01UndatedThe tape measures and weighing scales of the Victorian brain scientists have been supplanted by powerful neuroimaging technologies, but there is still a lesson to be learned from historical examples such as these. State-of-the-art brain scanners offer us unprecedented information about the structure and working of the brain. But don't forget that, once, wrapping a tape measure around the head was considered modern and sophisticated, and it's important not to fall into the same old traps. As we'll see in later chapters, although certain popular commentators make it seem effortlessly easy, the sheer complexity of the brain makes interpreting and understanding the meaning of any sex differences we find in the brain a very difficult task. But the first, and perhaps surprising, issue in sex differences research is that of knowing which differences are real and which, like the intially promising cephalic index, are flukes or spurious.Cordelia Fine / quote ↗
02UndatedHere’s another example that some overworked mothers might find inspiring. We saw in Chapter 2 that being the one who producesthe sperm doesn’t dictate, by universal principle, that parenting is out of the portfolio. However, in the case of the rat (as with mostmammals), the balance of trade-offs make it more adaptive for males to leave parenting to the mothers. This might tempt us to take it forgranted that males, by virtue of their sex, therefore lack the capacity to care for pups. We might well assume that, through sexual selection, they lost or never acquired the biological capacity to parent: that it isn’t “in” their genes, hormones, or neural circuits. That it isn’t in their male nature. But bear in mind that one reliable feature of a male rat’s developmental system is a female rat that does the child care. So what happens when a scientist, under controlled laboratory conditions, simulates a first-wave feminist rodent movement by placing males in cages with pups but no females? Before too long you will see the male “mothering” the infant, in much the same way that females do. Feminism: 1. Sexual selection: nil.Cordelia Fine / quote ↗
03Undatedblatant, intentional discrimination against women is far from being something merely to be read about in history books.Cordelia Fine / quote ↗
04UndatedWhile parenthood served as no disadvantage at all to men, there was evidence of a substantial "motherhood penalty". Mothers received only half as many callbacks as their identically qualified childless counterparts.Cordelia Fine / quote ↗
05UndatedNo doubt the female self and the male self can be as useful as any other social identity in the right circumstances. But flexible, context-sensitive, and useful is not the same as “hardwired”.Cordelia Fine / quote ↗
07UndatedA sociocultural environment is not some cunningly contrived thing only exists in social psychology labs. Don't look now, but you're in one right this moment.Cordelia Fine / quote ↗
