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Engendering The Brain Summary

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Engendering the Brain written by Melissa Hines provides an insight of hormonal influences and implications on brain gender. The chapter begins with explaining the differences between gender difference and sex difference, and explains the psychological factors responsible for brain gender. It describes the role of hormones in the genetic development of individuals and their sexual differentiation. It illustrates a list of hormones, such as testosterone and DHT, which are responsible for sex-related characteristics. Furthermore, the chapter gives an account of how the gonadal hormone plays a crucial role in the development of human brain and human behavior. It differentiates the role of gonadal hormones in both humans and non-humans, and asserts …show more content…

Women prenatally exposed to higher levels of androgen and estrogen hormones are bisexual and homosexual when compared to those who had no exposure. Similarly, women exposed to higher levels of estrogen and androgen hormones during their early development are heterosexual. However, prenatal exposure to hormones does not impact the overall intelligence quotient of humans. Hormone fluctuations during adulthood are responsible for the behavior patterns of individuals. For example, higher levels of testosterone lead to aggressive behavior in males. The chapter summarizes that sex differences in the brain structure and function has a close association to the psychological characteristics, such as sexual orientation. Social experience of humans influences hormones to a great extent. The relation between hormones and sex differences possesses both clinical and social implications. According to medicine, humans with ambiguous genitalia fall under the female sex as it is easier to create female genitalia when compared to male genitalia. Furthermore, surgical procedures used for reconstructuring either male or female genitalia have always worsened the

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According to Broca, the average weight of 292 male brains was 1,325 grams and 1,114 grams for 140 female brains. Hence, the average weight difference between male and female brains were 181 grams. The explicit statistics Gould provided may shock his audiences and evoke their curiosity of the reason behind this dramatic difference. Gould then went on to point out the loophole in Broca’s argument that, he “made no attempt to measure the effect of size alone” and claimed that height “cannot account for the entire difference.” Evidently, Broca’s research lacked consideration towards confounding variables that have affected the results and the conclusion he drew from it, and hence his claim of women inferiority was inaccurate.

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Although some inherent distinctions between the sexes exist, Orenstein mentions Eliot’s findings on neuroplasticity to suggest that nurture supersedes nature in determining a child’s behavior. A child is most impressionable during the earliest stages of life, when his or her brain is still developing. That is why learning various concepts such as language, for example, is most easily acquired before the age of puberty. Thus, an individual’s upbringing is fundamental in the development of traits and therefore, gender

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What is meant by the term Brain Gender is that brain gender begins taking shape, according to genetic instruction, at conception. The brain is sexually differentiated, just like genitalia are, however the difference is that genitalia are visible, and the brain is inside the skull, this means that people are not faced with the fact that it is indisputable. This essentially means that each person’s brain is hardwired to be certain gender, however it is not visible to the eye because the brain is inside the

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The biological categories of gender strongly influence the social dynamics of gender (Conley 281). Gender matters because it structures relations between people, but as gender structures relation it does this on unequal ground.

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Reproductive behaviour can fall under either Nature or Nurture

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Nature vs. Nurture In the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, the main character Callie is a male who was raised as a female for the first sixteen years of his life. Due to his genetic history it created a mutation of his genes that caused 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which delays the transformation or change of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. This means that Cal was born with both male and female genes which is better known as a hermaphrodite. This coming of age novel explores the life of Callie and his transition to Cal, the theme found in the story is nature vs. nurture.

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Another aspect is sex hormones. These hormones are responsible for sexual differentiation in the womb and also play a large role in sexual pleasure/response, pregnancy, and child birth. Another aspect of the biological domain would be sexual orientation. This is how we categorize whether a person is heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. The last aspect is sexual

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School. In its traditional sense, it is a place where students are asked to sit at a desk while an adult tells us every interesting fact they think we should know about their subject. That is, until a bell rings when we are told to get up, move to a different desk with a new adult, and hear about an entirely new subject. This is done over and over, until we are finally let free. That is, until the next day.

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Social behaviour is a type of behaviour that is mainly directed towards the society or more specifically, interactions between species of the same kind. In human, social behaviour is driven by one’s mental and physical state, and more specifically, hormone in the human body plays a huge role in affecting social behaviour. This may due to hormone concentrations, location of hormone receptors etc. In particular, testosterone is a major sex steroid hormone that is produced in the testes and ovaries in men and women respectively. It is responsible for the development of male bodily changes and reproductive tissues.

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Imagine going to school and really succeeding; you understand everything, you’re getting good grades and all the praise you can dream of from your parents and teachers. But then you move up and things get harder, you don’t understand everything, your grades are dropping and you are scared that you will no longer get that praise. You have two options, you can either take on the challenge and get back to where you used to be, or you can sit down when you feel threated by the hard work. In “Brainology” by author Carol S. Dweck, we are shown research concerning those two options or “mindsets” and how we can change them.

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Girls and boys develop different sides of the brain growing up which is a phenomenon. Girls learn to communicate and read, which is the right side of the brain. Boys learn visual tasks and problem-solving skills first, which is the left side of the brain(Relationship Institute 2015). We both eventually develop both sides of the brain but growing up girls and boys develop different sides of the brain at different times. Also, growing up men and women are treated differently.

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