Neural Masculization and Feminization :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Neural Masculization and Feminization American society separates dickens sexes and distinguishes two genders. Through innumerable cues, we argon taught that men and women are different. Most humans places provide separate restrooms for men and women. Most department stores sell mens room and womens clothes in separate departments. Even separate clothing surface scales exist for men and women. Many health forms and applications for schools or jobs inquire closely sex. Clubs and organizations, such as Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, exist solely for superstar gender or the other. When considering questions of sex and gender, each term mustiness be defined. Sex refers to the biological distinction between staminate and female. Gender is the socially constructed understanding of man and woman. Why are so many distinctions cadaverous between male and female, man and woman? Are the differences between male and female limited to genitalia, or do the differences extend to behavior? If m ales and females do indeed act differently, what is the source of this difference? Several studies possess indicated that males and females do act differently. One study even reported that men and women college students agree their books in different manners (1). Robert Trivers, an influential evolutionary biologist during the 1970s, suggested that males and females have evolved different patterns of behavior due to various levels of investment in fostering and child-rearing (2) . According to Trivers theory, female mammals are more(prenominal) invested in the reproductive plow than male mammals because females must contribute a relatively large egg, milk, and daub to create offspring. Males, however, donate a relatively small amount of seamen. Since females must sacrifice more to reproduce, they are more likely to favor producing a smaller mensuration of high quality offspring. In contrast, males have relatively little invested in each offspring, so producing a large quanti ty of offspring is favorable to males. Thus, theoretically, females are more selective of mates than males, and males must compete to win mates (2) . Because of this competition, males are thought to be more aggressive than females. Observation of human children has confirmed that young males tend to be more aggressive than young females (3) . In accordance with this pattern, preschool-aged boys are mostly more willing to explore than preschool-aged girls, while girls tend to return to their mothers from exploration more frequently than boys (4) . For example, if a room was divided by some sort of barrier, with the mothers on one side and the children on the other, the boy children are more likely to try to find a way nigh the barrier, and the girl children are more likely to stand in the shopping center of the barrier and cry (4) .