Extreme male brain theory: do you believe in it?

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The 2d/4d digit ratio is seen a reliable test of excess testosterone in the womb during fetal development. Testosterone definitely affects brain development. Cohen's research is based on the digit ratio studies he did with Autistic people, and correlations he found.

Gender identity and human sexuality is too complicated to be explained by digit/ratio. Attempts have been made in this regard, but they aren't seen as conclusive from what I have seen.

I am very skeptical of both parts of the extreme male brain hypothesis.

First, not all autistics can really be characterized as "hypersystemizing". What about autistics who default to thinking in a purely sensory way? What about autistics who are more artistic than logical/mathematical? I wouldn't exactly classify them as hypersystemizing. Even some autistics who could be described as hypersystemizing are not exclusively hypersystemizing. I am one such individual - my mind is compartmentalized into a verbal/logical/mathematical "upper layer" and a sensory/emotional "lower layer" (I have quite a bit of integration between the two, but they are still definitely distinct), and due to this layering I have decent artistic ability in certain areas in addition to my strong systemizing ability.

I also doubt that autistic social skills deficits are primarily the result of decreased empathy. I suspect that they are more due to a combination of atypical sense of self, looser integration between emotions and intellect, and a general "simplification" of emotions. I also suspect that empathy in autistics is usually more "abstract" or disconnected from sense of self as opposed to simply being "decreased".

I've found this theory very unhelpful for me.

I have also known women who were good at systemising (Mathematics, computing, sciences) but were still women.

Tidying up, homemaking, cooking, dress making, child care, weaving (that men traditionally expected women to do) require systemising and organisational skills. I think that these skills were under appreciated. Actually, I'd rather that people were left to be people rather than being gender stereotyped.

I believe that there might be something to the eye for detail and systemising, hormone biology. I believe that it's a part of, but not the full story in a lot of cases.

If you're biologically a woman who works meticulously, has an eye for detail and is interested in traditionally male dominated subjects, I don't think that makes you a man. True, you might not be the woman that other people were culturally expecting, but that still doesn't make you are man. It makes you a different kind of woman out of the many different kinds of women.

You might wish that you were a man and had some of the privileges that some men have, but that doesn't make you a man if you're biologically a woman.

In short, people's individual brains are so complex and different that I don't think it's helpful to apply sweeping cultural generalisations to people.

It's no wonder individual people have gender identity issues, if they're being coerced into fitting into a stereotype that doesn't fit them.

hi folks,

i also think that this theory by Baron-Cohen is no good. My main reason is the following: This theory suggests that our missing social skills can't be improved, that they are fixed. The "logic" behind it is something like that: there are empathic people and there are systemizing people, both are opposed to each other, the more systemizing the less empathic and so on, as can be seen in females and men. And it suggests that autistics are heavy systemizers, which might be true, but it also suggets because of that they are also very low in empathy, which is not true.

What really annoys me is that this theory suggests that our social inability is fixed and can't be improved. I think most mild autistic persons can greatly improve their social skills, as I also did the last few years.

Furthermore I think that many austistics can't identify with the theory of baron-cohen and it also gives a false image of autistics, that old image of autistics as sociapaths, who can't be empathic, don't feel for others. And this really annoys me.

I wonder if we should just start some petition, saying that we autistics don't agree of baron-cohens theory of autistic people and make this public. Maybe then there wouldn't be so many BS in the media and in "science" about autistics.

thanks
anton

I don't think this has anything to do with why anyone has "gender identity issues." I don't think any women are being pressured into thinking they're men because they have "stereotypically male traits." I think that there are men who are assigned female at birth who transition (take testosterone, seek surgery, etc) because that is how they find the peace of mind that they need. Their brains work a bit differently from other people's, just as autistic brains work differently from other people's. They just work differently in different ways, although many are autistic as well.

If anything Simon Baron-Cohen's theory caused an acquaintance (also autistic) of mine to have serious doubts about his need to transition and caused him to constantly second-guess whether he really was a man. The pain this caused him (even though he started testosterone this past month) was certainly not pleasant or worthwhile, and he is so much better off psychologically now that he's been able to move past worrying that he was making a mistake.

Don't you think it's inappropriate to use people you don't really understand as a rhetorical device? To make unwarranted assumptions about them? To define them against their will and tell them no matter what they're really forever and always women, even though many have tried to live as women and found that it caused them a great deal of pain? Did you know that the rate of suicide attempts among transgender people before they transition is over 40%? That's pretty high, and the reason for it is trying to live with a coercively assigned gender, not because they are feeling coerced into another gender. If anything, transition relieves a lot of this pain and suicide and depression decrease substantially.

I think it's sad that people can't be accepted as they are for who they are by others.
I sometimes wish that there were other categories aside from the cultural binary of men vs women. I wish transgender people could be accommodated. Sometimes I wish that there weren't any narrow categories at all. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe in categorising everything, we lose sight of individual people. People are categorised for medical purposes. People use segregated public toilets.

I am sorry to hear about your friend and the pain that this theory caused him.

I probably didn't explain myself very well, but I was trying to talk about women who were physically biologically female wanting to identify as such.

I was trying to say that for some autistic women (not all) it would be over simplistic to claim that they had "male brains". I think that some (not all) would be offended by this. I feel angry and confused by the implied idea that my brain is a "mistake" or that I'm really a man in a woman's body because I've never felt that way. I have been deeply confused by how some other women act, but I don't personally feel like a man because they confuse me. I know I feel like an individual woman who struggles to understand how and why some women act the way they do. I can't speak for everyone or all women or everybody.

I was trying to say that many women who identify as women who are biologically female can do technical systematic work if given the chance.

I accept that some people, including some transgendered people really do feel like they're "trapped in the wrong body".
I respect their choices to identify with other genders and their reactions to ostracism.

I wonder how much of this is social/cultural conditioning and how much is biological?

I think it's sad that some people have to change their physical bodies in order to feel comfortable with themselves and society. If that's what they have to do to be happy and feel accepted by others, that's what they have to do.

I just don't see how ideas like "The Essential Difference" are helpful for people as individual human beings.

I think the people who arrived at this theory are miscomprehending the issue. It would be more accurate to state that there are certain genes on the paternal x-chromosome that might confer a protective effect.

Pubmed UID #10625077

It is still very theoretical, but there seem to be some genes on the x-chromosome that might increase the threshold of expression for certain autistic traits.

My theory is that there are special zones on our genome that code for certain traits that have a both a high risk and high potential pay-out. What this means is that, if you are a medium-sized tribe, some members of your tribe will seem to have extraordinary abilities or insights. On the other hand, you might have others in your tribe who are unable to take care of themselves.

Now, if this is happening in the male members of your tribe, the pay-out is worthwhile because the more successful ones will turn out to be leaders or war heroes, or they might be needed to perform special tasks involved in the functioning of a successful tribe such as building animal traps. The losers can be driven away with sticks and stones if they can't behave themselves, or they can be quietly tolerated as long as they don't bother anybody.

On the other hand, it's vital for women to not have anything about them that might make them dangerous to themselves or others. They are going to be around children and other sensitive things, and it's not the place for nature to play mad scientist with our genetics.

Therefore, the way I see it is this: males in our species are essentially the test pilots for certain genetic variations. If we win, we win big. If we lose, tragedy.

But that's just my pet theory.

There are other categories, but they're not accepted categories. Basically people end up having to define these categories for themselves and then of course they're not respected or acknowledged at any other level.



Ah, yeah, I misunderstood, when you talked about them "wanting to be men."



Well, this is certainly true, and a lot of women do this work. More try to get into this kind of field but many get bullied out or other kinds of passive or aggressive hostile treatment to discourage them, and then people like Simon Baron-Cohen suggest that men are more naturally suited for this work than women because fewer women do that work.

And I agree with you on being angry and confused by the implied idea that one's brain is a mistake.



I don't think it's sad. What I think is sad is that society's pretty much down on that sort of thing and would rather have people remain profoundly unhappy and even suicidal than live in a way that they find satisfying.

I have no idea how much is social/cultural conditioning and how much is biological. I think that the only way to find out is so immensely unethical. Looking to animals, there are animals whose behavior seems to be of a different sex than they appear to be - that is, animals that appear to be transgender, although it's hard to say without asking them. And I mean this is distinct from animals who seem to be homosexual.



I totally agree. I don't think there are essential differences between genders like this. I don't think it works that way. Even if SBC does not literally mean "male" and "female" brains, he really should find a different way to refer to his observations, I think. One that doesn't label people as "extremely male."

Is this a good time to point out that more severely/obviously autistic diagnoses are split more evenly (not perfectly, I don't recall the precise ratio) between men and women, and that it is only the "high functioning" diagnoses that have a discrepancy? And that it is possible that said discrepancy can be explain in social terms, rather than the idea that there really are fewer women than men who are autistic?

I also find it peculiar to talk about evolution and nature as having some kind of plan. Evolution doesn't play "mad scientist" with our genetics or test new things out. Safety nets don't exist so nature can protect us from genetic differences. The safety net exists because more extreme/lethal genetic differences tend not to survive. That is to say, it's working as intended, but not because evolution or nature makes conscious decisions.

If a trait is more likely to appear in men than women, it is primarily likely that it has to do with the X or Y chromosomes, and not because there's any special purpose to keep women from having that trait. And then of course you have things like Rett's Syndrome, which appears in women.

Verdandi, I tend to think that the more extreme cases of autism have an altogether different etiology from normal genetics. In outright non-verbal low functioning autism, I think we're straying from normal genetics.

But I think that I articulated my theory poorly, so let me try to explain the parts of it that don't seem to sound right.

1) I am sorry, but I failed to state clearly that my reification viz "playing mad scientist" was entirely figurative. I am perfectly aware that evolution is not a centralized force following any specific intention or plan, but I was using this reification as a means of discussing an idea about evolution. Hypostatization was not my intent!

2) The idea I intended to suggest was really a lot more simple: the idea is that there are genes on the x-chromosome that serve to suppress or activate other genes. Part of my idea (which I distinguish here from an actual theory or hypothesis, given the informal context of this discussion) is that the genes that remain active in males of our species can potentially have beneficial aspects, but they could also cause harm if they interact with other genes or are subject to certain environmental factors. It would stand to reason that this would be so because it is more important in a primitive context for females to remain intact and capable of bearing and caring for offspring, but a highly successful male on the other hand would spread his or her genes extremely far by comparison to a highly successful female.

This of course is not intended to negate that there are highly successful females, and I am quite frankly about as feminist as a guy can really be. Besides, it's just an idea I had.

While I havent looked into this theory heavily, Ive thought about it on and off for a while. I think he's strictly looking at systemizing vs. empthsizing and what peoples brains are wired for. When it comes to gender, people get things confused with the societal contructs that gender has.

hes just saying that male brains tend to be more systematic
while female brains tend to be more empathetic

hes not taking into account what society places on gender. For instance, I have a friend whos female and shes very systematic, according to this theory, she has a male brain. But her interests, goals, friends is very female like. She was raised to be very feminine therefore she has very feminine interests. Her brain is wired to be a systemizer.

For me Im a systemizer, 1 of my interests is dance which is very feminine. While many people who like dance focus on self-expression. My interest comes from a very technical, systematic viewpoint in how is this dance put together. Not what is this dance expressing.

As for the autism, extreme male brained theory, well there are potentially flaws within this theory but remember its just a theory. Particularly with the EQ portion of the tests, aspies can score very low because they have a difficult time recognizing emotion and social interaction. But when they can recognize it maybe around loved ones, they can be huge emphatizers. Are all aspies systemizers, I think that worthy of being investigated.

distribution of the empathizing and systemizing scores of NT-males, NT-females and aspies:

[img][800:627]http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4780/eqsqrschema.png[/img]


[img][800:237]http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/5924/picture15k.png[/img]

I am not sure how this is possible. Or rather, what are you trying to suggest here?



I find this reassuring! Thank you.



But I still feel like what you're saying here implies a kind of purpose to DNA beyond "reproducing itself." It may be that there are genes on the X chromosome that make it harder for autism to manifest. It may be that there are just as many autistic females as males, but that the milder females are not caught as frequently because the behavioral cues tend to be more noticed in boys, and because medical professionals tend to be dismissive of girls when they're brought in for this kind of evaluation (I linked a study to this effect a month or two ago).

And I feel like you're leading to a conclusion that is not supported by the overall spread of human traits.

This of course is not intended to negate that there are highly successful females, and I am quite frankly about as feminist as a guy can really be. Besides, it's just an idea I had.[/quote]

I wonder if there are traits where autistic people would test more like "extreme female" than anything else. I wouldn't be surprised if there were.

This topic provides a more comprehensive test for "sex" ID of the brain:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf122533-0-15.html

The results are interesting from the people on the site that have taken it and shared their results in the linked thread.

I'm suggesting that low functioning autism, Asperger's syndrome and mild temporal lobe epilepsy misdiagnosed as ASD might have completely different etiologies. I don't see autism as one disorder stemming from one etiology but in fact many complex disorders that are often tangled with one another.

DNA doesn't even have that much purpose in what it does. It's a complex organic molecule, and bits of it become inverted or transmitted from one part of the molecule to the other almost at random. The only things that engage in purposeful behavior are things that, on at least the level of quorum sensing, think. Otherwise, we might as well think of individual codons as if they were organisms bent on their own survival. In reality, whether a germline "survives" or not depends entirely on whether or not what it happens to do succeeds in making sure that the host organism can reproduce.

What I am suggesting is that autism might on some occasions be linked to traits that are either expressed or inhibited from being expressed as a result of genes on the x-chromosome. According to some studies done on girls with Turner Syndrome, such an explanation might actually have a degree of credibility. I can envision how such traits could have an effect on the shape a society might take under various circumstances.

What I am interpreting from this is a notion that there could be some genes on the X-chromosome that might have an amelliorating effect on the expression of autistic traits but that the causes of those traits could still be there.

I would say something similar. The concept that I have in mind is that we have certain genes, and those genes can be switched on and off according to local environmental stimuli, which can be affected by other genes. Therefore, we might have a gene to give us long hair, but then we could have another gene that does something to prevent this from being fully expressed. The concept is really very simple: I'm positing the somewhat popular idea that some of our genes can be turned on and off by other genes or by environmental stimuli, and I'm pulling that idea into a picture where there could be genes on the X-chromosome that do exactly that with portions of our DNA that affect our behavior. Might it also alter the expression of a gene without inactivating it entirely, such as changing where and when it does its coding? Your guess is at least ten times as good as mine.

This doesn't mean that those genes are guaranteed to stay turned off. For example, what if there were a gene or cohort of genes that is normally only active in women, and the effect of those genes is to give them wide-set hips. In men, there is another gene or cohort of genes that turns this off. Well, if we are not dealing with a fail-safe system on either side of this, the consequence will be that you will have women who are extremely slim-hipped, and you will have men who have hips that belong on a female super-model.

On the other hand, what about traits that can potentially be expressed in both sexes, but one sex needs a little help to make sure that those traits come out? I don't know. I'm just speculating.