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The Brains of Men and Women Are 'Wired Differently'
Rambo Tribble writes "Research out of the University of Philadelphia concludes there are major differences in the neural pathways in the brains of men and women. Men, they say, are wired more front-to-back, women more side-to-side. 'The results establish that male brains are optimized for intrahemispheric and female brains for interhemispheric communication. The developmental trajectories of males and females separate at a young age, demonstrating wide differences during adolescence and adulthood. The observations suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes.' They propose this may explain why women have been found to be better multitaskers. Of course, this may also have ramifications for what skill and career proclivities each sex exhibits."
And the poisonous ideologies invented to justify it, and the pervasive violence employed to enforce it. For women's liberation through socialist revolution! Abolish the family!
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..is still dwarfed by the differences between individuals of a gender. None of these articles about statistical differences will ever justify the prejudices and social roles some people want to enforce on others to make things simpler.
" is a huge leap to extrapolate from anatomical differences to try to explain behavioural variation between the sexes. Also, brain connections are not set and can change throughout life."
So... basically this could be 100% enculturation and there could be zero genetic differences. This is essentially the equivalent of pointing out that people who do a lot of running have strikingly different looking cells in their leg muscles than people who sit on the couch all day. Jumping to the runners being born with different leg muscles might not be the correct answer.
What really gets me is this part, quoted from a neuroscientist:
We know that there is no such thing as 'hard wiring' when it comes to brain connections. Connections can change throughout life, in response to experience and learning.
So the brain connections men and women develop from their experiences happen to reflect the roles we tend to nudge men and women into.
Hmmm.
Yes, so can we please stop pretending that it is a travesty that few women are interested in IT?
Sure, let them do it if they're interested, but if they aren't interested they don't need to have their noses rubbed into it in high school with the expectation that the gender gap in that particular career field will close.
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No! Men and women are EQUAL, dammit! I'm not listening, lalalalalala...!
One of the great myths of our time is that "equality" is the same as "identicality."
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I'm curious whether this difference is caused by by genetics.
Boys and girls at a young age also learn to dress differently, that doesn't mean it's genetic. Our brains are environmentally influenced to some degree; do we know how much that was found by this study is environmental vs. genetic?
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
My theory is that women are far to smart to get suckered into IT.
No, it doesn't say they change throughout life. It says that they change when the sex hormones ramp up at adolescence. It has nothing to do with the tasks they are spending time on.
Then women are the one advantaged. They get more pardon, reduced sentencing and easier parole. I don't even start on domestic issues and divorce where they are more than likely to be seen as the victim, get alimony and child care...
The reason why so few girls are in IT and business is neither their inability nor their lack of interest.
So, in one sentence, you substitute your own pet biases for the scientific findings of TFA, and go right back to
the fact far fewer women choose IT careers must by a fault of society.
On the basis of what scientific research do you make such a claim? We are long past the age where women
are trained from childhood to take certain jobs, accept certain careers, or forego careers. Yet women choose
not to engage in certain professions in anywhere near a ratio indicative of the composition of society.
Women, by and large, do not like IT jobs. They don't like being plumbers either. The women I have worked
with in IT were very good at their jobs, but the women on the candidate list were far sparser than the men.
I've worked FOR women in IT and I've had women work for me in IT. I've tried to recruit women and found
most simply were not interested.
Nobody steers women away from IT. They choose it. And the article explains why. Women's and men's brains are
as many have suspected, simply wired differently. And this is evident early in childhood, which causes children
to make choices, and parents to allow those choices.
You don't have to invent a "social evil" to explain away the simple and obvious preponderance of preference.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
No one who is married needs to be told that men and women are wired differently.
For example, my wife seems to have a problem with my spending all my free-time playing Battlefield 4 and Need for Speed Rivals. She thinks family dinners and holiday celebrations and our anniversary should take precedence over a week of double-XP.
Clearly, her priorities are way out of whack. Yet, somehow it seems to work. Or at least it did until I stopped showering last Tuesday and she started insisting I sleep in the basement. But the joke's on her because that's where my gaming rig is set up.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Of course, you both realize, that it could be both
There may be few women in IT because:
a) the female brain is wired differently than the male
AND
b) the women who are interested, are mocked, ostracized, and outcast
However, I don't believe we should be bending over backwards to ensure the percentages of any group in any field. We should be ensuring that all people have the same opportunities and same encouragement in all fields.
i.e. Vigorously stamp down on (b). Ignore (a). Don't care about the numbers.
Susan Pinker's The Sexual Parodox refers to the observation that as women's rights improve the number of women in traditionally men's professions keeps rising and then goes into reverse, settling at a lower level than the peak (but far higher than in the society with poor women's rights). The effect seems to be tat a desire for "equality" means that women are pushed into jobs they don't want to do because they're assumed to be socialised to the point of being incapable of deciding for themselves (what Pinker calls the "infantilisation of women"). Eventually, women get enough liberty to resist that. So both sides have a measure of truth. Those concerned for women's rights are correct that there can be social factors excluding women from certain professions, but the opponents are right that the search for numerical equality can lead to an overshoot and press individual women into unsuitable jobs. The challenge is to find out which side of that line we're on.
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That book throws around statistics, but it offers self selected anecdotal evidence to cite reasons of injustice. If you start out thinking you're up against an entrenched "all boys club" and bring your own venom to the table then cause hostility through over-sensitivity, you're going to have a bad time, mkay? Did you know men and boys pick on each other as a form of bonding? Did you know little girls are even worse at the verbal bullying via hurtful spite filled comments and gossip? Visit any all-girl school and see for yourself. Given the facts about how women treat each other, I find it incredibly disingenuous to present spaces less than mostly male occupied as giving females quicker deaths by thousands of cuts -- Especially given the goddess like preferential treatment the women I know of in tech receive.
I've seen it time and again. A social justice warrior or feminist will arrive with teeth bared expecting a hostile environment of the mostly male gamedevs -- ignoring that gamedevs and players are different -- ready to strike at any perceived injustice: "Only 20% of the award winners are female?! That's sexist." Uh, yeah, 20% of the submissions were by females. Odd thing, that algebraic equality... 1 = 1; 20 == 20. However, now that accusations have been made, folks aren't going to be reacting very nicely -- least of all the females among us who see such shit stirrers as exactly that: Drama queens, deserving of the same sort of poisonous treatment they dish out.
"We need more women game devs!" [Specifically reach out to women and get more female game devs show up for the gamejam] "Oh it's so awesome you're a girl who gamedevs!" -- ARGH! It sucks that men are treating women differently than themselves. Uh, yeah, because that's what we did to decrease the rarity and the boys see girls as different than themselves. You really can't win for losing. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Now we just say: Fuck 'em. Doesn't change the fact that with equal m/f ratio among new attendees most girls quit our dev groups AFTER being welcomed and accepted into the group because the risk / reward for game making is shit -- Lots of work, little to no chance of making a popular game. The guys just happen to care less about the lack of social status or massive effort required to sate their love for developing intricate novelties than gals do. Those women that do are cherished for their different perspectives, and sought out for advice on character design realism... Because most men are best at "writing what they know" and don't have female brains. Like gamedev, IT and CS are largely thankless shite work too.
"Unlocking the Clubhouse" -- Interesting selection of careers. Why not try "Unlocking the Clubhouse" when it comes to the other thankless risky male dominated jobs, like Janitors or Coal Miners -- Oh, those are clubhouses no one wants to be in? Gee. Go fucking figure.
Then women are the ones who have the privilege, not men. This is true both in the letter of the law, and the precedent set by its enforcement.
1. women get lighter sentences for crime.
2. women are assumed to be victims in 'abuse' cases whether they are or not..
3. if men call 911 because their wives are throwing knives at them, he is arrested and brought to jail. look up 'mandatory arrest.'
4. women pay less into social security yet retire sooner.
5. women don't have to sign up for the selective service in order to vote.
6. women are given access to public money (scholarships) for education just because they are women.
7. Title IX. Enough said.
8. VAWA. Enough said.