Differences between men and women

[kingmakers]

From the time that we are little we learn that there are innate physical differences between males and females.  Though there may be middle ground between these extremes we have created a classification system-male and female-which as a population we use to classify both ourselves and others.  The question I wish to explore here is whether our physical differences, social treatment, or both have created cognitive differences between males and females, and whether this is a subject that we should be concerned with.

One recent controversy surrounding this issue is that of women in the sciences, especially in academia.  We see women severely underrepresented, taking up only about 10% of the science related tenure track positions in elite universities (Dean, 2006, Pinker, Spelke, 2005).  This statistic raises many questions: are women less cognitively adept at skills required for the sciences, are women being discriminated against in this job market, or are women simply not as interested in these types of jobs as men?

There are four main arguments when it comes to cognitive differences between men and women: there are no cognitive differences between men and women, cognitive differences are due to biological differences between men and women (nature), cognitive differences are due to cultural and social influences (nurture), and cognitive differences are due to a combination of biological and cultural factors.

            It is well accepted that there are no differences in the general intelligence (g) or basic cognition between males and females, the issue is whether each category is innately better at certain, very specific, skills.  The cognitive differences that have been put forward include men being slightly better than women at tasks that involve the mental spatial rotation of an object, spatial perception and visualization, and math problem solving.  Women seem to score slightly better on tasks that involve visual memory, word and landmark recall and math calculations (Kimura, Doreen, 2002, Pinker, Spelke, 2005, Newcomb, Nora et. al., 2005).  It is important to remember, when we sees assertions such as these, that these are general trends and that not every individual is held to them.  Although both men and women as populations tend to do better at certain tasks, the margin of difference is quite small.

            The argument regarding the sciences here is that most of the higher level, profound work is based in the skills that men tend to better at than women.  Einstein once said �the physical entities which seem to serve as elements in my thoughts are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be �voluntarily� reproduced and combined.  This combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought�before there any connections with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs�.  His and the memoirs of many great creative minds in science fields seem to attest to the importance of mental perception and visualization as the first step in their discoveries

[kingmakers]

To support the argument that men and women have generally different cognitive strengths there must be an underlying mechanism.  There is evidence that biology plays at leas some role in the cognitive differences between men and women.  The first piece of evidence is that the biological mechanisms are different.  If we are to believe that the cognitive differences between males and females are innate then we would expect to see some biological differences which could account for them.

Women have been shown to have bigger corpus callosum and anterior commissures, structures which connect two hemispheres of the brain.  Another difference is in an area of the hypothalamus known as the sexually dimorphic nucleus (SDN).  This area is significantly larger in men containing more as well as larger cells (Kimura, 2002).  High levels of estrogen have also been linked to relatively depressed spatial abilities as well as to enhanced speech and manual skill related tasks.  This has been tested in females using the natural hormone fluctuations over the menstrual cycle as well as over longer periods of time and hormone fluctuation.  Studies have also been done in males whose hormone fluctuations tend to be seasonal .

Another piece of evidence toward cognitive differences being biologically linked is their prevalence across cultures.  Although math related tests are often difficult to administer across cultures the studies that have been done using spatial tasks show that these difference appear to be cross national and cross cultural .  Studies regarding navigation abilities have also been done in rats and have show that female rats (like female humans) tend to use landmarks to navigate where as male rats tend to use geometric angles.  Interestingly the female rats were able to modify their strategy if landmarks were not available where as the male rats had a much more difficult time if not able to rely on their preferred method of navigation (Kimura, 2002).

            It is interesting when discussing possible cognitive differences to look at how we are determining these trends.  Although men tend to do better on tests such as the Math-SAT (where they score an average of 21 points higher),  and other standardized, timed tests, we must look closely at these tests as ways to rank skills and ability.  One argument that has been made is that there is no difference in the intrinsic ability or males versus females but there is a difference in the way in which the two genders go about solving problems.  In terms of spatial abilities, especially mental rotation of an object, it has been shown that men use a holistic approach, visualizing the entire object at once where as women use a point by point feature comparison. 

Women are also more likely to use equations where men will use strategies such as Ven Diagrams.  In navigation, women prefer to use landmarks while men use geometry.  These different strategies take different amounts of time, and are best suited to certain types of problems.  On a timed standardized test the questions may be easier to solve using male-preferred strategies or female-preferred strategies may take longer.  Either of these could cause the trend we see in males scoring higher on certain categories which we consider �science related� .