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From: mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Income Disparities Based On Sex
Message-ID: <6267@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 18:06:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6267
Posted: Sun Jul  7 18:06:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 15:36:09 EDT
References: <327@kontron.UUCP>
Reply-To: mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP (Eric McColm)
Distribution: net
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 58
Xref: watmath net.women:6376 net.politics:9919
Summary: 

In article <327@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
(from some popular-press feature article...)
>Extension, indicated t...."studies of brain tissue continue to bear
>out the notion that men and women do think fundamentally differently".
>In more detail, "Male and female minds really are different.  Men
>typically have more highly developed cells in the right half of the
>brain controlling visual and spatial function, while such dominance
>isn't marked in women...."
>
>[end of quotations, opinion on]
>*******************************************************************
>
>Unfortunately, the article doesn't say if this difference is acquired,
>or in-born, or if that subject has been studied....
>
Rather than postulating that the difference was a genetic trait, as the
quoted poster later does, I find a different explanation more likely.

Recall that a piano student, who starts young and diligently does the usual
exercises every day for years, will develop finger bone structures which
are noticeably different (using X-rays) from those of the normal human.
It is likely, in my uninformed opinion, that the above mentioned differences
in brain center dominance are caused by differences in experience, and that
the brain develops most highly those areas which are most used.

As a test, one could study the exact nature of the differences between the
brain center dominances between men and women, and then see if the same
dominances hold among (1) infants, (2) ghetto inhabitants, who probably
do not know much higher math, (3) engineers of each sex, and (4) peoples of
radically different cultures, with widely disparate knowledge of mathematics.

I claim without proof that in each case, the dominance of analytical and
spatial centers in the brain will be directly related to the actual use
of these centers by the individual.  This cannot be explained away by saying
that the people with such dominance decided to take up mathematics,
(Femal engineers would, infants and Bushpeople [sic.] would not.) because
not everyone with these dominant brain centers would necessarily enter
a mathematical field, and so there would be some individuals with the
dominant "analytical" centers who had never heard of geometry, if the traits
were actually inherited.  If they were developed, as I claim, there would
be very few such people with high spatial ability but no experience.

If my claim turns out to be true, then it is vital for all parents to make
sure their daughters learn geometry & so forth, because the study would
actually indicate that girls (= immature female people) tend not to learn
math as often and as well as boys.

I also claim without proof that the reason for this difference is cultural.
--fini--

Eric McColm
UCLA (oo' - kluh) Funny Farm for the Criminally Harmless
UUCP:  ...!{ihnp4,trwspp,cepu,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!mccolm
ARPA:  (still) mccolm@UCLA-CS.ARPA  (someday) mccolm@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
Quotes on the Nature of Existence:
   "To be, or not to be..."    -Hamlet  (Wm. Shakespeare)
   "I think, therefore I am."  -R. Descartes
   "<Gleep!>"                  -Gleep   (Robt. Asprin)