A feminist look at the brain
How feminism helps us understand the brain and why the scientific patriarchy sucks
Learning about how we learn (epistemology) is important. How we learn within science as a whole is through the tried and tested scientific method. Usually, we come up with a hypothesis and make a prediction, we run our experiment as properly controlled as possible, look at the results, and make a conclusion about whether or not the results support the hypothesis.
Like everyone in all of history, ever, scientists are full of bias. Bias oozes into our hypotheses and predictions and when we make conclusions about our results, clouding what we think is critical judgement. In the case of sex and gender studies in neuroscience, this has been a bit of a problem.
There has been a lack of a feminist perspective in the way we learn about the brain. A commentary published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience from Dr. Sigrid Schmitz and Dr. Grit Höppner in 2014 recently broadened my thoughts in this regard. Among many nuanced arguments, Schmitz and Höppner discuss the age old nature versus nurture problem, and why we ought to consider it more when concluding on sex and gender differences in neuroscientific research.
Schmitz and Höppner remind neuroscientists of the brain’s plasticity, the capacity to make new connections with time and experience. Talented researchers at the frontier of technological advancements are starting to witness the activity of these connections using impressive microscopes that peer through literal windows into the brains of living lab animals. Here’s a video. It is this “nurtured” plasticity, aside from whatever “nature”-based biological differences that might be due to our sex chromosomes, that Schmitz and Höppner note neuroscientists seem to be forgetting.
Imagine a study that seeks to find sex or gender-based differences in the levels of the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is commonly referred to as the love, or cuddle hormone, that results in increased bonding between a parent and their child or in romantic attraction between lovers. It is the case that oxytocin levels tend to be higher in women. What would you conclude? Are women genetically predisposed to be better carers of children?
This is where neurofeminism reminds us to ask “what about nurture”? Are women socialized differently than men? Are women raised with experiences that tend to make them assume traditional women’s roles? The answer is yes.
Neurofeminism tells us that just by stratifying the sexes or genders in a study, it doesn’t mean that the results are automatically sex or gender-based.
To pour salt on the wound of the gender pay gap (on average, women in Canada make $0.87 for every dollar earned by men and Black women make even less) women are often coerced into performing stereotypical feminine gender roles at work, like being forced to take notes at meetings. Neurofeminism asks us to take this, the lived experience of women which no doubt influences the brain’s plasticity, into consideration.
This conversation can lead us to some other murky waters. Biological determinism can be life-affirming, like the recent studies that provide substantial evidence that the brains of trans people are more like those of the gender with which they identify. Like the reaction many have had to research which tried hard to find neuroanatomical differences between straight and gay men, people have critiqued this work. Do we need research to tell us we exist? Or do we need society to accept us for who we tell them we are?
There are no doubt biological differences between sexes and genders, and oxytocin is for example, necessary for breastfeeding. But, biological determinism may not be the only reason for sex or gender differences. Neurofeminism tells us that just by stratifying the sexes or genders in a study, it doesn’t mean that the results are automatically sex or gender-based.
I don’t think the answer is for neuroscience researchers to start asking participants clarifying questions. “Did your parents raise you with strict gender roles and did these roles affect how you perceived the world? No? Okay, then you will be stratified into our Anti-patriarchal subject group. Go ahead and hop into the MRI.” Gender and sex are complex, and are inextricable from how we develop.
Maybe women are socialized into the caring roles which require and result in higher oxytocin levels. And maybe some other hypothesized neuroscientific difference between the genders or sexes is true. Or in some cases, maybe not. But regardless, these should remain open questions.
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I’d like to thank Dr. Ellen Parker and Mr. Hayden Nix, MSc for our conversations on this topic which helped shape my conclusions and Mr. Thomas Baker and Ms. Danielle Nadin, MSc who helped shape my commentary.
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash, edited by me.