Male and Female Brains Are Different. Should It Matter?
Neuroscientist Larry Cahill on the great ‘neurosexism’ debate
In a major policy change implemented in early 2016, the National Institutes of Health made clear its expectation that researchers seeking grants “consider sex as a biological variable in all stages of research.” The reason was simple — if overdue. Past studies often focused on males, yielding results that did not always apply to the other 50.8 percent of the population.
It’s not surprising that such a major decision would prove controversial in some quarters. What may be surprising, however, is that many of those taking issue with the idea are feminists.
That’s because among the various biological differences scientists must account for are those involving brain function. And the notion that sex hormones and sex chromosomes exert an influence on cognition and effectively make men’s and women’s brains “different” is vigorously disputed — in large part due to fears that the idea could lead to a kind of gender essentialism and feed into harmful stereotypes. There’s even a word for it: neurosexism.
“Can We Finally Stop Talking About ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ Brains?” went the headline of a 2018 New York Times op-ed by two prominent figures on the anti–sex difference side of the…
