The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism
Simon Baron-Cohen
Basic Books
2004
288 pages
ISBN 978-0465005567
Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor in the fields of psychology and psychiatry at Cambridge University with particular interest in the areas of autism and sex differences. This book is the fruit of over twenty years of research in the field. It is, in a word, a fascinating read for the general reader who follows current gender debates and often finds it hard to determine the boundaries between science and ideology.
The book of course (written in 2004) predates current controversies around transgenderism and the term is never mentioned at all. Nonetheless, Baron-Cohen recognised he was treading on delicate ground with the evolving ideology that there are no gender specific roles either within the home or outside it and that society should work towards equal representation of men and women at all levels and and in all areas of working and professional life. This ideology has now settled into a doctrine that drives public policy in the areas of education and recruitment.
Baron-Cohen makes it clear that sex differentiation in behaviour is on a spectrum and his findings reflect the “average” around which of course the vast majority cluster. Basically, he tells us that “the female brain is hard-wired for empathy, the male brain for understanding and building systems”. He suggests that this may be in part at least the result of evolution. Caring mothers were more likely to raise their offspring to adulthood. Equally, males with the ability to understand how things work and apply knowledge single-mindedly had an advantage over males whose decisions were influenced by feelings of empathy.
Both biology and socialisation play roles in human development. Baron-Cohen rejects the idea that behaviour patterns are “wholly cultural in origin”. He does not use the term “social construction” which is nowadays almost exclusively credited with gender defining variations in behaviour and responses. Baron-Cohen points to research into the differences between the responses of male and female infants even before they leave the maternity hospital to specific significant stimuli. His team of researchers in Cambridge observed how baby girls overwhelmingly focus on the human face while baby boys show more interest in a mobile and its random movements. He points out that every toy shop owner understands the psychological differences between the sexes and that every parent knows that, undirected, boys will be drawn to mechanical toys and girls to toys that allow them to role play relationships and nurturing.
Baron-Cohen offers a fascinating analysis of the different ways young boys and girls play, the group dynamics and the different ways dominant individuals emerge. Parents and grandparents will recognise readily the descriptions of the respective groups observed by Baron-Cohen’s researchers but the closely monitored politics at play will be something of an eye-opener, though recognisable too. Baron-Cohen traces the “systematising” male brain’s development through boyish hobbies like sticker collecting, league table tracking and gathering of individual sportsmen’s scores. He describes such pursuits as “obsessive data gathering” and asserts that “socialisation and culture are not as determinant as biology”. Male preoccupation with power, status, hierarchies and dominance reveals itself in boys’ obsession with heroes and beating adversaries. In contrast, the value adult females place in “reciprocal, altruistic relationships” shows in “the focus on family and social relationships” in girls’ role play.
Baron-Cohen goes on to delineate the defining interests and pursuits of the average, or typical, male and female. They are reflected in reading choices, TV viewing preferences and shopping habits. For women shopping has a social as well as retail aspect. Men he says don’t go on shopping outings together or complement one another on dress and appearance. Women use language in a way that is “more socially enabling”. Men use language to impart hard information. They tend to cut straight to the point and “don’t sugar the pill”. Women, on the other hand, tend to be more diplomatic, negotiate more and use “we” to express a desire to be inclusive and consultative.
When it comes to work and achievement there is the same marked divide to be observed. Men tend to excel in certain fields including what we now call the STEM subjects. They dominate areas like boat building and musical instrument crafting which he says mirror the boyish pursuits of mechanical and construction toys. Women on the other hand dominate the caring professions. “The female brain makes the most wonderful counsellors, social workers, mediators and personnel staff.”
Baron-Cohen points out the male brain is bigger, “has more cells”. That sounds quite consistent with the fact that the male head is larger than the female one. However, the obvious inference here is one most people would be hesitant to make these days. However, Baron-Cohen says one sex is not more or less intelligent, “in the overall” than the other but intelligence may register in different ways. The male brain tends to have a “slower grasp of the overall picture” because it is more absorbed by detail and data gathering. However, he emphasises that “individuals are individuals” and genes as well as gender play a significant role in making us who we are and determining the balance between the empathetic and systemising capabilities of the brain. He also tells us that “the brain can be resculptured by experience”.
It is increasingly difficult today to challenge the claim that male and female roles, including parenting roles, are interchangeable but Baron-Cohen draws the fairly obvious conclusion of his research which is that women “bring better empathy” to parenting. Men as fathers make a different and not surprisingly complementary contribution. While women follow their children’s activities, fathers tend “to impose their own topic”. The orientation of both the male and female brain naturally and logically plays out in relationships, hobbies, business and work so inevitably in parenting too.
This book raises serious questions about the wisdom of the drive to achieve gender balance, especially in the upper levels of professional, business, academic and public life. It appears from this book and arguably the lived experience of very many of us that the “obstacles” that keep women from advancing in the working world are internal and psychological rather than, as presented, structural. Opening career paths for women means that the care of children falls to other women, many of whom will entrust the care of their own children in turn to other mothers. This revealing pattern just goes to enforce Baron-Cohen’s findings that the female brain, empathy and motherhood will always reconnect despite the best efforts of social engineering. The more important question is how public policy in this regard impacts on the health and welfare of women, families and in a particular way, children.
When it comes to the respective roles of men and women in the Church and the precedent set by Jesus of appointing men to set about the task of establishing his church, advocates for change attribute Jesus’ actions to the patriarchal culture of his day. There were fundamental things in that culture that Jesus challenged like pharisaical traditions, representing an important
branch of patriarchy in Jewish culture, and fundamental things he upheld like monogamous, life long marriage which he used as a paradigm for his own relationship with his “bride”, the church. Without any hint of counter signals or ambiguity to suggest that Jesus left the discussion open. should we not accept that his actions followed his clear and deliberate intentions? Baron-Cohen’s research supports what a lot of people already have deduced from experience. The male brain is comfortable with hierarchical systems, with “imposing” rather than “following”, with the data rather than with how it is being received. That would seem to lend itself to the foundation and direction of a movement with received truth to transmit with fidelity and rigour, that required authority based on a clear understanding of a mandate. That is not to say that women don’t have a unique place in actualising, giving flesh to the precious legacy of faith too. The female brain’s defining gifts of empathy, collaboration and negotiation are no less needed in the Church than in life as a whole and indeed it is obvious that women have a dominant role in transmitting the faith in all ages. Their role in education and healthcare and social action has been vital to the church’s flourishing since apostolic times. It is to mothers and grandmothers, sisters and aunts with young minds to guide and nurture, that the core work of evangelisation and transmitting the faith falls, through word and example and simple loving. To say this is “women’s genius” as Pope Francis has said on one occasion is not to patronise or diminish. The Pope’s remarks were made with his grandmother, Rosa, in mind, the woman he credits with instilling in him the faith that would lead him to serve the Church as Christ’s own vicar on earth.
Baron-Cohen concludes his book with a discussion on “the extreme male brain” or autism which, unlike its female equivalent, can be maladaptive. Combined with low intelligence it can be characterised by anti-social and even violent behaviour. Where it is accompanied with high IQ, we get Einsteins, Newtons and Diracs, significantly all physicists. In fact, Baron-Cohen suggests the lack of empathy of such “extreme” brains may be a requirement for the extreme dedication in the pursuit of scientific enquiry leading to astonishing discoveries that allow us to understand our world better and so harness its powers for the benefit of all.
The last section of the book offers a fascinating selection of self-test exercises to measure the brain’s ratio of empathising and systematising functions which is used by clinical psychologists to identify people on the autistic spectrum. The whole book is a very accessible read for the general reader though some passages on biochemistry and its relation to specific behaviours requires patient reading for the scientifically uneducated. This book is a valuable resource as it would probably not be published today even though its author emphasises that individuals are individuals in the final analysis and that a multiplicity of factors, innate and environmental, combine in various ways to form the unique combination of characteristics each one of us is.
About the Author: Margaret Hickey
Margaret Hickey is a regular contributor to Position Papers. She is a mother of three and lives with her husband in Blarney.