These kinds of claims also ignore the power of organisations’ norms and culture in shaping how people behave (and who moves up the ladder). Prime the tests differently, offer payment in return for the correct identification of people’s emotional states from their body language, for example, and men perform no differently to women. A test of spatial ability? No.’Īnd to those who cite the countless tests which purport to show that women are more empathetic, better at reading body language than men, or that men are whizzes at puzzle solving, better at logical thinking than women, Fine pointed out that the tests themselves primed participants to adopt stereotypical gender roles. Classification skills (for example, “find all the small ones”)? No. Does a four-year-old’s skill at copying a block structure, understanding number facts and concepts, and counting and sorting increase with higher levels of amniotic testosterone? No, it decreases in girls, and has no relationship in boys. To those who claimed that the testosteronal surges during pregnancy, which affect the sex of a child, also shaped the male/female brain, Fine offered a detailed, scathing rebuke: ‘Does accuracy on a mental rotation test at age seven correlate with amniotic testosterone? No.
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