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Male & Female Brains Are The Same

Malicex

New Blood
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Aug 9, 2019
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I've had two anthropology teachers in Kansas tell the class that there is no difference between male and female brains, that the genders are the same. Is this belief starting to become a thing now?

The first teacher I approached about it, who was always in a hurry, kind of broke down and said there is research supporting both sides, and that we really don't know...

The second teacher I haven't spoken with, but he told the class it was proven a long time ago. His source was Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) by Margaret Mead, wherein in the Tchambuli tribe the women were dominate.

Last time I heard this argument, it was from right-wing Christians trying to disprove homosexuality and what not. Now I am hearing it from the left?
 
Venom said:
Are your instructors leftists?
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They seem like it, especially the 2nd one. But I've heard the sentiment online from the left too. My guess is that some of them have gotten so caught up in equality between sexes, that they're starting to get their beliefs confused.
 
Never had much time for the idea myself.

Physically men and women have significant differences but the brains are identical?

Sort of conflicts with evolutionary theory also. I mean our brains evolve to fit the tasks required and the tasks for men and women are often different. Childbearing is one example of this.
 
A lot of colleges lean a bit left, it reflects in hiring practices eventually.

It sometimes isn't easy to see from inside.
 
Malicex said:
I've had two anthropology teachers in Kansas tell the class that there is no difference between male and female brains, that the genders are the same. Is this belief starting to become a thing now?

The first teacher I approached about it, who was always in a hurry, kind of broke down and said there is research supporting both sides, and that we really don't know...

The second teacher I haven't spoken with, but he told the class it was proven a long time ago. His source was Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) by Margaret Mead, wherein in the Tchambuli tribe the women were dominate.

Last time I heard this argument, it was from right-wing Christians trying to disprove homosexuality and what not. Now I am hearing it from the left?
Click to expand...

The studies I have seen say that it is complicated.

In general it seems that there are structures to the brain that can be more masculine traited or more feminine traited. However, most people don't have all masculine traited, or all feminine traited, they have a mixture of the two, and all the variants in between. However in general men will tend to have more structures that are towards the masculine end of the spectrum, and women will have more that are towards the feminine end, but at the same time there is no clear pattern that says women will have these structures in a feminine version, and men will have them in a masculine version. So... Yes there is a difference in that overall most women will have more feminine type structures, and most men will have more masculine type structures, but which structures tend feminine and which will tend masculine varies so much from person to person that you can also say that there is no formal differences between which structures will be found in which gender.
 
Let me try an analogy...

Imagine that we have ten bags of stones, the stones inside being labelled 1 through to 10 based on the bag, and each bag's stones being a mix of pink and blue stones.

Now a group of people draw one stone from the bag so that they have ten stones, labeled 1 through 10.

Now as you can imagine, most people will have a mixture of pink and blue stones. A very few might have all blue or all pink, but they will be rare.

Now most of those that have 6 or more pink stones are women, but not all of them. And most of those that have 6 or more blue stones are men, but again not all of them. Also you have as roughly as many men that have a blue number 4 stone as have a pink number 4 stone, just as you have roughly the same number of women that have a pink 7 stone as a blue 7 stone, and likewise for all the other stones.

So there is a clear pattern that more pink stones means female, and more blue stones mean male, but there is no pattern in the labelled stones as to how that number of stones will be reached.
 
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It seems that, with such different instincts, it is impossible to imagine them the same.

Oh, and why is this in Paranormal?
 
PhantomWolf said:
The studies I have seen say that it is complicated.

In general it seems that there are structures to the brain that can be more masculine traited or more feminine traited. However, most people don't have all masculine traited, or all feminine traited, they have a mixture of the two, and all the variants in between.
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That's exactly how I understand it. Many years ago I heard it referred to as male-differentiated brains vs female-differentiated brain, when reading about brain research.

There are so many masculine and feminine traits. One trait being sexual attraction, wherein men are typically attracted to women, and women are typically attracted to men. But individuals inherit a mixture of traits, you can't expect something as complex as the human brain or entire human body to only have traits of set A or set B. However when someone says they're just simply the same... all I can think is that they don't entirely comprehend the difference between populations and individuals.

PhantomWolf said:
Let me try an analogy...

Imagine that we have ten bags of stones, the stones inside being labelled 1 through to 10 based on the bag, and each bag's stones being a mix of pink and blue stones.

Now a group of people draw one stone from the bag so that they have ten stones, labeled 1 through 10.

Now as you can imagine, most people will have a mixture of pink and blue stones. A very few might have all blue or all pink, but they will be rare.

Now most of those that have 6 or more pink stones are women, but not all of them. And most of those that have 6 or more blue stones are men, but again not all of them. Also you have as roughly as many men that have a blue number 4 stone as have a pink number 4 stone, just as you have roughly the same number of women that have a pink 7 stone as a blue 7 stone, and likewise for all the other stones.

So there is a clear pattern that more pink stones means female, and more blue stones mean male, but there is no pattern in the labelled stones as to how that number of stones will be reached.
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That's a good and simple way to put it, I like it.

wasapi said:
It seems that, with such different instincts, it is impossible to imagine them the same.

Oh, and why is this in Paranormal?
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Where should I have posted it?
 
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I just read about the new study on genetics and homosexuality. The conclusion was that there was no single "gay gene" but multiple factors that then get confounded even more by hormone production and again by upbringing. Basically, the researchers said that out of their very large sample size, they couldn't conclude any sort of bright line existed.

I'm inclined to suspect that this would also be the case with male/female brains. There may be differences, but untangling any of the reasons for or effects of those differences would be impossible. There's probably a spectrum along which various people fall for reasons far too complex to care about.
 
Thor 2 said:
Never had much time for the idea myself.

Physically men and women have significant differences but the brains are identical?

Sort of conflicts with evolutionary theory also. I mean our brains evolve to fit the tasks required and the tasks for men and women are often different. Childbearing is one example of this.
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So how does the female brain regulate childbearing?
Does the female brain have a lobe that controls their breasts?
And men one that controls the penis? (Some women claim it's the other way round.)
Neuroscience of sex differences: Male and female brain (Wikipedia)

There seems to be only minor differences between male and female brains, but they are not identical. (Of course, no two brains are.)
 
If you have a brain sitting in front of you, can you tell whether it came from a man or a woman? (I'm asking because I don't know, not to make a point, whatever it might be.)
 
To be properly "woke" these days, it seems you have to simultaneously believe there are no differences between men and women's brains, and yet that there exists a real phenomenon of women's brains in men's bodies.
 
Matthew Best said:
If you have a brain sitting in front of you, can you tell whether it came from a man or a woman? (I'm asking because I don't know, not to make a point, whatever it might be.)
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From memory, we had a thread on here a little while ago that was about some of the latest information. And it was whilst there are some male and female structures nearly all brains are a combination of both and the variances between same sex brains is almost as much as between male and female brains so probably the best you could say is "this is more likely to be the brain of a female".

I'll see if I can find the thread or articles again.

ETA think this is an article about it https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds
 
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Ron Obvious said:
To be properly "woke" these days, it seems you have to simultaneously believe there are no differences between men and women's brains, and yet that there exists a real phenomenon of women's brains in men's bodies.
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I take it "woke" is some form of insult? What's it got to do with the thread topic?
 
Darat said:
From memory, we had a thread on here a little while ago that was about some of the latest information. And it was whilst there are some male and female structures nearly all brains are a combination of both and the variances between same sex brains is almost as much as between male and female brains so probably the best you could say is "this is more likely to be the brain of a female".

I'll see if I can find the thread or articles again.

ETA think this is an article about it https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds
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That's kind of what I got from a quick read of Wikipedia when nobody answered my question quite quickly enough(!).
 
Ron Obvious said:
To be properly "woke" these days, it seems you have to simultaneously believe there are no differences between men and women's brains, and yet that there exists a real phenomenon of women's brains in men's bodies.
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That is what shocked me. How can one believe both?

And how is that supposed to work with them also believing in multiple genders, like androgynous and asexual? It doesn't really fit The Gender Unicorn (I am not allowed to post URLs yet).

www dot transstudent.org/genderunicornexample.jpeg

If the brains of men are women are the same, how does someone manage to feel like a female trapped in a male body and want to change their body to a female one?

Perhaps... the best answer is that the largest differences between male and female brains are their sexuality?
 
Darat said:
I take it "woke" is some form of insult? What's it got to do with the thread topic?
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"Woke" isn't generally an insult. It means to be alert and aware about racism, sexism, or other injustices. Can't tell if Ron intends it as an insult though.
 
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