Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!usc!aero!nadel
From: nadel@aerospace.aero.org (Miriam H. Nadel)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: sex/gender
Message-ID: <10781@polya.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 21 Jul 89 17:59:28 GMT
References: <8907071844.AA10158@cattell.psych.upenn.edu> <10546@polya.Stanford.EDU> <12869@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: elroy!ames!polya.stanford.edu!holstege (Mary Holstege)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 205
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R



Gordon Banks writes:

>I haven't read the assertions of Wilson that you are referring to,
>but his conclusions are certainly invalid.  While it may be
>said to be scientifically valid to say that males of almost every
>mammalian species (including humans) are naturally more aggressive
>than females, the conclusion that females are doomed to lose in
>competition does not necessarily follow.  There are other qualities
>than aggression that can be brought to bear on a situation that may
>lead to a successful outcome for the female.  

I agree with all this.  I am not saying that there are no differences between
men and women and if there were that would justify the conclusion.  I am saying
that the alleged differences are far less well established than is commonly
believed, that the false conclusions *are* drawn, even by people who ought to
know better, and that the impact and often the intent of these conclusions is
to `put women in their place'.

>If the females choose to compete on male terms, and cultivate male
>characteristics, it will certainly be a difficult, if not insurmountable, 
>struggle.

Of course, here you contradict all your fine words above and assert something
for which there is no proof, that in fact women cannot hope to compete with
men on `male terms', which in this context one is invited to read as
`aggressiveness'.  (Aside: when children are rated for aggressiveness boys are
only rated as more aggressive when the raters *know* which children are male
and which female.) 

>The problem isn't that the differences are not there, it is that
>people are using them to justify invalid arguments.  Arguing with
>them by denying the differences would seem to be conceding that
>if the differences *can* be proven, then the arguments for oppression
>and subjection of women *would* be valid.  

I agree with the first statement (except that I also believe that many of the
alleged differences happen not to be there).  I do not concede that the
conclusions follow.  I did not stress this point in my message, although I did
mention it in passing a couple of times.

>I think this is a foolish and anti-scientific position.  

?? Which conclusion?  The conclusion that differences support oppression or the
conclusion that we should deny those differences that do exist?  Actually,
neither is a wise or scientific position, although the name of science has been
repeatedly called upon to support the first.

>The fear of feminist wrath has somewhat inhibited publication of
>scientific results in the field of cognitive differences
>in brains of males and females, and perhaps explains why most of the
>leading researchers in the field are women (they can get away with
>saying that there are differences easier than men would be able to).

I don't know about that.  The only relevant publication I read is BBS, but it
has at least one sex differences article  just about every quarter.  Doesn't
sound like suppression to me.  Still, I imagine there is some caution, which I
think is a good thing.  It is also heartening to see that many researchers are
being a bit more subtle in their reasoning and their approach.  Suppression of
research certainly isn't my aim: criticism of lousy research that fails to
account for certain variables *is*.

>>[A bunch of nonsense showing lack of understanding about how
>>verbal and spatial differences are established].

Nice try, but this cheap trick won't work.  I am talking about very many real
studies published in real journals and real books by real scientists
summarizing that work.  

>The difference in spatial reasoning abilities between male and
>female is a mammalian characteristic, not simply a human or even
>primate one.  Males of most mammalian species do better in spatial
>learning.  

Oh?  Where are all these studies?  Seriously, I haven't seen a great many
studies that even look at these questions.  How is `spatial ability' measured
in a vole, and why should we believe that it has anything to what is measured
by the various sorts of tests that are given to humans to measure the same
thing?  Why has the difference disappeared in Eskimos, if this is pervasive
throughout Mammalia?

>This may have something to do with the difference in
>the sizes of sexual territories that males keep versus females.

If it exists, it may.  Many mammals, and certainly many primates do not have
such breeding territories.  

>The best work on this subject is done in voles (small rodent-like
>mammals).  Species that are not territorial do not have males
>that are better spatially. 

Ah.  So a few studies on voles (using what measures?) justifies the conclusion
that among human beings (what? 100 million year separation?) females are less
adept `spatially' than males.  Ah.  Very convincing, I'm sure.

>Why are females better verbally?

There is little good evidence that they are.

>One interesting speculation is that the stronger lateralization
>of the male brain (to provide the spatial reasoning ability)
>leaves them less versatile vis-a-vis language.  

An interesting speculation, yes, but do men in fact have a greater
lateralization?  Well, 70 years ago women had more lateralized brains, we were
told.  How is lateralization determined?  Well, a lot of this lateralization
has been determined by a few studies that involved autopsy of a dozen brains.
You know what a dead brain is like?  Sloppy, that's what.  So you cut open this
brain and find the corpus calloseum.  Then you find a particular part of it,
because, you see, it is not that the whole c.c. in women is on average larger
than men, just part of it.  So you decide where that part starts and the other
part ends and you measure its surface area.  Then, maybe, you divide by the
size of the brain because women tend to be smaller than men, or perhaps you
divide by the surface area if the whole cc.  In any case, there is a lot of
room for error, no one has ever done any control to determine how much variance
in measurements there can be, no control has been done to determine how much
the dead and preserved brain differs from a living brain, the measurements are
not done blind (i.e. by those who do not know whether the brain is a male's or
a female's), and the magnitude of the difference is, even taken at face value,
slight.  Why should I believe such a thing?

>It is certainly proven true that males are less capable of recovery from
>aphasia after a dominent hemisphere stroke than are females.

Nooo.. It is certainly proven true that men seek out therapy more often and
for longer than women following a dominant hemisphere stroke.  Does that prove
that they actually suffer greater deficit?  

>>take a genius to figure out that there is a nasty anti-feminist
>>political edge to all of this.
>The researchers you refer to are for the most part female.  

I am aware of this.  There are plenty of anti-feminist females in the world and
plenty of women who would be more than happy to pin their individual ineptness
in math on some instrinsic female deficit.  However, I do not think most of
them work with some conscious intent to oppress women.  It would be absurd to
hold such a position when it is not necessary to suppose individual malice.

>I know some of them, and as far as I can tell, they are progressive,
>liberated, liberal-minded women themselves.  They have no axe to
>grind against feminism.  

In most cases, this is quite true.  That does change the fact that the research
is used by those who *do* have a nasty axe to grind.  It also does not change
the fact that much of the research, while often packaged in cautionary
language, is (mis)appropriated by the press and others to further particular
agendas that the researchers might well be appalled at.  So too, one does not
need to be an anti-feminist to have swallowed a lot of scientific perspectives
that lead one to look at the world in terms that lead to sexist conclusions.
The very choice of looking first at sex differences and accepting any
difference between sexes on face value is at base a sexist decision.  Not
consciously, perhaps -- I have a great deal of respect for the honesty and
integrity of most scientists -- but there nonetheless.  Choosing to look at
things one way rather than another is a choice.  One is not absolved of the
consequences of that choice or the consequences of use of one's data (stripped
from context) to support various agendas just because the choice was a
conventional one.  One is not absolved of the responsibility of speaking out
against false conclusions drawn from one's research when it is taken from
context. 

It is also, unfortunately, true that many feminists foster anti-feminist ends
when they adopt what are, at base, sexist positions.  Anti-male sexist
statements are as anti-feminist as anti-female ones.  Accepting positive
stereotypes for women is just as dangerous in the long run as accepting
negative ones.  A lot of feminists seem to have missed this point, however.

>You should currently be arguing that regardless of differences,
>there is no ethical basis for discriminating against women.

I argue that as well.  But the more I look at studies that purport to prove
various differences, the flimsier the evidence becomes.  I actually believe
that some of these differences, even those I have criticized, do exist.  The  
evidence for them varies from slim to none, however, the differences are slight
even when taken at face value (other factors are *far* more significant in
every case), and the sweeping conclusions drawn from them are both real,
pervasive, and dangerous.  I'll fight such dangerous notions on every front I
can and with every tool I can muster.

More quotes for your `amusement':

John MacKinnon, The Ape Within Us:
   [About Ms. Average] "her biological make-up has ... designed her for 
   fulfilling quieter, less spectacular roles.... For all her opportunity
   and capability Ms. Average is going to end up in a supportive domestic
   role."  
   [For *all* her capability, mind you, even though Mr. Average differs little
   from her, if at all.]
   "Women's libbers will be constantly let down by their sex's biologically
   lower motivation for fighting for glory in the industrial head-hunt of
   the economic rat-race."

William and Lea Shields, Forcible Rape: An Evolutionary Perspective
   "We suggest that *all* males are potential rapists.... We expect that the
   probability of an individual raping will be a function of the average
   genetic cost/benefit ratio associated with the particular conditions he
   faces."
   [All men will rape when they can get away with it, it basically the message
   of this (and other related) work.  If I were a man, I'd be insulted.  But
   `science' has `proven' it by studying mallards and scorpionflies.]


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