Re: "Women and Cars" misses the point

[richard bies <bies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don't want to do a major thesis here, but exactly the point <is> that
current "Political Correctness" ignores the hard science, and surpresses
further development of the subject, exactly <because> the answers do not
fit the PC agenda of only accidental differences.

Neither do I wish to support "Men are from Mars..." in entirety, yet there
are soundly verified bases for the underlying thrust.

"Sex and the Brain" is a compilation and summarization of scientific
findings on point.  The bombshell appears to have been a paper published
in "Science" (the premier scientific journal), June 25, 1982 entitled
"Sexual Dimorphism in the Human Corpus Callosum": (summarized
and quoted in part):  "...at then end of the fibre bundle, it was much
wider and larger in women than it was in men ... 'impartial observers'
could immediately assign to the right sex --'with 100 percent accuracy'...
Five months later [the same female author, together with a different male
co-investigator] announced [at an annual meeting of researchers in the
field] ... [the difference] could also be found in the brains of |fetuses|
between the twenty-sixth and forty-first week of gestation..."

{Again, if anyone wants to know the facts of sexual differences, I suggest
this book as a start at least.  From differences in the brain (and
otherwise) to differences in adult capabilities involves development and
investigation. The references to scientific research and publications
detailing the differences in body/brain chemistry, the structures
involved in production and response, the differential reactions
observable as a result of these differences in <nature>, including
marked differences in emotional or situational reactions are there.  The
particular brain structure involved in that research involves
communication between brain hemispheres.  The female is equipped with
greater integration of hemisphere functions.  However, the cost is in
specialization -- the male right hemisphere exhibits a countervaling
dimorphism, and correspondingly a greater power in spacial or abstract
reasoning.  These findings were doubly a bombshell -- unambiguous
difference in male/female brain structure was documented -- the difference
is not merely external -- and this difference is observably in place
<before> "nurture" could influence it.  The plain fact of the matter is
that male and female differ profoundly, including brain structure, by
<nature> -- <not> nurture.  I note that PMS gets mentioned.  "...British
psychiatrist Katharina Dalton believes [PMS] tension [percentages,
symptoms] all of it caused by an altered balance [in hormones]......in
other words, |not| the cultural phenomenon some feminists have announced
it to be ... it is a |biological| phenomenon.  The note to this material:
Katharina Dalton: |Premenstrual Syndrome and Progesterone Therapy|
(William Heinemann Medical Books, London, 1977).  Of course, in a culture
in which such complaints are not rewarded or are ignored, they will not
be reported.}
 
Political Correctness?  I quote from a late paragraph of the introductory
chapter:  "...One internationally known woman researcher told us of a
grant proposal being turned down, not on the grounds that it was a poor
proposal--it was highly rated--but on the grounds, in the words of one
referee.."|this work ought not to be done|." (That event was around
fifteen years ago.)  Anyone knows who caught the interview with a NOW
honcho/representative running on a lacuna in TV time last fall. When
confronted with research showing that in some capacities, men were
superior to women (and conversely, of course) "That research should not
be done".  It is <exactly> the PC agenda to ignore the results showing sex
differences, and to seek to prevent further research which may upset the
NOW PC agenda.

It may be that this society provides relatively little encouragement to
the female in mechanical undertakings.  If so, the consequences are
trivial, compared with the threat to civilized society in the supression
of the actual facts of any of a thousand issues.  This substitution of
mythology, spirituality, mysticism, superstition  (whatever you wish to
call it) for fact is what made the Dark Ages Dark. The curtain is falling
again.

r.m.bies

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