Does your brain need an identity?
Does your brain need an identity?
There are many studies that are looking for characteristics of a typical "male" and "female" brain...but what if there are no differences? will it change the social construct of gender that we know today? Will it make people more accepting towards gender fluid people and transgenders? Probably not.
There are many studies that have been carried out ti try and secure differences between the male and female brain. One study that was carried out included 1400 people. A team of scientists looked at the brain size of 1400 people ages 13 - 85 and searched for physical differences such as variations in the seizes of the brain regions as well as the connections between them. Overall they found around 29 brain regions that appeared to be different in size for self identified males and females. They may have found these differences but hey also found that 0 - 8% of people had "all-male" or "all-female" brain features that they were expecting. They found that most differences crossed over and varied with no dependence on the gender of a person. One scientist doing the experiment commented "most people are in the middle".
Furthermore, There are other studies to see if there really are differences in a female and male brain one being tests. A group of 12 (6 men 6 women) were taken into rooms to do certain tests to examine their abilities with different tasks. One of the papers was on a shape and the people had to decide which of the shapes below were the same after being turned on an angle. Overall the men scored higher on this test. There was also another where the people would watch someone act out an emotion (speaking in a made up language) and the participants would have to figure out exactly what the emotion was. Overall the women scored higher on this exam. The first test showed that men were a lot better with identifying ---------- and women were better when reading emotions. However, when the test was done nationally it was found that there was no correlation as to which gender was better and which was worse. Both male and female scores overlapped making the averages very close, showing that there may be no difference in this sense.
So, by looking at tests for biological differences there trends to be no trend what so ever. Personally, I think that the only reason a person's brain will be biologically different would be because of other physical factors such as height, weight etc. I also believe these things will change depending on things a person does as they grow i.e. if they play sports, if they learn a lot of languages etc. If a child is brought up to do these things their brains will develop differently to others not doing those things as they'll be using different parts of their brain a lot more frequently.
Next is environmental differences. Depending on the way a person is brought up or events that happen throughout a person's life may affect the way their brain develops. Let's say, a person does sport and works out, their muscles are going to grow right? Their bodies will grow in a way that the sport will allow them. So who's to say their brain doesn't do the same as well?
People who do different sports will have different abilities to others i.e. tennis players will have better hand-eye coordination that someone who plays football. People who swim will have a better ability of holding their breath than those that do long distance running. Surely, as their brains develop whilst doing his sport, it'll form to the things that they do making them better at their sport as they got older. These changes won't be because of their "male" or "female" biology it will be a bypass of the way they have used their bodies over the years.
This theory can be places on many things. Girls and boys tend to be treated differently by their parents and other adults which puts them into these different social groups from the second their born. Girls will be dressed in pink, boys in blue. Girls will get given baby dolls and barbies to play with, boys will get cars and trucks to play with. On top of this, children tend to be played with in different ways as well. Girls will do more quiet play that will consist of things like singing and playing with make up and hair etc. Where as boys will be engaged into much more boisterous play such as; play fighting, playing in dirt, playing with bugs etc. All in all, nurture seems to be the thing most at play rather than biological.
My theory is that a "male" brain will mostly likely have good characteristics for sports boys tend to play most during school i.e. football and rugby and a "female" brain will most likely have good characteristics for something like dance or gymnastics. But everything will vary depending on the families socio-economic status as that can affect many different things around it i.e. housing, schooling, income etc.
There are many studies that are looking for characteristics of a typical "male" and "female" brain...but what if there are no differences? will it change the social construct of gender that we know today? Will it make people more accepting towards gender fluid people and transgenders? Probably not.
There are many studies that have been carried out ti try and secure differences between the male and female brain. One study that was carried out included 1400 people. A team of scientists looked at the brain size of 1400 people ages 13 - 85 and searched for physical differences such as variations in the seizes of the brain regions as well as the connections between them. Overall they found around 29 brain regions that appeared to be different in size for self identified males and females. They may have found these differences but hey also found that 0 - 8% of people had "all-male" or "all-female" brain features that they were expecting. They found that most differences crossed over and varied with no dependence on the gender of a person. One scientist doing the experiment commented "most people are in the middle".
Furthermore, There are other studies to see if there really are differences in a female and male brain one being tests. A group of 12 (6 men 6 women) were taken into rooms to do certain tests to examine their abilities with different tasks. One of the papers was on a shape and the people had to decide which of the shapes below were the same after being turned on an angle. Overall the men scored higher on this test. There was also another where the people would watch someone act out an emotion (speaking in a made up language) and the participants would have to figure out exactly what the emotion was. Overall the women scored higher on this exam. The first test showed that men were a lot better with identifying ---------- and women were better when reading emotions. However, when the test was done nationally it was found that there was no correlation as to which gender was better and which was worse. Both male and female scores overlapped making the averages very close, showing that there may be no difference in this sense.
So, by looking at tests for biological differences there trends to be no trend what so ever. Personally, I think that the only reason a person's brain will be biologically different would be because of other physical factors such as height, weight etc. I also believe these things will change depending on things a person does as they grow i.e. if they play sports, if they learn a lot of languages etc. If a child is brought up to do these things their brains will develop differently to others not doing those things as they'll be using different parts of their brain a lot more frequently.
Next is environmental differences. Depending on the way a person is brought up or events that happen throughout a person's life may affect the way their brain develops. Let's say, a person does sport and works out, their muscles are going to grow right? Their bodies will grow in a way that the sport will allow them. So who's to say their brain doesn't do the same as well?
People who do different sports will have different abilities to others i.e. tennis players will have better hand-eye coordination that someone who plays football. People who swim will have a better ability of holding their breath than those that do long distance running. Surely, as their brains develop whilst doing his sport, it'll form to the things that they do making them better at their sport as they got older. These changes won't be because of their "male" or "female" biology it will be a bypass of the way they have used their bodies over the years.
This theory can be places on many things. Girls and boys tend to be treated differently by their parents and other adults which puts them into these different social groups from the second their born. Girls will be dressed in pink, boys in blue. Girls will get given baby dolls and barbies to play with, boys will get cars and trucks to play with. On top of this, children tend to be played with in different ways as well. Girls will do more quiet play that will consist of things like singing and playing with make up and hair etc. Where as boys will be engaged into much more boisterous play such as; play fighting, playing in dirt, playing with bugs etc. All in all, nurture seems to be the thing most at play rather than biological.
My theory is that a "male" brain will mostly likely have good characteristics for sports boys tend to play most during school i.e. football and rugby and a "female" brain will most likely have good characteristics for something like dance or gymnastics. But everything will vary depending on the families socio-economic status as that can affect many different things around it i.e. housing, schooling, income etc.
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