{"id":4335,"date":"2008-01-05T05:41:57","date_gmt":"2008-01-05T09:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=4335"},"modified":"2008-01-08T01:52:05","modified_gmt":"2008-01-08T05:52:05","slug":"essential-differences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2008\/01\/essential-differences\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential Differences"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently read The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain<\/a> (Basic Books, 2003) by Simon Baron-Cohen<\/a>, professor of psychiatry at Cambridge University. Anyone interested in the source and nature of gender differences (i.e., everyone) will find this an interesting book, and people with an interest in understanding autism are particularly encouraged to find a copy and read it. <\/p>\n

First, some context. One line in the Proclamation<\/a> proclaims, “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” What exactly is “essential” to “gender” and “identity,” and how those terms relate to body and spirit, has been the subject of much speculation (for example, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>). These questions make the general topic of some interest to many LDS readers, but I don’t plan to directly address any of those questions. I’m just going to talk about the book, which is interesting enough all on its own.<\/p>\n

Empathizers.<\/b> The author was kind enough to summarize the book on page 1 as follows: “The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy<\/strong>. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems<\/strong>.” But he quickly relabels the “female brain” as type E<\/b>, the “male brain” as type S<\/b>, and notes that these attributes are distributed on something like a normal curve in both sexes. So there will be women who have type S brains and are good at systems stuff, and men who have type E brains and can hold deep, meaningful conversations with other humans, although the distribution for women is skewed in favor of type E and for men in favor of type S.<\/p>\n

He defines empathizing as “the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion.” He offers a whole chapter of evidence of the female brain, type E, as empathizer, drawn largely from developmental studies of children:<\/p>\n