Female Braın - Male Braın: How Sımılar And How Dıfferent?

What Is the Human Brain and How Does It Work?

The human brain is an organ weighing about 1.5 kg, located inside our skull, composed of 75-80% water, slightly more than 10% fat, and 8% protein. Although it constitutes approximately 2% of the total body mass of an average 70 kg person, it uses 25% of the energy produced. It has been the center of attention for scientists, clergymen, dabblers, and ordinary people throughout history. In the early twentieth century, the discovery of neurons, specialized brain cells, and many discoveries related to communication between neurons made significant contributions to our knowledge of the brain. As we move into the information age and discuss artificial intelligence, there are still things we don't know about the brain that have not been fully clarified.

Are There Really Differences Between Male and Female Brains?

One of the interesting debates about the brain is the difference between male and female brains. Some proven facts are true, as well as some that have been disproved by scientific evidence over time but are still being discussed as if they were true. These debates have led to media-supported urban legends that do not reflect reality, such as the exclusion of women because the male brain is superior, or the necessity of different educational practices due to gender differences.

Do Brain Differences Mean Superiority?

There are of course some differences between the female brain and the male brain. However, these differences do not prevent men and women from thinking, learning, and building strategies together. There are no female-specific and male-specific brain nerve cells, no different neurotransmitters for nerve transmission, and there is no significant difference in learning, adaptability, and brain plasticity (neuroplasticity) that would make one brain superior to the other. But for some reason, sometimes scientists and sometimes non-scientists draw unrealistic conclusions from some scientific observations and articles.

Does Brain Size Affect Intelligence?

One of the biggest misconceptions in the history of science over the difference between male and female brains was made by the French physician and anthropologist Paul Broca, who discovered the speech center (Broca's area) in the brain, which bears his name in gold letters in the history of science. Broca found that the female brain is on average about 200 g lighter than the male brain, and based on this data, he concluded that men are more intelligent than women. Broca was elected as a senator in the French Parliament and his view was supported by Darwinists. Today, it is proven beyond dispute that intelligence is not related to gender or gender-related brain size. The reason why the female brain is smaller than the male brain is related to the smaller average body size. The average female heart, liver, and other organs are also smaller than the average male. Although this incorrect conclusion does not overshadow Broca's important discovery regarding the speech area, it is still used by gender discriminators.

Should Boys and Girls Be Educated Differently?

One of the advocates of persity is Leonard Sax, a renowned clinical psychiatrist and graduate of MIT (University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Sax has published many articles and books arguing that boys' and girls' brains are different, develop and function differently. Based on these differences, Sax argued that boys and girls should receive different education. Such predictions, especially when they come from academic scientists like Sax, provide material for conservatives who want to use them for other purposes.

Single-Sex Education: The 2014 Meta-Analysis

Indeed, Sax's views gave considerable ammunition to those who advocated separate classes or separate schools for boys and girls.  Over time, this issue has been investigated in more detail on scientific grounds. A comprehensive study published in 2014 (1), which combined and analyzed one hundred and eighty-four inpidual studies, found that single-sex education does not provide any more or different advantages to boys or girls than co-education. Therefore, we should be suspicious of missionaries who speculatively attribute other meanings to some brain-related differences and advocate for different educational patterns based on gender.

2013 PNAS Study and Media Misrepresentation

Another study defending the difference was published in 2013 in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA), a highly prestigious scientific journal. This study suggested that male and female brains have different connections. It was these differences in connectivity that caused women to think more intuitively and men to think more mathematically and analytically. The media, including the Daily Mail and The Independent, presented the results of this article to the public with a different perspective. According to them, it was precisely because of these connection differences that men were better map readers and women were more emotionally charged. Although the study presented remarkable results, careful data analysis revealed that there was in fact no significant connection between the findings of the study and what was described in the media.

Norman Geschwind's Testosterone Theory

Another scientific claim that has become an urban myth is the effect of testosterone on brain development in the womb, proposed by Norman Geschwind in the 1980s. According to this theory, testosterone causes the left hemisphere of the brain to develop less in boys than in girls. This story was perceived as an advantage for girls over boys in the period following birth, and the relationship between this and the fact that girls reach emotional maturity more quickly than boys was accepted as if it were a scientific fact. This view has been disproved in many following studies. Geschwind's observations could not be supported as the number of samples examined increased. More detailed investigations showed that male and female brains do not exhibit the difference in the period following birth and that Geschwind's observations were limited to some unusual cases. Nevertheless, other scientists and the media nowadays refer to this difference on occasion. 

Commonly Observed Structural Differences

There are some differences in the average male and female brain; this is true. When comparing a large number of men and women, both overlaps and differences can be observed. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, the biggest difference is in weight. The average female brain is smaller. On the other hand, the hippocampus, the structure related to memory, is larger in women, while the amygdala is larger in men (7). You can find many similar differences, but it is very difficult to make a certain generalization. Because men with a large hippocampus or a small amygdala are not rare.

Mental Health, Crime, and Gender Differences

It is true that autism is more common in men, that schizophrenia is more aggressive in men than in women, that tangles in Alzheimer's disease are a greater risk factor in women than in men, that depression is more common in women, and that men are more likely to commit crimes (the most important evidence of this is that the vast majority of convicted inpiduals in prisons around the world are men). The relationship between gender differences and disease is not yet fully understood. We need to use more left-brain activity to avoid being overly influenced by advertisements. Women, who like to use their right brain activity, perhaps that is why they like shopping more than men. But this does not mean that a man cannot be influenced by advertising or cannot use his right brain activity as well as a woman.

If that were so, male poets, novelists and painters would be worse than female ones. Let us remember that Leornardo da Vinci, who produced the Mona Lisa, was a man.  On the other hand, it is a media favorite to generalize from left-brain activity that men are logic-oriented and better mathematicians. It sounds good to discuss, but such generalizations again distract us from the facts. Where do we put women like Ada Byron, who came up with the idea of the first primitive computer by observing looms and made significant contributions to the beginning of computer technology, Grace Hopper, who developed the first programming language compiler, and the fact that most of the mathematicians who made significant contributions to the development of computer technology were women (8)? Which side of the brain do you think Madame Curie, who won two Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, used the most? The left brain is responsible for logic and mathematical thinking, and the right brain for emotion and empathy; when we say that women are right-brained and men are left-brained, we cannot explain men who can empathize and express emotion more than a woman or women who can do math and think analytically better than a man.

The Importance of Neuroplasticity and Shared Problem-Solving

In conclusion, although there are some anatomical differences between the genders in general and different connections between brain regions, there is no conclusive evidence to support a direct link between these differences and behavior. A topic that has not received much attention in the media debate is brain plasticity (neuroplasticity) and the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to reorganize the connections between neurons to perform any task and to make stronger or more organized connections depending on the situation. This explains why women can use math as effectively as men when needed. This is because the mechanisms of learning and using information are specific to human beings. If they wish, women can read maps as well as men and can operate all kinds of land and air vehicles, including airplanes. The reverse is also true for men. A man can empathize as well as a woman if he needs or wants to. The necessary coordination is carried out by the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres. Neither men are only left-brained, nor are women only right-brained. Everyone uses every part of their brain according to their needs.

In the evolutionary process, it took about 300 thousand years from the first tools to the invention of writing, 5 thousand years from writing to the printing press, 500 years from the printing press to the computer, and 50 years from the computer to the internet. The process covers the agricultural, industrial, and information revolutions. In the transition from the industrial to the information age and in the stunning scientific developments, women's participation in business, education, and science life together with men has made a very important contribution.  Perhaps it is even more necessary for a more peaceful and livable world to have male and female brains thinking together, developing strategies, and finding solutions to problems.