There are measurable basic cognitive differences on many levels between genders, and physical structural differences in the brain to match the measured cognitive differences. The more we know, the more differences we are finding, and the "runtime" behavior of the brain between genders is also very different, something that we've only been able to observe recently thanks to better technology. While there is still a lot of heat being generated by the "social justice" crowd, major advances in cognitive science and neurophysiology in the last decade have generated an overwhelming amount of evidence for what everyone has always known but which until recently was academic suicide: male and female brains are significantly different. There simply is so much evidence for it now that it has overcome the social bias against this idea -- science subverting ideology.
At least one assertion that was made is true: males have measurably better spatial processing ability and there are structural reasons to support why this is. Roughly speaking, the a high sigma female ability in this domain is the same as the average male ability, and there are essentially no females with above average spatial abilities if males are used as the standard. The simple reason this appears to be is that men are naturally packing far more of this hardware than women (and less of other hardware).
There are other differences between genders in how problems are partitioned. Women tend to multitask automatically, whereas men focus on single issues, allowing women to outperform men in a modest interrupt environment. However, men outperform women in a high-interrupt environment because while the interrupts will overwhelm the handling ability of the female brain, men automatically partition and prioritize interrupts so that they are only focusing on one no matter what the interrupt load. There is evidence of this in military studies of how men and women handle various threat environments. Women can outperform men when faced with a very small number of threats, but that performance degrades rapidly (below that of men) as the number of threats increases.
Another relevant point, that I have not mentioned, is that the distribution of intelligence of genders is different. While average males and average females have the same level of intelligence generally, the distribution of male intelligence is significantly wider than that of females. That means that most of the imbeciles and most of the geniuses are men. Since intelligence is a strong correlating factor in many social outcomes, this will bias the gender balance for many high visibility roles.
While there are some basic gender differences that show up in average men and women (e.g. spatial ability, multi-tasking ability, etc) that have structural correlations, there are no real differences in general intelligence. However, once you head north of one sigma the population becomes increasingly male. No one seems to care that most of the stupid people are male such that the entire female population is more intelligent, but the idea that most of the really brilliant people are male as well really does not sit well with many ideologues even though it is measurable and appears to be the case anecdotally.
Thank you for your post. I usually get the response of crickets chirping when I mention this issue to an evolutionist.
#####While there is still a lot of heat being generated by the "social justice" crowd, major advances in cognitive science and neurophysiology in the last decade have generated an overwhelming amount of evidence for what everyone has always known but which until recently was academic suicide: male and female brains are significantly different. There simply is so much evidence for it now that it has overcome the social bias against this idea -- science subverting ideology.#####
"until recently"? Yes, I suppose the president of Harvard did avoid being removed from office, but only by apologizing and recanting. What do you think would happen to a high school science teacher, and would the evolutionists who crusade so enthusiatically against "fundies" show the same rigor against feminists? I tend to doubt it.
#####males have measurably better spatial processing ability and there are structural reasons to support why this is. Roughly speaking, the a high sigma female ability in this domain is the same as the average male ability, and there are essentially no females with above average spatial abilities if males are used as the standard. The simple reason this appears to be is that men are naturally packing far more of this hardware than women (and less of other hardware).#####
How big would the firestorm be if you told a high school class about this? How fast would you be shown the door? Would the academic community defend you or fold like an accordion and agree to more diversity training, affirmative action, and multiculturalism?
If you're in academia, I hope you have tenure.
Thanks! :-)