Friday, October 10, 2008

Oprah: Dr. Oz Explains The Differences Between Male And Female Brains

Interesting video, and related to the earlier post today on gender worldviews. You'll have to go to the site to see the cool video, featuring actual brains.

Oprah: Dr. Oz Explains The Differences Between Male And Female Brains

Yesterday, Dr. Oz was back on Oprah to talk about health, and, in one of the most interesting segments, he broke down the male and female brains. First of all, did you know that we all start off with female brains in utero? It's not until testicles are formed, that the testosterone shoots up to the brain and changes it. There are fundamental differences between male and female brains, for example, women have a whole section that's dedicated just to worrying about shit. Men typically have larger brains (women's brains shrink with pregnancy), but they aren't any more powerful than women's. We just pack more neurons into a smaller package. (Sound familiar?).


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

On this and the previous post, I'm somewhere in between it all. As I've posted before, where does this gender/sex duality leave the GLBT community?

I'm male but my brain works in some traditionally feminine ways. Some of my lesbian friends act in traditionally male ways. In my case at least, I can't say that I was socialized to think this way. Or maybe I was--but by whom? Or is it just more or less hormones that someone else? Or is there some genetic switch that gets flipped (or doesn't)? Even within the GLBT community, there's quite a range of diversity.

I guess all this talk about male/female helps people figure things out. But I think it just puts people into confining categories that are eventually used against us. It's only when we can't explain differences so neatly that we have to see each person simply for who they are. I am not my gender identity, my hormones or my sexual orientation. I am simply me.