Delusions of Gender (40 page)

1
(Gurian Institute, Bering, & Goldberg, 2009), pp. 18 and 19.

2
Remember Celia Moore’s work, which found that early testosterone affected the mother rat’s behaviour. Foetal testosterone levels might affect, say, the physical appearance of the child in some way that influences how the child is treated (for example, by making the face more masculine). It’s also possible that parents who have children with higher levels of foetal testosterone tend to be different from those who don’t, in some way that affects the environment they provide to their children.

3
With respect to the use of maternal testosterone (mT), one clinical study that measured foetal testosterone directly did find that it correlated with mT (Gitau et al., 2005). However, as noted by van de Beek et al. mT levels are not higher in women carrying boys than in those carrying girls, which suggests ‘that maternal
serum androgen levels are not a clear reflection of the actual exposure of the fetus to these hormones.’ (van de Beek, et al., 2004), p. 664. Also, testosterone can only act on the brain if it is free (that is, if the testosterone is not bound to another molecule). One way this can be indirectly assessed is to also measure levels of SHBG (sex hormone binding globulin). The more SHBG, the less free testosterone is likely to be available. The two studies that used maternal serum measured both. One found a correlation between a sex-typed behaviour measure and mT but not SHBG (Hines et al., 2002). The other found a correlation with SHBG but not mT (Udry, 2000). There therefore seems some uncertainty as to which (if either) is the appropriate proxy for foetal testosterone (fT) exposure. For amniotic testosterone (aT) ‘there is no direct evidence to either support or contradict’ the assumption that aT is correlated with the levels of testosterone acting on the foetal brain (Knickmeyer, Wheelwright et al., 2005), p. 521. (van de Beek et al., 2004) suggest aT as the best index of fT exposure, but they also acknowledge the lack of much understanding of the relationship between levels of testosterone in the amniotic fluid – the main source of which is foetal urine – and in the foetal blood. Van de Beek and colleagues note that ‘there is no hard evidence of a direct relationship between amniotic testosterone and fetal serum testosterone.’ (van de Beek et al., 2009), p. 8. Finally, the use of the digit ratio as a marker of prenatal testosterone exposure is controversial and lacks clear empirical support. For review see (McIntyre, 2006). One researcher has complained that ‘[t]he lightheartedness of using certain biological markers in adulthood as indicators of prenatal androgen exposure is not warranted.’ (Gooren, 2006), p. 599. Because digit ratio seems to be the most controversial index of prenatal androgen exposure within this field of interest, I don’t attempt here to provide anything like a comprehensive account of research findings using this technique.

4
I am very grateful to Giordana Grossi for her helpful discussions of the following literature.

5
It’s important that correlations are seen within sex. Otherwise gender socialisation might create psychological differences that then correlate with foetal testosterone for the simple reason that boys have higher foetal testosterone than girls.

6
(Lutchmaya, Baron-Cohen, & Ragatt, 2002). The data from this study are not completely straightforward. For boys and girls together, amniotic testosterone (aT) did indeed correlate negatively and linearly with frequency of eye contact. That is, children with high aT had lower eye contact frequency than children with low aT. However, there was also a quadratic relationship meaning that eye contact frequency decreased with increasing aT in the low aT range (as predicted), but
increased
with increasing aT in the high aT range. This same
pattern appeared when looking at boys separately. In girls only, no relationship at all was seen between aT and eye contact frequency. These data, then, are not consistent with the claim that ‘the higher your levels of pre-natal testosterone, the less eye contact you now make’ (Baron-Cohen, 2003), p. 101. It should also be noted that the methodology of this study was rather odd. Different toys were being presented to the infant during the experimental procedure, which could have differentially distracted some infants more than others. It’s also noteworthy that what was measured was
frequency
of eye contact (actually, it was not even eye contact, but looking ‘at the face region of the parent’, p. 329) rather than
duration
of eye contact, although the two were correlated.

7
(Knickmeyer, Baron-Cohen et al., 2005). Multiple regression found that foetal testosterone predicted social relationships score independently of sex. However, within each sex no significant relationships were observed. It’s also worth noting that the difference between boys and girls on this scale was not statistically significant (although there was a trend, with a moderate size of effect) and previous research with the same scale in six-year-olds found no sex differences. So even if amniotic testosterone does indeed correlate with the skills this questionnaire measures, there is not yet convincing evidence that males and females actually differ on them.

8
(Knickmeyer, Baron-Cohen et al., 2006). In this study, four-year-old children watched animations involving shapes. In two of the films, the behaviour of the shapes evokes the perception that they are acting on the basis of mental states. Children were interviewed about what was going on in the film. This involved extensive questioning by an interviewer (see p. 285). There is no mention of this interviewer being blind to experimental hypothesis or amniotic testosterone (aT) status, which seems problematic because an experimenter could unintentionally respond more encouragingly to girls, for example. Use of mental state (expressing character’s beliefs, thoughts, intentions, etc.) and affective state terms (e.g., happy, sad) did not correlate with aT for all children, or within boys or girls. Although girls used significantly more affective state terms than boys, the sexes did not differ in mental state term use. For intentional propositions (e.g., ‘the triangle knew the way’), aT was the only significant predictor in the hierarchical regression analysis. However, within females there was no correlation between aT and use of intentional propositions, but there was a correlation in males. The sex difference in intentional propositions use was at trend level. Boys used more neutral propositions than girls (e.g., ‘There’s a small triangle’). But although aT was the only significant predictor of neutral propositions, aT did not correlate with neutral propositions within boys and girls separately. All in all, the number of negative findings do not make for compelling evidence for the thesis that aT
levels are related to the tendency to attribute mental states to animated shapes, and that this tendency reliably differs in males and females.

9
(Chapman et al., 2006) For the Empathy Quotient (EQ)–child version, the only significant predictor in the hierarchical regression analysis was sex. In other words, amniotic testosterone was unrelated to EQ and something other than amniotic testosterone accounts for the effect of sex on score. There was a within-sex negative correlation between amniotic testosterone and EQ score for boys but not girls.

10
For the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test–child version, data confirmed hypotheses. However, as noted in the text, performance did not significantly differ – indeed, the authors report that they have previously failed to find superior performance of girls on this task (Chapman et al., 2006), see p. 140. This, in itself, seems a bit problematic for Baron-Cohen’s thesis. A sex difference in a performance measure would be more convincing than maternal reports of sex differences.

11
Recently, Auyeung et al. (2009) reported correlations between amniotic testosterone and subclinical autistic traits, using two questionnaires. One of the questionnaires, the Autism Spectrum Quotient Child, was separable into subcomponents that included a mind-reading scale and a social skills scale. However, although these subscales both correlated with foetal testosterone, the authors do not present within-sex correlations.

12
(Voracek & Dressler, 2006), for example, found no relationship between digit ratio and either EQ score or Reading the Mind in the Eyes performance, in their large-scale study. As noted earlier, however, I do not attempt here to review the digit-ratio findings.

13
(Auyeung et al., 2006), p. S124.

14
(Levy, 2004), p. 319 citing Einstein quotations from H. L. Dreyfus & S. E. Dreyfus,
Mind over Machine
(New York: Macmillan, 1988), p. 41.

15
(Baron-Cohen, 2007), p. 161.

16
(Marton, Fensham, & Chaiklin, 1994). Both quotations on p. 467, from Yuan T. Lee and Konrad Lorenz.

17
(Houck, 2009), p. 66.

18
(Auyeung et al., 2006).

19
Baron-Cohen argues that systemising ‘needs an exact eye for detail, since it makes a world of difference if you confuse one input or operation for another.’ (Baron-Cohen, 2003), p. 64. However, it seems to me that one could just as plausibly argue that good empathising requires attention to detail, because otherwise you might, for example, fail to notice the important emotional leak that tells you what the other person is
really
feeling, or how you might be best able to make him or her feel better. In addition, the benefit of attention to detail
would seem to depend on whether the right detail is being attended to. Focus on something irrelevant will not be helpful to understanding a system. And sometimes, as the earlier quotations from the Nobel Prize winners suggest, breakthroughs in understanding require a feel for the bigger picture, beyond the details of the component parts.

20
(van de Beek et al., 2009). There was an unexpected positive correlation between levels of amniotic progesterone (a hormone associated more strongly with females) and playing with boyish toys! The researchers suggest that this may be a spurious effect.

21
Speed of rotation did correlate positively in girls with amniotic testosterone (aT), but boys’ rotation speed seemed to get
slower
with increasing aT, and they performed no better than the girls (Grimshaw, Sitarenios, & Finegan, 1995). And as Hines points out, it is performance accuracy – which did not relate to aT – on which a sex difference is normally seen (Hines, 2006a).

22
(Finegan, Niccols, & Sitarenios, 1992). No sex differences in performance were seen.

23
(Auyeung, Baron-Cohen, Ashwin, Knickmeyer, Taylor, & Hackett, 2009), the Block Design Test. No sex difference in performance was seen.

24
(Brosnan, 2006; Puts et al., 2008; Voracek & Dressler, 2006).

25
(Gurian Institute, Bering, & Goldberg, 2009), p. 35.

26
(Connellan et al., 2000).

27
(Sax, 2006), p. 19.

28
(Lawrence, 2006), p. 15.

29
(Baron-Cohen, 2007), p. 169.

30
(Nash & Grossi, 2007).

31
(Nash & Grossi, 2007), p. 9.

32
(Leeb & Rejskind, 2004), pp. 4 and 10, respectively.

33
The article itself states that ‘[c]are was taken not to film any information that might indicate the sex of the baby’ (p. 115), suggesting that such information was available. Additionally, in an interview with
Edge
magazine, Simon Baron-Cohen notes that sometimes Connellan did learn the sex of the baby because of clues such as congratulation cards (Edge, 2005a).

34
For example (Batki et al., 2000; Farroni et al., 2002). Regarding preference for motion, Philippe Rochat writes that ‘[i]nfants from birth tend to be more attentive to objects that move than to stationary objects. In devising experiments, researchers know that infants are much more engaged by dynamic compared to static displays.’ (Rochat, 2001), p. 107. The study looking at preference for eye gaze (versus eyes closed) in newborns was conducted by the same team as Connellan’s study, and may have used the same populations of newborns. (Connellan’s face
was used as the stimulus for both studies.) Interestingly, this study found that newborn boys had no less of a preference for eye gaze than did girls.

35
(Nash & Grossi, 2007; Spelke, 2005). Spelke also highlights the lack of evidence that there are any sex differences in the acquisition of what she argues are the core cognitive systems that underlie mathematical ability.

36
A study of 119 same-sex three-year-old twins found no gender differences in a battery of Theory of Mind tasks (Hughes & Cutting, 1999) although a follow-up study with five-year-olds found a small advantage for girls (Hughes et al., 2005). This is consistent with a large body of research on young children’s Theory of Mind skills, as noted by Nash and Grossi as well as development psychologist Alison Gopnik (Edge, 2005a). A meta-analysis of facial expression processing in children concluded that there is a small advantage for females (McClure, 2000). Yet it’s not clear what we should make of this given that, as discussed in
Chapter 2
, men and women perform equivalently on the superior empathic accuracy task developed by William Ickes and colleagues. For meta-analysis of prosocial behaviour and empathic concern, see (Fabes & Eisenberg, 1998). Although Baron-Cohen argues that the rough-and-tumble play and direct (i.e., physical) aggression seen more commonly in males than females may reflect males’ lower levels of empathy (‘Direct aggression may require an even lower level of empathy than indirect aggression [such as spreading rumours, gossiping, and exclusion]’; [Baron-Cohen, 2007], p. 164), it is not clear that this is the case. One could, for example, argue that
successful
rough-and-tumble play demands quite high sensitivity to cues from one’s play partner. Moreover, some research (although not all) finds that children find indirect aggression more harmful and hurtful than direct aggression (see discussion in [Archer & Coyne, 2005]).

37
(Levy, 2004), p. 322.

38
In addition to previously cited claims by Baron-Cohen regarding the implications for the gender gap in maths and physics, Connellan et al. claim that their findings ‘demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that [gender differences in sociability] are, in part, biological in origin.’ (Connellan et al., 2000), p. 114. In my view, the methodology – as well as the undemonstrated link between newborn visual preferences and later sociability – allow ample room for extremely reasonable doubt.