Delusions of Gender: Introduction - W1

Book Chapter

Fine, C., in Delusions of gender : how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference , by Fine, C., New York, W. W. Norton, 2010, xv - xxix

Cordelia Fine looks at debunking the age-old belief that male and female brains are biologically, genetically different and are developed in the uterus, and these differences cause the roles that men and women uptake within society. However, there has been no concrete evidence that one’s brain development impacts their gender and sex, and any thoughts concluding so was just the attachment of gender expressions, expectations, roles, and norms on biological data. It is thought that male brains lack empathy, emotional intelligence, and nurture allowing the man to undertake trade skills such as engineering, accounting, application of jurisdiction, and analysts due to their room to understand construction and repair. On the other hand, women are thought to have high emotional intelligence and observation skills to help ease others but less of those related to trade. This is because their own talents do not relate to those duties, but those roles like counsellors, social workers, facilitators and mediators.

→ “What awfully good luck that these womanly talents should coincide so happily with the duties of the female sex.” (p. 14)

 However, if women were to possess the ‘skills of a man’, she was thought to have developed a male mind instead. Women like this were seen to be unharmonious with the supposed law of biology, but also were men who seemed to be feminine, and therefore, in possession of a female mind. This links to the early understanding of transgender individuals - those who identify differently from their sex and imposed gender - creating the stigma and discrimination from those with different sexualities than heterosexualities. Again, if a woman were to like another woman, they would’ve been thought to have a ‘male mind’ creating the stereotype of a masculine lesbian, vice versa with men, creating the stereotype of a feminine gay.

When some parents undertook gender-neutral parenting, if their kids ended up associating themselves with the societal roles of their sex, gender-neutral nurturing was thought to be unattainable and biology overrules.

→ “When we can’t pin the blame on outside forces, all eyes swivel to the internal – the differences in the structure or functioning of female and male brains.” (p.16)

Due to the belief that women had no understanding for the structure and process of politics, government, and domestic affairs, they were often thought to be uncivilised, therefore they had no official citizenship. This lead to hardly any women being educated as it was thought of unjust for them to deviate away from their family roles - a view that modern-day women contest against as they wish for a prosperous career. Nicholas Malebranche, a French philosopher, furthered this idea by linking their inability to understand abstract thoughts to be the result of weak brain fibres and too many complex thoughts led to the breaking of them.

→ “For a Man ought no more to value himself upon being Wiser than a Woman, if he owe his Advantage to a better Education, and greater means of Information, then he ought to boast of his Courage, for beating a Man, when his Hands were bound” (Drake, 1696), p. 20

→ “It’s for this reason that we can’t understand gender differences in female and male minds – the minds that are the source of our thoughts, feelings, abilities, motivations, and behaviour – without understanding how psychologically permeable is the skull that separates the mind from the sociocultural context in which it operates. When the environment makes gender salient, there is a ripple effect on the mind. We start to think of ourselves in terms of our gender, and stereotypes and social expectations become more prominent in the mind. This can change self-perception, alter interests, debilitate or enhance ability, and trigger unintentional discrimination.” (p. 22)

→ “I don’t think that in my lifetime there will be a woman Prime Minister.” — Margaret Thatcher (1971), Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990