“Neurosexism,” “populist science,” “neurotrash,” the problem with using terms like these to describe scientific investigations of sex differences is that their use may be interpreted as hostile.
In a recent op-ed for The Guardian, Cordelia Fine—the author who coined the term “neurosexism”—together with Rebecca Jordan-Young, argue that they have never been prima facie opposed to sex differences research. Their only concern is that of scientific rigour.
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[In a 2013 study, the authors] made speculations about what kinds of behaviors these structural differences might be related to. For example, in men, these differences translate to more efficient coordination between perception and action; in women, they facilitate better communication between analytical and spatial processing. It was this speculation which attracted the ire of Fine. It was “subtly neurosexist,” she said “[in] reinforcing and legitimating gender stereotypes in ways that are not scientifically justified.”…
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Despite Fine’s protestations, this study is not pseudoscience. It has been cited 342 times since its publication and its results are indeed a reflection of the thousands of other research studies supporting sex differences in the brain and resulting behavior.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: The Rhetorical Trap at the Heart of the “Neurosexism” Debate
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