Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2010

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

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Themes

Sexist Attitudes in Neuroscience

In her survey of the neuroscience of gender, Fine argues that scientists with a sexist preconception in mind will put their work through absurd contortions in order to uphold the status quo.

Fine traces neurosexism to the very beginnings of neuroscience as a discipline, examining the various measures that Victorian scientists took to prove that the brain of the white male was built to dominate. Scientists began with simple measures of brain size; when that measure didn’t consistently demonstrate white male superiority, they switched to length-width ratios, and so forth (132).

This kind of sophism persists to the present day. Through research on recent gender science, Fine uncovers myriad design failures in studies that purport to prove gender difference in the brain. Whole books have been written on the wobbly foundations of, for example, structural differences in the brain that in fact have a great deal more to do with the size of the brain in question than the gender of its possessor, or studies of babies’ gendered toy preferences that don’t present the babies with the test toys simultaneously, making conclusions about their real preferences shaky at best. Such books’ unsupported assumptions often pass unnoticed into popular discourse; a veneer of technicality combined with support for ideologies already deeply embedded in the public consciousness makes flawed science hard to shake.

It doesn’t help that it’s easier to publish research that demonstrates a difference between the genders than research that doesn’t, as Fine notes. Such research both is controversial and fits a popular narrative, and as such it attracts disproportionate attention (134).

There is, of course, an essential difficulty in designing a study that examines gender difference: As Fine’s explorations of identity demonstrate, even thinking in terms of gender can alter how scientists themselves behave, what they can see, and what they don’t see. A scientist’s prejudices can only make such difficulties harder to overcome.

The Malleability of Human Identity

One definition of stereotype might be “a fixed notion of identity”: If one is a woman, one will always behave thus; if one is a man, one will necessarily be good at such-and-such. Fine claims that these ideas are not simply harmful but founded on an essential misinterpretation of identity itself. She demonstrates that people’s behavior, self-concept, and beliefs change radically based on environment, including implicit and explicit social cues. Even pretending to be a member of a different group can alter not just one’s sense of self, but one’s capabilities: For instance, people asked to write a story from the perspective of a professor later rank themselves as smarter and test accordingly (11).

The plasticity of identity points to the trouble with stereotypes. If a stereotype is inscribed deeply enough in one’s psyche, it will activate in relevant conditions—for instance, in cases of “stereotype threat,” when people in environments hostile to part of their identities exhibit higher rates of stress and awareness of the relevant negative assumptions (32). Paradoxically, then, the unfixedness of human identity allows for the persistence of stereotypes. Simply raising the specter of a stereotype can spur stereotypical behavior because our natures are not constant.

Further examples can be found in research on gender expression in early childhood. Studies of children’s learning demonstrate that children are alert to unspoken cues—and parents’ implicit acculturated beliefs make a much bigger impact on children’s learning than what parents say or consciously believe. Furthermore, a gender-divided culture teaches children the stereotypical rules whether or not parents agree with them. Intense attentiveness to gender in preschool-age children is thus proof not of some essential truth, but of behavior learned at a moment when a child’s identity is especially malleable (213).

The researchers whom Fine decries as neurosexist seek explanations for stereotypical behavior in an imagined changeless brain, but Fine argues that such a brain doesn’t exist. A brain is not an island unto itself, but rather a busy city of response, change, and interaction. The exact links between what happens in the brain and what happens in the mind are beyond our present science.

Historical and Contemporary Bias Against Women in Male-dominated Fields

As a researcher herself, Fine takes a particular interest in the ways in which sexism plays out in traditionally male-dominated fields, especially in math and the hard sciences. Many of the study examples in the first and second parts of Delusions of Gender seek to investigate the ways in which women are discouraged from taking on careers in STEM fields or leadership, not only by implicit and explicit sexism from the men around them, but by their own internalized stereotypes.

As Fine shows, people’s sense of self and their capabilities are deeply affected by context. The simple act of being asked to indicate one’s sex as “male” or “female” at the outset of a math test can activate one’s internal, stereotypical gender identity and change one’s capacity accordingly. Scientists have found that not only women’s success in math testing, but their assessment of their own performance, is depressed if they are put in contexts that prime them to think in terms of their gender identity. Men in gender-primed conditions both do better and assess themselves as performing better than women who perform identically (32).

A work environment that implies maleness can $not only affect women’s ability to work to their full capacity but can discourage women from believing they might wish to join such a world in the first place. One study observed that simply changing the decor of a computer-science classroom from a stereotypically geeky-male landscape of sci-fi posters and energy drinks to something more neutral substantially increased women’s reported interest in studying computer science (46). Fine observes that men in male-dominated professions often close ranks against women by creating unfriendly environments—for instance, by holding meetings at strip clubs or on golf courses where women are exiled to ladies’ tees (67).

Such practices may appear alongside active and explicit sexism. Fine refers to a study of doctors-in-training in which female medical students reported frequent intense harassment from their male colleagues, bosses, and supervisors. These women reported that men groped them, called them by demeaning pet names, and even drew them in pornographic cartoons. Recourse was difficult to come by: There was a cultural sense that complaining would mean you were “too sensitive,” not tough enough to hack it in this line of work (74).

These sorts of attitudes and behaviors create a self-perpetuating loop in which beliefs about male and female capacities and preferences reinforce themselves. A major part of the solution to this problem, Fine suggests, lies in persistence. There is nothing fixed or final about the present gender disparity in STEM fields and other “male” professions. Creating more balanced and welcoming environments, removing gender identity triggers, and making opportunities for people to see themselves in non-stereotypical ways can all help to turn the sexist tide (239).