The Male and Female Brain Artifact

My artifact is an image of the male and female brain next to each other. This image was taken from a discussion by Dr. Oz on the Oprah. Dr. Oz was essentially discussing how the brain develops early in life and how certain events in a woman’s life such as pregnancy will lead to some shrinking in the brain. The main reason I choose this image was to have a side by side image for the class to see for themselves that even though the female brain is smaller it is not necessarily a case of “size matters.” I feel that by seeing this image the class will be stimulated to discuss that even if there is a size difference between the two brains displayed, it is not the real sex difference. The real problem with sex differences in neuroscience are due to the fact that they were developed with stereotyping and misrepresentation in conclusions of research involving male and female brains. One other point I would want to make it is that even though the female brain is not necessarily as big as the male’s there are some important facts to keep in mind. One of the best to think about is that according to the Huffington Post, of the ten smartest people still alive today one of those individuals is a woman by the name Judith Polgar with an estimated 170 IQ. This is just place emphasis on the ability of what men and women are truly capable of developing into. For the comparison of my artifact and our readings for today I couldn’t help but question what, if any, significant research has come from past research in the field of Psychology as it pertains to female and male brain activity. In the analysis of “Picking Barbie's^TM Brain” we see that the previous research preformed by Simon Baron-Cohen was not only incorrectly concluded and riddled with problems with such things as his operational definitions, but his entire hypothesis was based on finding sex differences. For his conclusion he wrote the results as if he had found a significant result when in fact he simply implied that due to there being a difference in his statistics it must be that female and male brains function differently thus supporting his hypothesis. However, I am pleased to see that the authors of the analysis article on such research pointed out the mistakes and enlightened the reader with the real problem with medical research in neuroscience and psychology. The running stereotype that if the female brain is smaller than the male brain then it is less capable to function as well as the larger male brain. This to me means that all research preformed in the past is riddled with this stereotype and possibly leading researchers down the wrong path of understanding knowledge capacities in both genders. As for the other reading for today, even though, it is more of an activist ideal it is still a step in the right direction for eliminating the stereotype of smaller brains functioning less than male brains in such matters as education. To me the reading of “Neurocultures Manifesto” is a piece of information that all new neuroscientist such keep in mind when starting their careers as researchers. In conclusion, based on the readings for today I say that previous research on neuroscience needs to be scrutinized if emphasis was placed on gender or sex differences. This is because the medical-scientific authority has filled its history books with the idea that the female brain is less functional in the educational sense due to its size when in fact if enough testing is produced then we might see a different answer altogether. Perhaps males are at a disadvantage that we never knew about, due to years of belief that female brains are simply inferior and therefore males will always be the more dominate species as it concerns the brain. Only time will tell if the world will start to understand that “size doesn’t matter” when it concerns the fully functioning brain of a male or female.  Discussion Questions:

1.    Do any of you believe that the stereotype of females having smaller brains has affected the society at large and spilled into other areas of concern other than the medical or scientific field?

2.    As it pertains to the “Picking Barbie’s Brain” article does anyone agree that previous research has been riddled with problems and has shaped our current beliefs about the neuroscience of women in a negative way? For example, the author of the study that was being analyzed concluded “We have demonstrated that at 1 day old, human neonates demonstrate sexual dimorphism in both social and mechanical perception. Male infants show a stronger interest in mechanical objects, while female infants show a stronger interest in the face.” But the authors of the article made the observation that this conclusion did not hold water by stating, “this conclusion incorporates comparisons that were not significant: Boys did not look at the mobile more than the face; they only looked at the mobile more than girls did, and girls did not look at the face more than boys did; they only looked at the face more than the mobile.

3.    As it pertains to the “Manifesto” article do you believe that some of the suggestions given by the authors will change the ideals of future neuroscientists if all new researchers are requested to read such an article, and if so how will it be affected in your own opinion? For example, the statement from the article, “We should all participate in negotiating these stakes. Neuroscientists are expanding their reach far beyond their training, into realms of philosophy, ethics, society, and culture. Scholars of these fields must return the favor. When boundaries are broken down between biology and culture, cultural theorists need to be as empowered to speak about biology as biologists are about culture.”

4.    Do you believe if the situation was turned around and males were the ones with the smaller brains would things be different in that one type of gender difference or would males find a way to turn it around and make it work to their advantage?
Here is the link to the picture of the male and female brain: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=799&q=male+and+female+brain&oq=male+and+female+brain&gs_l=img.3..0l4j0i5j0i24l5.955.6739.0.6926.30.23.2.5.5.1.991.3848.10j7j1j3j6-1.22.0...0.0...1ac.1.9.img.Lkeu297O950#hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=male+and+female+brain+dr.+oz&oq=male+and+female+brain+dr.+oz&gs_l=img.3...22365.23718.0.23893.7.7.0.0.0.0.89.463.7.7.0...0.0...1c.1.9.img.ySpzT1EJqKA&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45175338,d.dmQ&fp=2d74829b90cb510&biw=1440&bih=799&imgrc=9QQr5hX8BkrMVM%3A%3BD2-hmWzicuCx9M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fcache.jezebel.com%252Fassets%252Fimages%252F39%252F2008%252F10%252Foprahbrains_jez_Sm.flv.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fjezebel.com%252FHead-cases%252F%3B475%3B268

-William Webster