Some are More Equal

Applying a Radical Feminist Analysis to a Common Male Cope

Text reads: We find more neural pathways (axon pathways) within the same hemisphere of the male brain, leading to linear thinking. Frontal lobe has less interaction, which may make males seem more aloof. Males want to solve problems rather than talk about them (these are averages). (Dr. Alaric Naudé )

This was part of a larger thread about sexual dimorphism of the human brain. I'm aware some feminists conflate functional convergence of the two sexes’ brains with the idea that all brains are, in some sense, “the same,” which is similar to saying that men and women’s hips are the same because they can both walk. It is false. The brain, like the rest of the human body, is sexually dimorphic yet convergent in function. Meaning that both kinds of livers metabolize, both kinds of kidneys filter, and both kinds of sex organs, in different ways, reproduce. And both brains think to problem-solve to a comparably advanced extent.

I'm not calling Dr. Naudé a misogynist, nor trying to inspire a pile-on because he committed a misogyny against womanhood. But it must be said: the often-repeated framing that "males want to solve problems, not talk about them" requires the premise that women don't want to solve problems. It is an accusation of bad faith and counterproductivity. And that is quite a vicious and unfair slander, but I believe it is so normalized that Dr. Naudé did not even consider what he was suggesting. It is misogynistic to suggest that women are disinterested in collaborating on such a broad category of goals as “solving problems.” It is an extreme insult towards women’s good faith and intentions

And this suggestion is being made simply because it is embarrassing to manhood that men are less capable than women verbally, and so therefore men both specialize in other problem-solving strategies than the more verbal sex, as well as avoid problem-solving tasks that do require talking. Most social problems require discussion of the problem unless telepathy is somehow involved. An alternative framing that does not insult either sex is that men and women may have different problem solving strategies. And the framing that devalues men would be that men avoid social negotiation because the task feels effortful, because they are lazy and prefer taking the easy way out. We can frame the phenomenon in a way that is misogynist, egalitarian, or misandrist.

Men and women need to raise their consciousnesses of the misogynistic attitudes towards the second sex. Girls grow up hearing our strengths devalued and even used as evidence we aren't as interested in fundamentally human pursuits such as problem solving, as men. That harms women and girls. It also harms men and boys. Everyone's thinking is limited when we don't challenge cultural attitudes that systematically devalue women for what makes us women.

The flip side too is that we can't ignore social and cultural factors. Women who grew up in cultures where they heard people casually say things that translate to women don't want to solve problems as much as men do, as proven by them wanting to talk about problems, think of that when we are trying to figure out how to bring up a problem that needs to be discussed to be solved. We are affected by that when we try to talk about problems. This affects how direct we are, how confident we are, and how much stamina we have to fight for recognition of our comparative talents. Meanwhile, especially the less egalitarian the society, a patriarchy forces women into a situation of dependency on the men in their lives. This is accomplished in part by limiting their direct access to resources and control of their fertility, while at the same time burdening them disproportionately with unpaid care-giving responsibility through reproduction or other family relation.

Women are faced with a dilemma. There are two avenues to getting what you want: taking it and asking for it. The third option is that you can wait to be given what you want. Men are in a position to take in a patriarchy and women are, often by law, are required to ask (beg), which involves using words, or wait to be given. Then the fact that women are conditioned to talk about problems, and to have problems that need to be talked about due to the aforementioned factors, is used to justify the disempowerment of women. After all, consensus and evidence from lived experience prove that women are always just trying to talk instead of act (disregarding the fact that acting has woman-specific consequences!).

I also want to address the other male-defensive framing snuck into this tweet, which is that males have underconnectivity in the frontal lobe, which “may make them seem more aloof.” It is bad to be aloof, and so, in order to not insult men, we had to couch something we are saying is due to their innate sex-specific neural morphology, as though it does not really affect them. So, they are not actually more aloof and less socially responsive - it just somehow magically causes women to think they sure seem more aloof. It is gaslighting, in other words. If it is rooted in male neurology, it does not seem that way - it is that way.

Finally, having been around people with complex metabolic issues on a cocktail of medications, and having also been to raves, my belief is firmly that linearity of thought is extremely tied to the chemicals within the brain as well as the developmental trajectory of the individual. I do not share this automatic impression that axonal density correlates that significantly with thought linearity simply because there is less transit between hemispheres. Why would bihemispheric thought be less linear? These are copes to help men think the differences only advantage men and disadvantage women. It is quiet male chauvinism.

I'm again not alleging that Dr. Naudé is indeed the wicked mustache twirler who is personally responsible for setting this system up. He's clearly not. He has internalized unexamined and unchallenged cultural framing he's repeated in good faith I believe. Many of us do. It is the mechanism by which patriarchy self-replicates as an ideology and a practice/way of life. So it's the framing I'm addressing. We have to be able to talk about these things with a recognition that we are discussing vast and complex “interlocking systems of oppression.” There are useful insights in some corners of feminist scholarship or what the tradcons might call wokery. Radical feminist analysis is valuable. It is a tool - a lens - that can bring the positionality of women in the contemporary period into focus. Or it can be a label for a rigid ideology of fixed ideas enforced socioculturally (a religion). There is gold in they/them hills, despite the fact that the hill is mostly dirt.