The Essential Difference - a book review

The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth About Autism by Simon Baron-Cohen has a lot to say about males and females – most of which seems to reinforce popular stereotypes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It seems like Baron-Cohen has taken on the responsibility of proving those differences and this well documented book goes a long way in doing that, assuming the quoted science is valid.

The main thesis of the book is that men are (generally) systematizers while women are (generally) empathizers. This has been demonstrated in test after test as well as observations such as boys gravitate to team sports while girls enjoy small group non-competitive play; or men enjoy machines while women prefer to discuss people; or women are more prevalent in the arts and soft sciences while men excel at the hard sciences and math. There is even some exploration about how the brain differences might have developed both culturally and biologically to take advantage of the different roles that males and females have because of their sex. Purely biological effects of child bearing and fetal hormones are also considered by Baron-Cohen. The author is always careful to couch the comparisons as “on the average” or “in general” while noting that individually both male and female can be found in the opposite/unexpected category. We’re talking about greatly overlapping bell curves here.

The secondary thesis is that autism is extreme male-ness or systematizing taken to the extreme. Autism, Aspergers Syndrome, and other conditions on the “autism spectrum” appear, according to the author, to be extreme examples of talent for and persistence in systematizing while showing a complete inability to empathize. And this extreme male-ness is independent from culture or training just as the previously described male and female traits are.

I appreciated the description of the five levels of sexual distinction listed in this book:
1. Genetic sex – based on possession of a Y chromosome
2. Gonadal sex – based on possession of testes or ovaries
3. Genital sex – based on possession of a penis or vagina
4. Brain type sex – based on skill at systematizing or empathizing
5. Activity based sex – based on liking or participating in activities concerning machines, gadgets, and sports, or people, relationships, and intimacy.

I also was fascinated with an example of a test designed to measure one’s ability to “read” other people’s feelings solely by the expression in their eyes. I encouraged several family members to take the test and was surprised to see that everyone did better than expected by random chance. However, I did not detect any overall difference between the males and females taking the test. Both got high and average test scores. And no one felt comfortable taking the test, even those getting the highest scores.

I’d like the concepts explored in this book to be right simply so that we could start narrowing the focus on autism and Asperger’s and perhaps develop treatments for or prevention of the most severe cases.