Companion to Feminist Studies. Группа авторов
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an interest in examining and theorizing sex differences in the size of brain structures and in absolute size. For example, Grabowska speculates that there are “compensatory mechanisms in females that enable their smaller brains to work as effectively as male brains” (2017, p. 211).
The history of the study of the brain and the nervous system is a very long one but the rise of contemporary neuroscience is seen as a feature of the early 1980s, propelled by recent advances in molecular biology and brain imaging (such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)). Neuroscience has become one of the most feted and well‐funded scientific disciplines, given considerable power and credibility within academia and in the public imagination. President George Bush declared the 1990s the Decade of the Brain in order to “enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research.” Leaning on both evolutionary theory and research on hormones, as well as developments in the brain sciences, numerous publications since the 1980s, from both social and natural scientists, have promoted the view that the brains of men and women are different. One of the first books to gain prominence was Brain Sex by Moir and Jessel, published in 1989. They assert that,
Six or seven weeks after conception … the unborn baby “makes up its mind” and the brain begins to take on a male or female pattern. What happens at that critical stage in the darkness of the womb, will determine the structure and the organisation of the brain and that in turn will decide the very nature of the mind. (1989, p. 21)
Other books in this vein included Baron‐Cohen's The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (2003) and The Female Brain by Brizendine (2007). Baron‐Cohen's main focus is on the idea that evolution has shaped male and female brains to think differently, so that men are sytematizers and women empathizers. Brizendine claims that “scientists have documented an astonishing array of structural, chemical, genetic, hormonal and functional brain differences between men and women” (2007, p. 27). It is this confident assertion of the scientific basis of the idea of sexed brains that has elicited criticism from feminist scientists (Fine 2010; Jordan‐Young 2010).
Currently some of the most powerful criticism comes from feminist scholars linked to the group, the Neurogenderings Network (www.neurogenderings.wordpress.org). Like Fausto‐Sterling, the members of this group are biologists and neuroscientists so they are speaking from within the fold. Their aim is to counter examples of “neurosexism” (Fine 2010) by examining the scientific claims that are being made by those promoting the idea of the sexed brain. Neurosexism can be defined as the viewpoint that there are hardwired differences in the brains of men and women that account for the gender status quo, to paraphrase Fine (2010 p. xxv).
The scholars in this group want to replace neurosexism with “neurofeminism.” As it sets out on the website:
The NeuroGenderings Network is a transdisciplinary network of “neurofeminist” scholars who aim to critically examine neuroscientific knowledge production and to develop differentiated approaches for a more gender adequate neuroscientific research. Feminist neuroscientists generally seek to elaborate the relation between gender and the brain beyond biological determinism but still engaging with the materiality of the brain.
Notably these scientists are not against brain research into sex and gender. Instead, they are asking for a better quality of research. For example, they point out that images of the brain can only reflect current brain activity and not what causes it. When a close analysis of claims about brain sex is conducted it is striking how often they are made on the basis of animal studies, studies of humans using very small samples and so called “snap‐shot studies.” Fine et al. suggest that,
Focusing only on similarities or differences is misleading. We need to develop a new framework for thinking of the relation between sex, brain and gender that better fits current knowledge and takes into account changes, overlap, variance and most of all, context.
(Fine et al. 2014, p. 1)
The work of feminist critics seems to be having some impact on the field of neuroscience. In 2017, Fine and Jordan‐Young, two early critics of what they saw as unjustified claims about male–female differences in the brain, commented in an article in The Guardian that there are “welcome signs that neuroscience is showing new openness to critiques of research into sex differences.” It remains to be seen whether the work of these critics percolates through to the media and the public.
Essentialism and Feminist Theory
Much of the work of liberal feminist researchers in the twentieth century focused on demonstrating the minimal difference between the sexes and the considerable overlap in their capacities (Maccoby and Jacklin 1974). This early work seemed to be a quest for the “real” sex differences' and thus was still essentialist in character. However the work of Maccoby and Jacklin, and the later work in this vein, such as that reviewed by Eagly et al. in 2012, was important since it demolished many myths and stereotypes about actual differences between the sexes (in North America at least). After conducting a meta‐analysis of such studies Hyde developed what she called “The Gender Similarities Hypothesis” (2005). Research showing the extent of overlap and the small size of the differences that were to be found led to the crucial conclusion that knowing the sex of any individual could not reliably inform you about their likely dispositions and traits. It should be noted that research of this kind usually addresses issues to do with the psychological attributes and competences of males and females. It does not survey such matters as mode of dress, social roles, etc. In examining some of the differences in conduct and status between men and women it might be easy to side with Lippa who counters Hyde by proposing a “Gender Reality Hypothesis,” pointing out the many ways in which the actual lives of men and women differ (2006). Adjusting the focus of any comparison and examining different samples of men and women, or boys and girls, coming from different classes or cultures may well lead to different conclusions. This kind of comparative research has its uses if not overgeneralized, but it is descriptive and leaves open the question of the origins and meaning of any differences that are detectable.
In the late 1970s some influential theorists argued that the way forward was through a revaluation of the so‐called feminine traits and dispositions. For example, Gilligan attacked existing theories about personality development as being male‐centered, saying that “Implicitly adopting the male life as the norm they have tried to fashion women out of a masculine cloth” (1979, p. 6). In her explorations of girls' and women's moral thinking she concluded that women have “a different voice” and that they work with an ethic of care rather than an ethic of justice (1982). Around the same time Chodorow wrote about the way girl children's early experience of being mothered shaped their capacity for forming relationships and a maternal orientation (1978). Both theories were widely lauded at the time but have fallen out of favor, largely because of their essentialist viewpoint. Neither theory was based on biological difference but saw male–female differences as psychically rooted in early experience and carried forward into the rest of the person's life. More recently Chodorow has admitted that her early views have changed and she disassociates herself from theories that are “universalising and essentialising” (2012, p. 7).
As far back as 1949, Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, said that “One is not born a woman but becomes one.” This maxim was positioned in direct opposition to Freud's assertion that “anatomy is destiny.” It became representative of the radical feminist stance, which, unlike the still hegemonic biological determinist viewpoint, held the door open to change and provided a platform for feminist activism. Spurred on by the second wave of feminism in the late 1960s many feminist researchers argued that the patriarchal sociopolitical context and rampant sex‐typing that were so disadvantageous to women were the main reasons for women's subordinate position and achievements. In the latter part of the twentieth century most feminist theorists advanced social explanations for differences between men and women in behavior and status, seeing differences as socially constructed, not given. As Rosenblum and Travis note,
From the constructionist