My thanks also go to Jeanette Kennett, Neil Levy and the Centre for Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, for support during and prior to the writing of this book. I am also grateful to everyone who played a part in making it fit for publication. My agent, Barbara Lowenstein, had an essential role in helping me develop my ideas. I thank her for her assistance and support. I am also extremely grateful to Simon Flynn and his colleagues Najma Finlay, Andrew Furlow and Sarah Higgins at Icon Books. Erica Stern was my endlessly patient and helpful contact at W. W. Norton, and I am very grateful to her, Carol Rose and my editor, Angela von der Lippe, for their many valuable comments and improvements to the manuscript. I also thank Laura Romain for her assistance.
Finally, my sincere thanks and gratitude go to my husband, Russell.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It is, I imagine, extremely hard to say anything original about gender, and this has not been my goal. In synthesising material from many different disciplines my aim has been not to stand on the shoulders of others, but to report the view from that position in an accessible way. I am very appreciative of the important research, all done by others, cited in the long list of notes that follow. A few books stand out as deserving particular mention because of the important role they played in my own understanding of the areas they discuss, an influence that is hard to footnote in a book like this. When I first had the idea for this book, my concern about neuroscientific explanations of gender difference was limited to the crass popular interpretations of this literature. However, five books in particular laid the foundation for my understanding of the need for critical attention to the neuroscientific and neuroendocrinological research itself. Ruth Bleier’s Science and Gender, Anne Fausto-Sterling’s two classics, The Myths of Gender and Sexing the Body, and Gisela Kaplan and Lesley Rogers’s Gene Worship were eye-opening to me in their challenges and critiques of the unintended biases and unexamined assumptions often built into gender-difference research. Unexpectedly, Sexual Science, Cynthia Russett’s historical account of Victorian sexual science, was also very helpful in this regard. Laurie Rudman and Peter Glick’s recent book The Social Psychology of Gender, which comprehensively reviews this rapidly expanding field in a wonderfully coherent way, was an excellent resource. And a number of review articles and chapters by developmental psychologists Rebecca Bigler, Lynn Liben, Carol Martin, Cindy Miller, Diane Ruble and their colleagues were also extremely helpful. I am very grateful to all these scholars (and many more besides) for their work.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1 (Brizendine, 2007), pp. 166, 40, and 162, respectively.
2 (Brizendine, 2007), pp. 159 and 160, respectively.
3 http://www.gurianinstitute.com/meet_michael.php. Accessed December 2, 2008.
4 (Gurian, 2004), pp. 4 and 5, and p. 5.
5 (Sax, 2006), blurb.
6 (Gurian Institute, Bering, & Goldberg, 2009), p. 4.
7 (Gurian, Henley, & Trueman, 2001), p. 4.
8 (Gurian & Annis, 2008), jacket blurb.
9 (Gisborne, 1797), p. 21.
10 (Gisborne, 1797), p. 22.
11 (Baron-Cohen, 2003), p. 1. Emphasis in original.
12 (Levy, 2004), p. 319.
13 (Baron-Cohen, 2003), p. 185.
14 (Levy, 2004), pp. 319 and 320.
15 Mary Astell, The Christian Religion (1705). Quoted in (Broad, 2002), p. vii.
16 According to (Dorr, 1915).
17 Anon., ‘Biology and Women’s Rights’, repr. Popular Science Monthly, 14 (Dec. 1878). Quoted in (Trecker, 1974), p. 363.
18 (Kimmel, 2004), p. vii.
19 (Kane, 2006b).
20 (Pinker, 2008), p. 5.
21 (Pinker, 2008), p. 266.
22 (Moir & Jessel, 1989), p. 21.
23 (Brizendine, 2007), pp. 36 and 37.
24 (Moir & Jessel, 1989), p. 20.
25 (Belkin, 2003), para. 60.
26 Social psychologists have marshalled evidence that suggests that we have a system justification motive, ‘whereby people justify and rationalise the way things are, so that existing social arrangements are perceived as fair and legitimate, perhaps even natural and inevitable.’ (Jost & Hunyady, 2002), p. 119.
27 (Broad & Green, 2009), p. viii.
28 (Drake, 1696), p. 20. I’m grateful to Jacqueline Broad for bringing this quotation to my attention.
29 (Smith, 1998), p. 159.
30 E. L. Thorndike, ‘Sex in Education’, The Bookman, XXIII, 213. Quoted in (Hollingworth, 1914), p. 511.
31 (Mill, 1869/1988), p. 22.
32 Cora Castle, ‘A statistical study of eminent women’, Columbia University contributions in philosophy and psychology, vol. 22, no. 27 (New York: Columbia University, 1913), pp. vii, 1–90. Quoted in (Shields, 1982), p. 780.
33 (Malebranche, 1997), p. 130. I’m grateful to Jacqueline Broad for alerting me to this hypothesis.
34 See (Russett, 1989).
35 A phrase that originated with (Romanes, 1887/1987), p. 23. See (Russett, 1989), p. 36.
36 (Russett, 1989), p. 37.
37 See discussion in (Kane, 2006).
38 (Kitayama & Cohen, 2007), p. xiii.
39 M. R. Banaji, ‘Implicit attitudes can be measured’, in H. L. Roediger III, J. S. Nairne, I. Neath, & A. Surprenant (eds.), The nature of remembering: Essays in honor of Robert G. Crowder (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001), pp. 117–150. Quoted in (Banaji, Nosek, & Greenwald, 2004), p. 284.
40 (Silverberg, 2006), p. 3.
41 (Grossi, 2008), p. 100.
42 (Fausto-Sterling, 2000), p. 118.
43 (Rivers & Barnett, 2007), para. 4.
44 See (Fine, 2008).
45 Quoted in (Pierce, 2009), para. 8.
46 A point made, for example, by (Bleier, 1984). She suggests that ‘Paradoxically, it is not our brains or our biology but rather the cultures that our brains have produced that constrain the nearly limitless potentialities for behavioral flexibility provided us by our brains.’ (p. viii).
1. WE THINK, THEREFORE YOU ARE
1 (Morris, 1987), p. 140.
2 Sociologists Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley Correll point out that there is something curious about how our gender beliefs can be so narrow ‘since no one ever has the experience of interacting with a concrete person who is just a man or just a woman in a way that is not affected by a host of other attributes such as the person’s race or level of education.’ (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004), p. 513.
3 See (Rudman & Glick, 2008), chapter 4. This book provides a compelling and comprehensive account of the social psychology of gender.
4 (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004), p. 513. Much of the research discussed in this book, it should be acknowledged, is restricted to the white, middle-class, heterosexual wedge of society. But then, it is the disparity between the male and female halves of this privileged group that is most likely to be taken as evidence for the ‘naturalness’ of gender roles.
5 For overview see (Nosek, 2007a).
6 (Nosek & Hansen, 2008), p. 554, references removed.
7 For theoretical discussions, see for example (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Smith & DeCoster, 2000; Strack & Deutsch, 2004).
8 For example (Banaji & Hardin, 1996). For brief overview see (Bargh & Williams, 2006).
9 To experience the Implicit Association Test yourself, and find out more about it, visit Harvard University’s Project Implicit Web site: http://implicit.harvard. edu/implicit/.
10 (Rudman & Kilianski, 2000).
11 Brian Nosek notes that correlations between implicitly measured social attitudes (such as towards minority groups) and self-reported attitudes are especially weak when participants are highly egalitarian university students, whereas in less egalitarian groups the relationships are stronger (Nosek, 2007a). The nature of the relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes and other constructs – to what extent are they distinct? – is still not clear, and subject to debate.
12 For example (Mast, 2004; Nosek et al., 2009; Rudman & Kilianski, 2000).
13 (Dasgupta & Asgari, 2004).
14 For example (Kunda & Spencer, 2003). Or see (Fine, 2006).
15 I was alerted to this quotation, in the context of understanding the self, in an interview with Brian Nosek.
16 See (Wheeler, DeMarree, & Petty, 2007).
17 This is especially predicted by John Turner’s self-categorisation theory, which is most explicit in distinguishing between personal identity and social identity. While both self-categorisation theory and the active-self account (and other similar models, such as the notion of a working self-concept) regard the self as dynamic and context-dependent, self-categorisation theory proposes that ‘the self should not be equated with enduring personality structure’ because an infinite number of different social identities could become active, depending on the social context (Onorato & Turner, 2004), p. 259. Evidence for self-stereotyping under conditions of gender salience comes, for example, from (Hogg & Turner, 1987; James, 1993).
18 (Chatard, Guimond, & Selimbegovic, 2007).
19 Quoted in (Horne, 2007).
20 (Sinclair, Hardin, & Lowery, 2006).
21 (Steele & Ambady, 2006).
22 (Steele & Ambady, 2006), p. 434.
23 (Garner, 2004), p. 177.
24 William James (1890), The Principles of Psychology, p. 294. Quoted in p. 529 of (Sinclair, Hardin, & Lowery, 2006).
25 (Sinclair, Hardin, & Lowery, 2006; Sinclair et al., 2005; Sinclair & Lun, 2006), p. 529.
26 (Davies, 1989), p. 17.
27 (Galinsky, Wang, & Ku, 2008).
28 (Sinclair et al., 2005).
29 For a sociological perspective on this idea, see (Paechter, 2007).
2. WHY YOU SHOULD COVER YOUR HEAD WITH A PAPER BAG IF YOU HAVE A SECRET YOU DON’T WANT YOUR WIFE TO FIND OUT
1 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 161.
2 A claim made in the blurb of Brizendine’s book.
3 (Baron-Cohen, 2003), p. 2.
4 The Autism Research Centre was the source of the Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient questionnaires: http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/tests/default.asp.
5 See (Baron-Cohen, Knickmeyer, & Belmonte, 2005), table 1, p. 821. Sixty percent of men report an S-type brain, compared with 17 percent of women. (Percentages include ‘extreme’ E and S brain types.)
6 (Schaffer, 2008), entry 3 (‘Empathy queens’), para. 5.
7 (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983).
8 Quoted in (Schaffer, 2008), entry 3 (‘Empathy queens’), para. 8.
9 (Davis & Kraus, 1997), p. 162.
10 (Ames & Kammrath, 2004), p. 205; (Realo et al., 2003), p. 434.
11 (Voracek & Dressler, 2006).
12 Both the EQ and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, also from Simon Baron-Cohen’s lab, ask participants to state their sex before beginning the questionnaire. As will become clear later in the chapter, it’s possible that the correlation between the two arises because the salience of gender-related norms increases both self-reported empathy and empathic performance, to a greater or lesser degree in different participants.
13 (Ickes, 2003), p. 172.
14 (Levy, 2004), p. 322.
15 (Voracek & Dressler, 2006). If you used information about whether someone scored below or above average on the test to try to guess his or her sex you would be correct barely more often than chance.
16 These and further details of the PONS and its interpretation, as well as the IPT, are summarised in (Graham & Ickes, 1997). To give you an idea of the size of the gender difference on the PONS, which Graham and Ickes describe as ‘respectable’ (p. 123), the average woman on this test (scoring at the 50th percentile) is equivalent to a slightly superior man (scoring at the 66th percentile for the male population). In their discussion of the greater female advantage for ‘leaky’ channels of communication, they are referring to the work (and term) of R. Rosenthal and B. DePaulo, ‘Sex differences in eavesdropping on nonverbal cues’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37 (1979), pp. 273–285.
17 (Brizendine, 2007), p. 160.
18 This hypothesis again refers to the work of Rosenthal & DePaulo, cited in (Graham & Ickes, 1997).
19 (Graham & Ickes, 1997), p. 126.
20 (Ickes, 2003), quotations from pp. 125 and 126, respectively.
21 (Ickes, Gesn, & Graham, 2000).
22 (Ickes, 2003), p. 135.
23 (Klein & Hodges, 2001). Men also scored equivalently to women when the sympathy rating was requested after the empathic accuracy test.
24 (Thomas & Maio, 2008), p. 1173. This effect was only found for an easy-to-read target, not a difficult-to-read target.
25 (Koenig & Eagly, 2005), p. 492.
26 (Marx & Stapel, 2006c), p. 773.
27 (Seger, Smith, & Mackie, 2009), p. 461.
28 (Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004). Gilligan’s work and critiques summarised here also.
29 This claim also found support in (Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004), study 1.
30 (Ryan, David, & Reynolds, 2004), pp. 253 and 254, respectively, references removed.
3. ‘BACKWARDS AND IN HIGH HEELS’
1 For meta-analysis, see (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995).
2 (Moore & Johnson, 2008; Quinn & Liben, 2008). It’s worth noting that the early appearance of this difference does not necessarily mean that experiential factors could not be responsible. For example, male babies could be given more gross stimulation that stimulates visuospatial skills. Interestingly, one study found that boys and girls from a low socioeconomic background underperformed equally on a visuospatial task, whereas more-privileged boys outperformed their female counterparts. This points towards the importance of experiential factors in male advantage (Levine et al., 2005). Moreover, an early advantage for males doesn’t mean that this must inevitably persist. In other cognitive domains, gender differences are transient.
3 Needless to say, this is a complex issue. As Nora Newcombe recently summarised it, not only do men, on average, outperform women on mental rotation tasks, particularly at the highest levels, spatial visualisation skills are relevant to success in fields such as physics, mathematics, computer science and engineering. However, as she also notes, there are difficulties with the argument that these genuine sex differences are biologically caused and immutable. With regard to the first point – biological causation – she notes that hypotheses attempting to account for biological mechanisms have not been successful. (Two of these, hormonal accounts and sex differences in lateralisation, are discussed in the second part of the book. The other ideas – an X-linked recessive gene for spatial ability and males’ later puberty – have not been supported by the evidence.) Newcombe also notes that, despite superficial plausibility, evolutionary explanations entail numerous untested assumptions. One further important point raised by Newcombe is whether extra increments in mental rotation ability are important, beyond some high threshold. (As Amanda Schaffer dryly put it in Slate, ‘when it comes to the diverse precincts of high-level science, spatial reasoning only gets you so far. Rock-star academics don’t necessarily spend their days turning geometric figures around in their minds.’) Newcombe points out that ‘[t]hinking creatively, explaining one’s data, or inspiring a research team may be pretty important as well!’ (Newcombe, 2007), p. 75. A recent, very comprehensive review of ‘sociocultural and biological considerations’ with respect to women’s underrepresentation in science concluded that the ‘process needed to establish male advantage in STEM fields as a function of superior spatial ability (possibly because of its role in advanced mathematics) is littered with loopholes. Nothing close to a tightly reasoned and supported argument currently exists.’ (Ceci, Williams, & Barnett, 2009), p. 250.
4 Reviewed, for example, by (Newcombe, 2007). Recent studies have also found that playing computer games improves mental rotation ability, and in women more so than in men (Cherney, 2008; Feng, Spence, & Pratt, 2007).
5 (Sharps, Price, & Wi
lliams, 1994). Task instructions quoted from pp. 424 and 425. Men in the masculine condition outperformed men and women in all other groups. See also (Moè & Pazzaglia, 2006).
6 (McGlone & Aronson, 2006).
7 (Hausmann et al., 2009).
8 (Moè, 2009).
9 M. B. Ritter, More than gold in California 1849–1933 (Berkeley, CA: The Professional Press, 1933), p. 161. Quoted in (Morantz-Sanchez, 1985), p. 118.
10 C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, & J. Aronson, ‘Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat’. In M. P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 34 (San Diego: Elsevier, 2002), p. 385. Quoted in (Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007), p. 109.
11 Readers interested in reading more about stereotype threat are strongly recommended to visit the Web site http://reducingstereotypethreat.org, authored by social psychologists Steven Stroessner and Catherine Good, which provides detailed and comprehensive coverage of the academic literature.
12 (Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008).
13 For example (Marx & Stapel, 2006b; Marx, Stapel, & Muller, 2005; Thoman et al., 2008).
14 (Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008), p. 25.
15 (Walton & Spencer, 2009), p. 1133. Although they note that their samples may not be representative of the general population, their effect sizes suggest that the SAT Maths may underestimate women’s abilities by about 20 points (compared with a gender gap of 34 points). For African and Hispanic Americans, SAT Reading tests may underestimate ability by about 40 points.
16 For example (Adams et al., 2006; Danaher & Crandall, 2008; Davies et al., 2002; Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000; Logel et al., 2009).
17 See (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008).
18 (Marx, Stapel, & Muller, 2005).
19 For example (Cadinu et al., 2003; Stangor, Carr, & Kiang, 1998) and (Marx & Stapel, 2006a), p. 244. As David Marx has argued, and his work has been demonstrating, priming a self-relevant stereotype has effects different from, and greater than, standard stereotype priming effects.
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