Breaking gender norms
I’m often asked if I’m so outspoken because my culture and religion call for females to be subservient. “Outspoken” is one of the nicer terms — sometimes people use loud or unsubtle.
“That’s racist!” is what I’d love to say. Instead, I inform whoever it is that no, my religion and culture don’t call for obedient females and that my parents raised me to say what’s on my mind. I also inform the person that, as a child, I was never told that boys and girls are capable of and destined for different things. I played with Barbie dolls and plastic swords, and I only hated science and math because I found them boring.
The usual response to that is that my parents must be pretty progressive, to which I say, “That’s also racist.”
The truth is, the supposed discrepancies between male and female brains are being taught worldwide, in conservative and liberal cultures, and by members of all religions.
Pink is for girls; blue is for boys. Girls are soft and delicate, boys are tough and can take anything. Boys are better at science; girls are better at housekeeping. These are the statements most of us grew up with. “It’s how our brains are hardwired!” say those who believe them.
Cordelia Fine, author of Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences, begs to differ. Delusions of Gender is Fine’s scientifically-backed middle finger to all those who believe that gender bias is based in biology — I’m looking at you, meninist in my sociology class.
Why are girls told to aspire to princess-hood and child-rearing, while boys are expected to have successful careers and provide for their future families?
“Measures of implicit associations reveal that men, more than women, are implicitly associated with science, maths, career, hierarchy and high authority,” Fine writes. “In contrast, women, more than men, are implicitly associated with the liberal arts.”
According to Fine, research into associative memory shows that if you place a woman in a housekeeping environment, associative memory will pick up the pattern. Associative memory is very susceptible to accepting subliminal messages, through advertising, media representation and/or societal ideals, whether we like it or not.
Much of the literature “proving” the difference between male and female brains focuses on the empathetic nature of women when compared to their more logical counterparts, men. Fine gives the example of Louann Brizendine’s The Female Brain. Brizendine’s patient, Jane, and her husband Evan are having breakfast when she notices that Evan’s eyes are “darting back and forth.” Immediately, Jane recognizes this behavior and asks, “What are you thinking about? Who are you beating in court right now?”
“To be brutally honest,” writes Fine, as though she is anything but, “at breakfast I prefer to reserve the majority of my neurons for the thinking of my own thoughts, not those of others. But while Brizendine’s claims are somewhat extravagant – is it really true that women have more privileged access to men’s thoughts than they do themselves, or that ‘a man can’t seem to spot an emotion unless someone cries or threatens bodily harm’? – we’re all familiar with the concept of womanly intuition and womanly tenderness.”
Fine deals with gender bias in different environments, ranging from the home to the workplace. Fine also talks about how parents unintentionally teach their children sexism: calling young girls, “princess,” and young boys, “womanizers”; pink housekeeping toys for girls, and blue/green toy trucks and soldiers for boys.
Delusions of Gender is not a late-night easy read. It’s brimming with scientific research and psychology, and at times I had to put it down so I could focus on absorbing what I just read. Nevertheless, Fine conclusively finds that although there is a difference in male and female brain, it is created through perpetuating neuro-sexism through societal standards, media, and culture. That is how gender is “wired.”
“But,” Fine writes, “the wiring is soft, not hard. It is flexible, malleable and changeable. And, if we only believe this, it will continue to unravel.”
Noorhan Maamoon is a junior majoring in print and digital journalism. Her column, “The Hijabi Monologues,” runs on Thursdays.
Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to clarify a quotation from author Cordelia Fine which was previously paraphrased incorrectly.