the content of those pictures).
However, I am not ruling out any differences at all. I am saying that if there are differences they are currently very ill defined (and I think differences that we do find will probably be related to sex rather than anything else - as this does have evolutionary importance). But what is really important to note is that even if there are differences, they will be AVERAGE differences (and probably small ones at that), and so treating all men or all women in certain ways is always going to disadvantage the people that don't fit into their gender sterotypes. Much better to treat all people as the individuals they are. This is something that as Aspies I'm sure we can all agree on. Even the research claiming that men are more logical and women more emotional accepts that in their studies a large percentage of women were more like men and vice versa. And this is using self reported questionnaires - when you elicit the information in more subtle ways then differences tend to disappear (basically women THINK they should be more empathetic then men due to social constructs so answer questions correspondingly and vice versa).
Indeed, as a female I am aware I am not at all 'girly' and many Aspie females seem to be the same. However, I don't accept that I somehow have a more 'male' brain. I also have little in common with male neurotypicals (gender stereotypes of sport, competitiveness, cars etc) and I would disagree with Simon Baron-Cohen in his suggestion (and that is all it is, a suggestion not a fact) that autistics have masculinised brains, to say that in fact we are more genderless because we do not pick up on social cues (including gender cues) as well as neurotypicals (and often when we realise those cues are present we rail against them instead of accepting them because we see how ridiculous and uncomfortable they are). As autistics we are more logical in general, but I do not see this as a male trait - probably helps being a scientist as I come across a lot of logical females (and in biology we outnumber men because for some reason biology has become acceptable for women to do unlike physics - strange as I was better at physics than biology at school, yet have ended up a biologist. I do wonder what gender cues might have subconsciously influenced my choice).
For neurotypicals, being socially accepted is supremely important and that is why there is still so much gender inequality despite laws against discrimination. People do it subconsciously because they have spent their entire lives being brought up with gender stereotypes. The male dominance stereotype is frequently seen throughout the world, but this is due to women having so little control over reproductive rights until very recently and so being pregnant or saddled with young infants for most of their lives. Currently in the west women have (in theory) the right to work as much as men do, but men often do not have the right to look after children, and I think the main thing that needs to change is the acceptance (and women are just as bad as men in this) that men can and should look after their children. It is only this week in the UK that legislation is being passed that allows (not forces) men to take up to half of parental leave - previously they have had two weeks maximum. Without this acceptance that men should do their fair share of childcare (and many want to but have been so far thwarted), female equality in the workplace won't happen because of reluctance to employ young women and them falling behind in the career stakes due to childbirth and childcare. It will also benefit children having their father take a higher level of interest in their upbringing.
People say women looking after children is 'natural', but there are plenty of things that are equally 'natural' that as we have advanced and been more able to control our destiny we have changed - high early childhood mortality is natural after all, or animosity towards other races, or the utilisation of conquered nations as slaves or most of us dying before the age of 30. I do consider myself as a feminist but only in the strictly equal meaning of the word. No I am not expecting everyone to be equally good at everything, but I am demanding equal opportunities for all (including men in terms of childcare) and the ability for all of us to follow what we want to do without being ridiculed for not following gender stereotypes - and not just gender stereotypes, but all sorts of social expectations that many people (even neurotypicals) struggle to attain even though they don't really mean anything.
09 Apr 2011, 9:55 am
