In other words... [essentialism quotes]

One of the main points of the gender/sex difference debate is the so-called "nature vs. nurture" question: are differences inborn and immutable, or are they the result of differentiated socialization? In a lecture at Harvard earlier this year, Camille Paglia (2008) said:

"without a grounding in basic biology, neither students nor teachers can negotiate the tangle of nature and culture that produces human sex differences. . . . science must be made a fundamental component of all women’s or gender studies programs."

I am reminded of Mark Liberman's (2006) comment on the "innateness" of neurological findings:

"[Brooks (2006)] writes as if demonstrated group differences in brain activity, being "biological", must therefore be innate and essential characteristics of the groups, and not 'socially constructed'. But how else would socially constructed cognitive differences manifest themselves? In flows of pure spiritual energy, with no effect on neuronal activity, cerebral blood flow, and functional brain imaging techniques?"

In turn, this reminds me of my favorite quote from Larry Cahill's (2006) review, "Why sex matters for neuroscience":

"as [De Vries {2004}] has effectively argued, neural sex differences can, in some cases, create behavioural sex differences, but might, in other cases, prevent them (when, for instance, they would be maladaptive) by compensating for sex differences in other physiological conditions, such as sex hormone levels."

---

I don't mean for this week to turn into a "defense of Difference Blog" week, but I felt that all three of these quotes, especially together, really summed up my reasons for this project. Like Paglia, I agree that social factors alone can not fully explain the observed differences in men and women. Like Liberman, I believe that scientific observations (especially in adult brains) are as likely to be the result of behavioral differences as the cause. Like Cahill, I believe that a neurological difference does not always lead to a behavioral difference. Therefore, I don't think that a project meant to explore sex and gender differences can afford to ignore social, neurological, or other physiological differences. However, I'm not prepared to draw conclusions about the causes -- and I hope that the ambiguity doesn't scare you off.