Women's Brain When you look up the dictionary, the definition of 'Science' is "a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws" (Webster's dictionary). In order to make a truth, many scientists take the time to observe or test with scientific method. In nineteenth century, there are some incorrect truths even if it looks like truths logically arranged by scientific method because the scientists understood the priori that already assumed the outcome would be the same as their predictions. As I read Stephen Jay Gould's argument from "Women's Brains", he found some unequal conditions that supported scientific method for intelligence of man. Paul Broca tried to measure the inferiority of women with scientific certitudes that were invidious comparisons such as races, classes, and sexes. Gould argued about Paul Broca's scientific procedure that men are more intelligent than women because he already assumed the outcome that men's brains are bigger than women's brains. Broca's assumption com...
2. The first vulnerability is Broca’s failure to take in the height of men and women, skewing the data because their brain size
For as long as science has existed to satisfy man's appetite for knowledge and exploration, there have been people with the belief that science is none other than man's attempt to play God. The 19th century was a time of enlightenment where philosophical thought began and man's concern to better himself in a psychological form developed.
Primates and cetacean have been considered by some to be extremely intelligent creatures, second only to humans. Their exalted status in the animal kingdom has lead to their involvement in many experiments which hope to gain a better understanding of the basis of human intelligence. These experiments coupled with analysis of primate and cetaceans brain structure has lead to many theories as to the development of intelligence as a trait. Although these theories seem to be sound, there is some controversy over the degree to which non-human studies can be used to infer about the structure of human intelligence.
In Women’s Brains, Gould argues that the data used by scientist Paul Broca was misused only in order to confirm the inferiority of women and other discriminated groups. Through anthropometrics, the scientific study of the measurements and proportions of the human body, Broca and his colleagues “proved” that women were intellectually inferior, because on average the size of their brains were smaller than men’s. Even though Broca’s numbers were sound and accurate, Gould states, “. . .science is is an inferential exercise, not a catalog of facts. Numbers, by themselves, specify nothing” (Gould 1). This means that even though the data proves that women’s brains are smaller than men’s it did not take into account body stature, height, weight, etc., which all contribute to the size of the brain in a human body. As Gould describes, “. . .the true figure [of the difference of brain
Xu, J., Kobayashi, S., Yamaguchi, S., Iijima, K. I., Okada, K., & Yamashita, K. (2000). Gender effects on age-related changes in brain structure. American Journal of Neuroradiology, 21(1), 112-118.
The 17th and 18th centuries saw the embryonic stage of women’s quest for intellectual and social parity with men. The evolution of women’s fight for equal opportunities was bogged down by a long history of stereotyping and condescension. Women were weaker physically, bore children and nurtured them. The economics and culture of Europe at this time was strongly influenced by religion and resulted in prejudice against women. The dominating religions of Europe in the 1600’s and 1700’s (Catholicism and Protestantism), citing the bible, reinforced women’s roles as mother’s, wives, and homemakers. Women were considered the weaker sex both physically and mentally. Men and most women assumed that because women gave birth and produced milk for their infants, God intended that their place was in the home. Men’s egos, as well, did not allow for women to compete with them. Males thought their place was to rule, fight wars, provide income, teach and be the head of his family. Women were not accepted in academics, politics, church leadership, business, or the military. Despite these prejudices, women saw an opportunity in the sciences. As a discipline based on observations and deductive reasoning it did not necessarily require a comprehensive academic background. Since most women were deprived of the more advanced education that men received, it was the perfect field for them to begin their pursuit of equality. As a result, a growing number of women actively participated in scientific research in chemistry, astronomy, biology, botany, medicine, and entomology.
The Scientific Revolution marked a major shift in Western thought between the 1500s and 1700s. Modern science emerged as a way of gaining true knowledge about the natural world. During the time, science was a field dominated by men. Women were believed to be incapable of anything outside their domestic sphere. There was a social stigma regarding women in science. Society had varying reactions toward women working in the sciences, the majority of which were negative. However, some were accepting of women and their contributions to science. The Scientific Revolution had little impact on the way society viewed women. Women continued to be subject to restrictive gender roles.
Stephen Gould in “Women’s Brains” discusses the previous misconceptions about the intelligence of women based misinformed data. Gould uses a lot of references of leading scientific minds from the late 19th century to show the extreme example of prejudice against women’s intelligence. The major focus is on Paul Broca and his disciples. One of Broca’s followers, Gustave Le Bon, writes about how women’s brains are more similar to a gorilla’s than a man’s. He further writes that the existence of intelligent women “are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, of a gorilla with two heads; consequently, we may neglect them entirely” (711). In human history women were considered inferior to men. They are supposed to be brainless
Although, there is proof of cognitive and mental variations in the way that two genders process information. For example, women are shown to be more adept at verbal communication and comprehension while men tend to perform better in the visual-spatial category. On the topic of memory, studies show that women are more sensory and memory oriented. In one study at the University of Edinburgh, psychologist Stuart Ritchie and a team of researchers compared data from many different male and female subjects. As Micheal Price states, “Adjusting for age, on average, they found that women tended to have significantly thicker cortices than men. Thicker cortices have been associated with higher scores on a variety of cognitive and general intelligence tests. Meanwhile, men had higher brain volumes than women in every subcortical region they looked at, including the hippocampus (which plays broad roles in memory and spatial awareness), the amygdala (emotions, memory, and decision-making), striatum (learning, inhibition, and reward-processing), and thalamus (processing and relaying sensory information to other parts of the brain).” (Price 2017). So indeed there are differences, however the similarities between genders far outweigh the differences. McGraw-Hill Higher Education argues that “More equivocal are gender differences in activity level, dependency, timidity, exploratory activity, and vulnerability to stress. There are no gender differences in sociability, conformity, achievement, self-esteem, or verbal hostility (Child Psychology).” In turn proving many once believed facts such as “women and men communicate differently, it's biology” into preconceived
Our brains weigh about three pounds and are divided into two similar looking but functionally different hemisphere, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. Both of which are connected by a large bundle of nerves called the corpus collosum. In some people with severe seizure disorders such as epilepsy, it was found that if this bundle of nerves was severed their seizure would either cease or a the very least be better controlled. From this surgical procedure it was discovered that the two hemispheres had different methods of processing information, as well as controlling parts of the body. The left hemisphere controls the right have of the body and the right hemisphere controls the left side.
In Carol Dweck’s “Brainology” the article explains how our brain is always being altered by our experiences and knowledge during our lifespan. For this Dweck conducted a research in what students believe about their own brain and their thoughts in their intelligence. They were questioned, if intelligence was something fixed or if it could grow and change; and how this affected their motivation, learning, and academic achievements. The response to it came with different points of views, beliefs, or mindset in which created different behavior and learning tendencies. These two mindsets are call fixed and growth mindsets. In a fixed mindset, the individual believes that intelligence is something already obtain and that is it. They worry if they
During the early years of psychological research, many believed the brain of a male and female was different as their physical appearance in selected areas. The most popular argument was that females had smaller heads and smaller brains than males that brain size was a direct indicator of intelligence and that women must therefore be less intelligent than men. (Hyde, 1990, p.56) The argument overlooked the fact that brain size correlates with the size of the body. Helen Thompson Woolley dismissed the argument on brain size stating, “It is now a generally accepted belief that the smaller gross weight of the female brain has no significance other than that of the smaller average size of the female.” (Hyde, 1990, p.57) During these years, you could only find a meager amount of research using actual psychological methods to determine gender differences.
“Scientists Not Immune from Gender Bias, Yale Study Shows.” Yale News. Yale University, 24 Sept. 2012. Web. 05 Mar. 2014.
On the ‘nature’ side of the debate is the psychometric approach, considered to be the most dominant in the study of intelligence, which “inspired the most research and attracted the most attention” (Neisser et al. 1996, p. 77). It argues that there is one general (‘g’) factor which accounts for intelligence. In the 1880s, Francis Galton conducted many tests (measuring reaction times to cognitive tasks), (Boundless 2013), in order to scientifically measure intelligence. These tests were linked to the eugenic breeding programme, which aimed to eliminate biologically inferior people from society. Galton believed that as intelligence was inherited, social class or position were significant indicators of intelligence. If an individual was of high social standing, they would be more intelligent than those of a lower position. However he failed to show any consistency across the tests for this hypothesis, weakening his theory that social class correlated with intelligence. Nevertheless, his creation of the intelligence test led many to continue to develop...
The dichotomy between the view that intelligence levels are affected by situational factors and the view that intelligence is genetically transmitted has dominated psychological debates on IQ throughout decades. The statements made by many commentators that intelligences depends on genetic factors has been ...