Feminized Brain

Dr. Phil just announced that a man who wants to have a sex-change operation has "a feminized brain" and it "has to do with hardwiring." I think Dr. Phil needs to be outlawed. He was funny at first but when we get into the territory of discussing "feminized brains" on national television, that's really too much. What's next? The myth of the itinerant uterus will be revived or what?

Nina Atwood and the Chauvinistic View of Female Sexuality

Nina Atwood's relationship advice books have always scared me with their unapologetically chauvinistic view of female sexuality. Naturally, if she were an only unenlightened fool to produce this kind of nonsense, her ideas wouldn't be so scary. They have, however, become widely disseminated in the media. So widely, in fact, to have become mainstream.

The main tenets of Atwood's chauvinistic teachings are:

a) the worst thing you can do for a budding relationship "is to get sexual too soon". A woman's central strategy has to consist of "putting off sex until you have a real relationship with a commitment." Atwood doesn't explain, of course, why any sane individual of any gender would start a "relationship with a commintment" before figuring out if you are even sexually compatible. There is even less explanation for why anybody would even want to start a "real relationship" with a person who uses sex as a manipulation device from the very start;

b) after sex, the man should feel "obligated" because your "self-respect as a woman demands it". The most annoying thing here is Atwood's use of pseudo-feminist vocabulary to justify a decidedly anti-feminist attitude. According to her, a woman has to trade sex for commitment and obligation. In her world, sex is what a man wants, while commitment is what a woman needs. This, of course, has nothing to do with reality. The need for commitment and/or for sex is not gender specific and has more to do with the needs of a particular individual at any given time.

In order to justify this ridiculous approach, Atwood brings out the old chauvinistic myth that for women, sex is about intimacy, while for men it's about physical pleasure: "For us, having sex creates more intimacy. We wake up the next day wanting the relationship to move forward. If we’re brutally honest, we have to admit that we wake up the next day halfway in love and thinking of him as a boyfriend. This is nothing to be embarrassed about - it is perfectly natural and normal for a woman to feel this way! In fact, it is how we are wired." There is no proof whatsoever for these sweeping generalizations, except the vague and baseless declarations about being "wired" a certain way. And we all know how stupid such statements are.

It's strange to me that Atwood never stops to think how insulting such a position is to women. She believes that we are such simple, one-dimensional creatures that in order to achieve intimacy with us and make us fall in love, all you need to do is get between our legs. Our souls are located inside our vaginas, so it's very easy to get inside them. Men, on the other hand, are much more complex. It's not enough to sleep with them to achieve intimacy or reach their feelings. I can understand why some male chauvinist would want to promote this vision of women. But a woman? It's mindboggling. 

More on Brain Hardwiring Mystique

My reader Quisp kindly suggested a link to an article by Janet Shibley Hyde titled "The Gender Similarities Hypothesis." This is a truly great piece of research that is aimed at dispelling the "Men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-Venus" myth through meticulous scientific research. It is so refreshing to read such a well-constructed and well-reserached piece after all the junk science dedicated to promoting this fallacy that bobmards us on a dily basis.

Not only does Shibley Hide present a lot of data to counteract the gender difference myth, she also talks about its social consequences: "Gilligan’s (1982) argument that women speak in a different moral “voice” than men is a well-known exampleof the differences model. Women, according to Gilligan, speak in a moral voice of caring, whereas men speak in a voice of justice. Despite the fact that meta-analyses disconfirmher arguments for large gender differences (Jaffee & Hyde, 2000; Thoma, 1986; Walker, 1984), Gilligan’s ideas have permeated American culture. One consequence of thisoverinflated claim of gender differences is that it reifies the stereotype of women as caring and nurturant and men as lacking in nurturance. One cost to men is that they may believe that they cannot be nurturant, even in their role as father. For women, the cost in the workplace can be enormous. Women who violate the stereotype of being nurturant and nice can be penalized in hiring and evaluations."

In conclusion to her great article, Shibley Hide says the following: "It is time to consider the costs of overinflated claims of gender differences. Arguably, they cause harm in numerous realms, including women’s opportunities in the workplace,couple conflict and communication, and analyses of selfesteem problems among adolescents. Most important, these claims are not consistent with the scientific data." The essentialized view of gender offers us an illusion of simplifying the world's complexities. But the price we pay for this fallacy on a daily basis is too higgh.

Columbine

Dave Cullen's Columbine (New York: Twelve, 2009) marks the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High shootings. Initially, it seems like one more attempt to capitalize on the tragedy. Of course, if that were all the book represented it would not bother me at all. Oprah is dedicating a week's worth of shows to the Columbine, so why shouldn't Cullen make some money off the shooting as well? Far be it from me to get all self-righteous about some people's attempts to make money in such a way. If there is a demand for these books and TV shows, there should definitely be a supply of them.

What is really scary, though, is the explanation Cullen provides for the Columbine massacre. Don't blame the bullies, he says. Forget about blaming the shooters' parents. Don't even think about analyzing how the gun-loving and violence-extolling culture might have influenced Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. According to Cullen, the real reason behind the tragedy is simple: some people are just born bad.

So, relax, my friends. Don't look for clues that will allow you to prevent similar tragedies in the future. Stopping school bullying, limiting access to guns, talking to teenagers to see what might be bothering them - it's all useless. Some people (like Eric Harris) are "born psychopaths." They are especially good at leading people to believe they are nice. They can neither be spotted nor helped. Let's not waste our time trying to change things. Let's just sit back and wait for more shootings to happen.

This is one more example of how pernicious this "brain hard wiring" ideology is. It promotes passivity and lack of social accountability. Some people are born good, some are born bad. Some people are born smart, some are born stupid. It makes no sense to try and change anything. You are "hard wired" this way. I already wrote about the utterly fictitious and ideological nature of this "hard wiring" mystique. Now we are seeing how it manages to pervade all aspects of our lives.

Our Brain and the Mystique of "Hard-wiring"

How often do we hear or read statements like "This is the way his brain is wired" or "We are just hard-wired to act this way"? I encounter these expressions almost daily. Television and print media are especially keen on these mystifying phrases.

In a well-researched and truly fascinating article titled "Brain Sex: How the Media Report and Distort Brain Research," Janet Bing discusses how the talk about "hard-wiring" in the human brain is often used to promote the essentialized view of the so-called male-female differences.

Here is the link to this impressive piece of research:

http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=JTQKzGYqzhDHxJkPv7dv6Sd1GdTC77
Lv14FJJqTbj0psRRZ6lmFy!50025543!2020840395?docId=5001882937

I always assign this article to my students and enjoy observing the shock they experience as they discover that the intense media blabber about male-female differences being "hard-wired" into our brains has no basis in actual scientific research.

The groundless mystique of brain hard-wiring is always used to achieve certain ideological goals. By using this phrase we buy into the ideology that goes with the concept. People talk of brain's wiring to suggest that some things cannot be changed. They just are. You are depressed? That's how you brain is wired, all you can do to deal with it is just swallow some pills. But don't ever hope to change things permanently and become depression-free for good. You are a woman? Then just accept that your brain is wired a certain way and accept all of the behaviors that your culture traditionally associates with being female. You are autistic? Don't try to look for reasons behind that, don't ever hope to analyze your condition rationally. It's wired in your brain, that's all you need to know about yourself.

Talking about brain hard-wiring does not provide us with answers. It is just a way to avoid having to look for answers to tough questions.

P.S. It seems that the link to the article stopped working in the time that has passed since I wrote this post. So here are some of my favorite quotes from Bing's great piece of research:

"Research showing difference is generally published because academic books and journals have a bias towards reporting differences and against reporting negative results. . . Investigators are much more willing to report differences between groups (and journal editors are much more eager to accept such studies) than they are to publish negative or "no-difference" results. Critics have suggested that journals contain only the tip of the sex-differences-in-laterality-research iceberg and that the majority of studies with negative results are never published. "

"Biological sex itself has turned out to be much more variable and dynamic than we ever imagined. And brain-organization patterns are even more variable from person to person, and probably even within the same person at different times. Further, on most tests of cognitive ability there is enormous overlap of men and women."

"The "facts" that the media present on any subject, however, are often those that reinforce prevailing ideologies. "

"In addition, even when facts contradictory to general beliefs are reported, readers may ignore them. People often ignore any information that conflicts with their beliefs or preconceived ideas. Schaff (1984) calls this tendency to disregard any facts and opinions that conflict with prevailing beliefs cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) and offers a summary of some of the research about it. Schaff (1984:96) explains that: "in conflict situations, if the opinions and attitudes (in the sense of readiness to act) of a human being concerning certain issues, primarily social ones, are at variance with the realities of life and if neither those realities can be brought into agreement with the said opinions nor those opinions modified without ruining the ideology of their carrier, then a psychological defense mechanism is put into operation to make one's mind immune against inconvenient information." Schaff claims that facts inconsistent with previous beliefs and biases can be intellectually acknowledged, but "emotionally blocked," overlooked, and not assimilated. "