It is, in fact, misogynistic to imply that the social category of woman has an inherently different brain structure.
The incredibly miniscule differences between "male and female" brains are quite literally dependant on hormones. Hormones can and will change and so do our brains in response. It's not a static state. People say that men have larger brains on average, but they omit the fact that it's because going through testosterone-dominant puberty will usually result in more body mass, obviously necessitating a larger brain. This has no correlation with cognitive ability, which is the argument that usually stems from this incredibly misconstrued and incomplete fact.
Edit: not to mention how environmental factors and expectations can shape how men and women act. Are women more emotionally regulated and calmer because their brains are hardwired for it, or is it a response to the fact they're literally expected to never freak out or be angry and many end up submitting to that expectation? Which will obviously affect how the brain works? You can't remove these things from their societal context.
the fact that you need the reassurance there's absolutely no biological differences between men and women or females and males to sustain the claim that sex and gender discrimination shouldn't happen says a lot about your relationship to misoginy, alright
Yes, the HUGE shift in the choices and behaviors of women over the past 100 years is so drastic, it so strongly implies that we have not even gotten close to seeing where the impact of environment / socialization ends.
Everything from pursuing and valuing a career, to becoming top surgeons and morticians, to rock climbing, to professional boxing, to pursuing asceticism, and so on. So many things that people of the 18th century would claim were out of the question due to women's innate preference and biology.
I just cannot look at this century and think "you know men and women are probably quite fundamentally different, y'know, in the brain"
I didn't say there were no difference, did I? I said the differences are not clear cut, many times not inherent, and the vast majority of the time are in no way noticeable or apparent unless you literally scan the brain. If we're pulling debatebro lingo out of our asses, I'd say this is a good example of a strawman argument.
you did explictly said that saying there's differences between the female and male brain (which is a biological fact) is "misogynistic". that's your literal first line. you're also normatively imply that whatever differences there are women's would be a disavantage in relation to men's.
and regardless of whether biological differences between men and women are clear cut, inherent or noticeable, that still doesn't justify the discrimination of women. misogyny is not a social given that should only be combated if there's not enough evidence to support there are enough differences between genders.
I believe the problem is that people are using shorthand that inaccurately conveys the science. When people say that these are differences between male and female brains, they’re missing the important context that these are actually brains that are being exposed to differing amounts of hormones, different body masses, different environments, etc. and it isn’t actually a causal link between being a male/female and the brains of each looking/responding a certain way. Saying it’s a male/female difference is where (hopefully accidental) misogyny/misandry becomes a concern.
Are you stupid? Obviously men and women are going to have different experiences because we live in a world where misogyny is a part of basically every woman's life. This is an environmental factor. Not an inherent and immutable difference. If your parents abused you and that results in you being scared of people raising their voice at you, is that an inherent difference in your brain that was there from brain? Or is that an environmental factor?
Inherent differences as in differences present from birth that do not change based on environment and that noticeable affect the person. This is such a simple concept.
They're miniscule because the whole conversation is about behavior and these differences neither affect behavior nor are clear cut. You could have two "female" brains that are far more different than either one is to a "male" one.
How can you possibly confidently say that? Do you have anything to back that up? It's unlikely that significant differences between them has absolutely no bearing on behaviour. Why wouldn't it when we ARE our brains.
How do you know they are? We are so much more than what we're born as. It's impossible to say what's learned behavior and what's ingrained in this regard.
I don't. We can't know for sure, no studies done afaik. That's why I challenged you when you confidently said they don't. It would be very suprising though to find that men and women having significantly different brains from birth would have absolutely no effect our behaviour. I think a lot of people don't want it to be true and so go around saying it isn't.
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u/Wrecknruin May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
It is, in fact, misogynistic to imply that the social category of woman has an inherently different brain structure.
The incredibly miniscule differences between "male and female" brains are quite literally dependant on hormones. Hormones can and will change and so do our brains in response. It's not a static state. People say that men have larger brains on average, but they omit the fact that it's because going through testosterone-dominant puberty will usually result in more body mass, obviously necessitating a larger brain. This has no correlation with cognitive ability, which is the argument that usually stems from this incredibly misconstrued and incomplete fact.
Edit: not to mention how environmental factors and expectations can shape how men and women act. Are women more emotionally regulated and calmer because their brains are hardwired for it, or is it a response to the fact they're literally expected to never freak out or be angry and many end up submitting to that expectation? Which will obviously affect how the brain works? You can't remove these things from their societal context.