Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (36 page)

48  
Nancy Eisenberg and Randy Lennon, ‘Sex differences in empathy and related capacities’,
Psychological Bulletin
, 94, 1 (1983), 100–31; see also Richard Fabes and Nancy Eisenberg, ‘Meta analyses of age and sex differences in children’s and adolescents’ prosocial behaviour’, Arizona State University (1998), retrieved 15 July 2007 from
http://www.public.asu.edu/~rafabes/meta.pdf

49  
Sara Snodgrass, ‘Women’s intuition: the effect of subordinate role on interpersonal sensitivity’,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, 49 (1985), 146–55, p152; see also Sara Snodgrass, ‘Further effects of role
versus gender on interpersonal sensitivity’,
Journal of Personality and Social Pscyhology
, 61 (1992), 154–8

50  
Steven Pinker,
The Blank Slate
, op cit, p356

51  
Roger Highfield, ‘QED’,
Sunday Telegraph
, 18 April 2004

52  
Minette Marrin, ‘This equality for women is an injustice for men’,
Sunday Times
, 29 June 2008

53  
Janet Shibley Hyde and Nita M McKinley, ‘Gender differences in cognition: results from meta-analysis’, in Paula Caplan, Mary Crawford, Janet Shibley Hyde, John T E Richardson eds,
Gender Differences in Human Cognition
(Oxford University Press, 1997), p35. See also Janet Shibley Hyde, ‘The gender similarities hypothesis’,
American Psychologist
, 60, 6 (Sept 2005), pp581–92

54  
Melissa Hines, op cit, p222

55  
Jonathan E Roberts and Martha Ann Bell, ‘Sex differences on a computerised mental rotation task disappear with computer familiarisation’,
Perceptual and Motor Skills
, 91 (2000), 1027–34

56  
For instance, a test carried out in 2002 in which boys and girls were given their mental rotations tests after and before being given computer games to play found that boys outperformed girls before the groups had played the games, but their scores were the same after the girls and the boys had had the chance to play the computer games. R De Lisi and J L Wolford, ‘Improving children’s mental rotation accuracy with computer game playing’,
Genetic Psychology
, 163, 3 (September 2002), 272–82. One review of evidence to 2002 concluded ‘the evidence provides little reason to support nativist claims’: Nora Newcombe, ‘The nativist-empiricist controversy in the context of recent research on spatial and quantitative development’,
Psychological Science
, 13, 5 (September 2002), 395–401. What’s more, our very expectations can change people’s performance in such tests. When a test of mental image rotation was run with two groups of students, one group was told that success in these tests correlated well with achievement in jobs such as ‘in-flight and carrier-based aviation engineering, in-flight fighter weapons and attack/approach tactics’ while the other group was told that it correlated with success in ‘clothing and dress design, interior decoration and interior design’. In the first group, men significantly outperformed the women. M J Sharps, J L Price and J K Williams, ‘Spatial cognition and gender: instructional and stimulus influences on mental image rotation performance’,
Psychology of Women Quarterly
, 18 (1994), 413–25, cited in Virginia Valian,
Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), p157

57  
Jing Feng, Ian Spence and Jay Pratt, ‘Playing an action video game reduces gender differences in spatial cognition’,
Psychological Science
, 18, 10 (October 2007) 850–5, p854

58  
Quoted in Tamar Lewin, ‘Math scores show no gap for girls, study finds’,
New York Times
, 25 July 2008

59  
Simon Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference
, op cit, pp74–5

60  
Steven Pinker,
The Blank Slate
, op cit, p345

61  
D Goldstein and V B Stocking, ‘TIP studies of gender differences in talented adolescents’, in K A Heller and E A Hany eds,
Competence and Responsibility
2 (Ashland, OH: Hofgreve, 1994), pp190–203, cited in Elizabeth Spelke, ‘Sex differences in intrinsic aptitude for mathematics and science?’, op cit

62  
Elizabeth Spelke, ‘Sex differences in intrinsic aptitude for mathematics and science?’ op cit, p954; Lewin, ‘Math scores show no gap for girls,’ op cit

63  
Susan Pinker,
The Sexual Paradox
, op cit, p124

64  
Catherine Weinberger, ‘Is the science and engineering workforce drawn from the far upper tail of the math ability distribution?’ September 2005, retrieved 10 July 2008 from
http://econ.ucsb.edu/~weinberg/uppertail.pdf

65  
P M Frome and J S Eccles, ‘Parents’ influence on children’s achievement-related perceptions’,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
, 74, 2 (1998), 183–201; J S Hyde, E Fennema, M Ryan, L A Frost and C Hopp, ‘Gender comparisons of mathematics attitudes and affect: a meta-analysis’,
Psychology of Women Quarterly
, 14, 3 (September 1990), 299–324; J S Eccles and J E Jacobs, ‘Social forces shape math attitudes and performance’,
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
, 11, 2 (Winter 1986), 367–80. For a good discussion of these studies and others see Diane Quinn, S J Spencer, ‘The interference of stereotype threat with women’s generation of mathematical problem-solving strategies’,
Journal of Social Issues
, 57, 1 (2002), 55–71

66  
Statistics compiled by the Association of Women in Science (US), from National Science Foundation statistics, retrieved 25 October 2008 from
http://www.serve.com/awis/statistics/Rep_of_Women_in_S&E.pdf

67  
Battle of the Sexes
,
part 1
, 19 September 2002, retrieved 18 October 2008 from
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s686728.htm

68  
Simon Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference
, op cit, p100

69  
‘Two studies of estrogen-exposed males found no consistent effects on sex-typed play. Although one study suggested possible enhancement of some male-typical activities following prenatal estrogen exposure, the effects were inconsistent.’ Melissa Hines,
Brain Gender
, op cit, p120

70  
Patricia Kester, Richard Green, Stephen J Finch and Katherine Williams, ‘Prenatal female hormone administration and psychosexual development in human males’,
Psychoneuroendocrinology
, 5, 4 (1980), 269–85

71  
Battle of the Sexes
,
part 1
, 19 September 2002, retrieved 18 October 2008 from
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s686728.htm#contacts

72  
John Gray,
Why Mars and Venus Collide
, op cit, p64

73  
Anne Campbell, ‘Attachment, aggression and affiliation, the role of oxytocin in female social behaviour’,
Biological Psychology
, 77, 1 (January 2008), 1–10

74  
S E Taylor, G Gonzaga, L C Klein, P Hu, G A Greendale and T E Seeman, ‘Relation of oxytocin to psychological stress responses and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis activity in older women’,
Psychosomatic Medicine
, 68 (2006), 238–45, p243

75  
Another study of young women suggested that higher basal levels of oxytocin ‘were associated with greater interpersonal distress’. R A Turner, M Altemus, T Enos, B Cooper, T McGuinness, ‘Preliminary research on plasma oxytocin in normal cycling women: investigating emotion and interpersonal distress’,
Psychiatry
, 62, 2 (1999), 97–113, p99. See also K M Kendrick, ‘Oxytocin, motherhood and bonding’,
Experimental Physiology
, 85, 1 (2000), 111–24; which stated, ‘The role of brain oxytocin release in humans is still a matter for some speculation.’

76  
Jonathan Leake, ‘Science finds the secret of a hot kiss’,
Sunday Times
, 8 February 2009; unpublished research presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference on 14 February 2009, confirmed through personal correspondence with Professor Wendy Hill

77  
BBC,
Secrets of the Sexes
, broadcast, 17 July 2005

78  
Janice Turner, ‘Planet Boy, where mum fades from the picture’,
The Times
, 21 April 2003

79  
‘Humour comes from testosterone’, BBC News, 21 December 2007

80  
Satoshi Kanazawa, ‘Why productivity fades with age: the crime–genius connection’,
Journal of Research in Personality
, 37 (2003), 257–72

81  
Simon Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference
, op cit, p104

82  
Helena Cronin, ‘The vital statistics’,
Guardian
, 12 March 2005

83  
Steven Pinker,
The Blank State
, op cit, p348

84  
Susan Pinker,
The Sexual Paradox
, op cit, p217

85  
Melissa Hines,
Brain Gender
, op cit, pp165–7, citing S M Perlman, ‘Cognitive abilities of children with hormone abnormalities’,
Journal of Learning Disabilities
, 6 (1973), 21–9; S W Baker and A A Ehrhardt ‘Prenatal androgen, intelligence and cognitive sex differences’, in R C Friedman et al,
Sex Differences in Behaviour
(New York: Wiley, 1974); L S McGuire et al, ‘Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia II: cognitive and behavioural studies’,
Behaviour Genetics
, 5 (1975), 175–88; A A Ehrhardt and S W Baker, ‘Males and females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia: A family study of intelligence and gender-related behaviour’, in P A Lee et al eds,
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia
(Baltimore MD: University Park Press, 1977); R Nass and S Baker, ‘Learning disabilities in children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia’,
Journal of Child Neurology
, 6 (1991) 306–12

86  
Simon Baron-Cohen,
The Essential Difference
, op cit, p101

87  
Melissa Hines, Susan Golombok, John Rust, Katie Johnston, Jean Golding and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children Study Team, ‘Testosterone during pregnancy and gender role behaviour of preschool children: a longitudinal population study’,
Child Development
, 73, 6 (Nov/Dec 2002), 1678–87

88  
See for instance Bonnie Auyeung et al, ‘Fetal testosterone predicts sexually differentiated childhood behaviour in girls and boys’,
Psychological Science
, 20, 2 (2009) 144–8

89  
Jo-Anne Finegan, ‘Relations between prenatal testosterone levels and cognitive abilities at 4 years’,
Developmental Psychology
, 28, 6 (November 1992), 1075–89

90  
Cornelieke van de Beek et al, ‘Prenatal sex hormones (maternal and amniotic fluid) and gender-related play behaviour in 13-month-old infants’,
Archives of Sexual Behaviour
, 38, 6 (2009), 6–15

91  
Other studies that appear to disprove a clear link between exposure to testosterone in the womb and cognitive traits include a 2001 study that looked at the relationship between finger-digit ratio (associated with levels of prenatal testosterone) and various cognitive and personality tests. It found that ‘no significant associations were found for the cognitive tests’. Elizabeth Austin et al, ‘A preliminary investigation of the associations between personality, cognitive ability and digit ratio’,
Personality and Individual Differences
, 33 (2002), 1115–24, p1121. In another study, Mark Brosnan at the University of Bath studied finger-digit ratio among academics. He found that academics in the science faculty had digit ratios ‘consistent with the female norm’ and that academics in the social sciences had digit ratios ‘consistent with the male norm’, whatever sex they were. This implied that male scientists were exposed to less testosterone than were social scientists. As Mark Brosnan commented: ‘Those in faculties requiring higher systemising abilities … have an index of low prenatal exposure to testosterone. This contrasts with Baron-Cohen’s findings.’ Mark Brosnan, ‘Digit ratio and faculty membership: implications for the relationship between prenatal testosterone and academia’,
British Journal of Psychology
, 97, 4 (2006), 455–66. Another study that did not find the predicted relationship between foetal testosterone and later masculine behaviour was carried out by Simon Baron-Cohen’s team after the publication of
The Essential Difference
. In 2005 his team found that variations in testosterone in the amniotic fluid did not contribute to individual differences in game participation as reported by the mother among fifty-three children aged four and five. R Knickmeyer et al, ‘Gender-typed play and amniotic testosterone’,
Developmental Psychology
, 41, 3 (May 2005), 517–28

92  
Melissa Hines,
Brain Gender
, op cit, p136, citing R Tricker et al, ‘The effects of supraphysiological doses of testosterone on anger behaviour in healthy eugonadal men’,
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism
, 81 (1996), 3754–8 and K Bjorkquist et al, ‘Testosterone intake and aggressiveness – real effect or anticipation’,
Aggressive Behavior
, 20 (1994) 17–26

93  
J R Lightdale and D A Prentice, ‘Rethinking sex differences in aggression: aggressive behaviour in the absence of social roles’,
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
, 20, 1 (February 1994), 34–44, p43

94  
‘Do men really listen with just half a brain? Research sheds some light’, 28 November 2000, CNN; retrieved 18 October 2008 from
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/11/28/brain.listening/index.html

95  
James Chapman, ‘Why men find it harder to show their emotions’,
Daily Mail
, 23 July 2002