The 'Facts' of Life
How the Notion of Evolved Brain Differences Between Women and Men Naturalises Biological Accounts of Sex/Gender
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5855039 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ngaire Donaghue |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 86 |
| Pages | 359-365 |
| Publication date | 2015-10-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Feminist Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1321-7568 • E-ISSN: 1465-3303 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08164649.2016.1149904 |
| OpenAlex | W2422868033 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
Taken together, evolutionary psychology and neuroscience combine to provide a compelling heuristic account of sex/gender differences. In this article, I explore how the meta-theoretical framework provided by evolutionary psychology provides support for a reading of sex/gender effects in neuropsychological research that sees these as evidence of a ‘hardwired’ neurobiological basis for sex/gender. I discuss the resistance of these ‘hardwired’ accounts to arguments that—like other neuropsychological phenomena—sex/gender could be theorised in terms of experience-dependent neuroplasticity. I conclude that the evolutionary-neuropsychology heuristic obtains much of its appeal from the apparently ‘scientific’ evidence it provides for understanding sex/gender as a ‘natural’ rather than ‘sociocultural’ phenomenon—a view which is aligned with postfeminist ideologies of sex/gender in the contemporary west
Appeal · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Epistemology · Evolutionary psychology · Gender identity · Gender psychology · Heuristic · Ideology · Natural (archaeology · Neuropsychology · Phenomenon · Politics · Reading (process · Resistance (ecology · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Anthropology · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Neuroscience · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology
| Highly cited | No |
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