Oh, and while we’re on the topic of my biological destiny…
The Guardian waxes commonsensical about the results of a new study by psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde–it demonstrates that there are very few inherent psychological differences between men and women. The different behaviors that we tend to take on are caused mostly by cues we pick up from our environment and inequities in social structure. And boys are not better at math! Some delicious shame-on-you quotes:
A common method was to show that patterns of electro-chemistry in the body or brain were different for men and women, or that various bits of brain had different sizes. That this could be due to differences in upbringing rather than the Y chromosome was rarely considered. Yet it has been clear for some time that nurture affects biology profoundly. Several studies show that women sexually abused as children have 5% less of the brain’s hippocampal region than untraumatised women. Similar evidence regarding the effect of nurture exists for patterns of brainwaves or for crucial hormones such as cortisol.
Little coverage was given to a study of 37 nations that showed that the more a country fosters women’s financial independence, the less they are attracted by rich men. Nor have I noticed coverage of the fact that, although women tend to be twice as likely as men to suffer depression in the Anglo-Saxon (Americanised) world, that difference disappears in much of gender-equal Scandinavia.