The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain

by Simon Baron-Cohen

'The Essential Difference' shows that, on average, male and female minds are of a slightly different character. Men tend to be better at analysing systems (better systemisers), while women tend to be better at reading the emotions of other people (better empathisers).

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Gender, Neuroscience, Biology

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Simon Baron-Cohen FBA is Professor of Developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is the Director of the University's Autism Research Centre, and a Fellow of Trinity College. He has worked on autism, including the theory that autism involves degrees of mind-blindness (or delays in the development of theory of mind) and his later theory that autism is an extreme form of what he calls the "male brain", which involved a re-conceptualisation of typical psychological sex differences in terms of empathising-systemising theory.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This may end up being another lengthy review, so here's the headline:

THIS BOOK IS INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST

Having said that I had better justify my claim pretty quickly. The primary problem is that in presenting his thesis the author extensively cherry-picks the evidence. Supporting evidence is discussed at length. Contrary evidence is minimised in two way. Firstly on some occasions it is simply not mentioned at all. Secondly, if mentioned it is not discussed in detail and not referenced so one cannot look it up for one's self either. Twice the author says, "There is counter evidence but let's assume I'm right anyway." Cherry picking of results in this way allows the reader no opportunity to fairly assess whether the author has a sound scientific case or not.

The author also indulges in a chapter on "evolutionary speculations." Now, whilst admitting that they are speculations a couple of times, what the author is doing here is making up plausible stories to justify his position, then using a few anthropological studies to back him up somewhat. Again, there is no presentation of any counter-arguments that might exist. The chapter appears simply in order to act as what Daniel Dennett describes as an "intuition pump." That is an attempt at rhetorical persuasion, rather than scientific discussion. The kind of approach we are talking about is rife in socio-biology - a field so derided by other scientists for its total lack of rigour that it changed its name to evolutionary psychology, in order to carry on being allowed to waste public research funding. The fundamental trouble with this type of evolutionary Just So Story is that just about any educated person with a little imagination can come up with one to cover just about any hypothesis about human psychology you care to name. The whole approach has become so laughable that there has even been a competition in a popular science magazine to invent the silliest example.

The author also uses a technique of mixing illustrative examples, case-studies, anecdotal evidence and actual scientific results in a manner that requires careful concentration in order to keep them all apart and know what's explanatory and what's evidence. (There is also an entire chapter devoted to a case study of a mathematician with Asperger's Syndrome and speculations that Paul Dirac and Albert Einstein also had AS. This appears to be just padding to make the book longer.) To give an egregious example of this sort of thing, in endeavouring to persuade the reader that the male bias in STEM jobs is due to innate sex differences, the author trots out three professors he knows who aren't biased in their selection process. This is supposed to counter all the research on the subject that says there is selection bias and that it occurs in schools and my personal anecdotal evidence of appalling sexism in academia. Another example: male suppression of emotion (particularly crying) is innate essentially because he says so, despite the abundant evidence that there is cultural variation regarding this, both now and historically.

The author has a hypothesis that autism is caused by having an "extreme male brain." His approach to this idea goes as follows: Take every observed behaviour/task where women statistically out-perform men. Define all these tasks as empathy/empathising. Take all the observed behaviour/tasks where men statistically out-perform women. Define all these tasks as "systemising" (which appears little distinguishable from STEM). Now define a person who is good at "empathising" (in quotes because it's a gigantic extension of the concept you'll find in the dictionary) as having a "female brain." Similarly define a "male brain" as being good at "systemising." Cherry-pick the evidence that these differences are biologically innate to the sexes. Next say, people with autism behave in a manner consistent with having an extreme case of the "male brain." Here comes the really horrendous and scary part of the book: The theory doesn't work. It doesn't explain all the symptoms generally associated with AS or classical autism. In order to get it to work the author says we should re-define one of the major areas of autistic behavioural difference so that the hypothesis fits and totally ignores the area of sensory differences between autistic and neurotypical people. This is a massive dis-service to people with autism. Instead of making an honest attempt to understand the condition, the author is attempting to bend the very defnition of it to his will so that it fits his hypothesis: I'm being used to further his career. This is utterly disgusting. And we're taking about the head of the Cambridge Autism Research Centre here; he must be influential.

I would like to think that the above described crimes are confined to this book. They aren't. Modern popular science publishing is rife with books that are trying to sell you the author's pet theory and are not doing so honestly. If you read this type of thing I strongly advise you to use the utmost scepticism when you are reading and to watch out for the techniques described here. It's as if the authors of such books don't believe scientific ethics (which boil down to scrupulous honesty about the strengths and weaknesses of ones work and what one did) don't apply in the popular science arena. Not only is this false, but when one is talking to potentially scientifically naive people, the onus is on the scientist to attempt to help them understand how to make their own fair assessment of the evidence.

Non-scientific criticisms of the book include: it's padded. It's patronising in tone, especially early on.


I could append here a lengthy discussion of the question of whether there are innate psychological differences between the sexes but this review is probably alarmingly long already. Suffice to say that there are some cross-cultural, repeatable statistical differences between males and females in performance on certain tests. These results, scientifically, require an explanation. An honest one, not driven by egotistical attempts to further one's reputation or by PC ideology.

Again, I could append my views on where autism research should go but I will confine myself to one point: Many people who have an autism diagnosis complain of extreme sensitivity to certain sensory stimuli; these could be specific noises, bright lights, types of touch stimulus or specific smells. These make some people's lives miserable and restricted. Nothing in the "extreme male brain" hypothesis explains why this should be the case. There are very few therapies to help with these problems and they have limited efficacy. Very little research is being done on it by anybody, but is the leading problem autistic people able to express an opinion want help with.

[Ali · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finished this book several weeks ago, but have been putting off the review. I went into reading it with trepidation, expecting to find some of my thinking and understand challenged. Instead, I found a book so sloppy it made me angry that it is so widely referenced as the evidence that gender behaviour is genetically determined. At points early on, the book actually pushed me more towards a nurture understanding, just out of sheer annoyance.

So now I've talked about my emotional response, what about the book?

The book is written as a argument. The structure is designed to make you agree with the author, evidence that supports the author's conclusions is trumpeted, and contrary evidence is skimmed over. Details of studies, such as the actual ratio of gender difference, which would cast doubt on conclusions are generally not mentioned. This is hardly a crime - lots of non-fiction has a argumentative structure, even fairly good stuff (Dawkins, I'm looking at you) but it does mean this book has no business pretending to be an overview.

For starters, the book begins by explaining - in the consistently patronising tones that Baron-Cohen keeps up for the whole work - that human brains fit into three categories - the "female brain" (high empathy and low systematising); the "male brain" (low empathy, high systematising) and the balanced brain (you work it out). The fact that there is any correlation between empathy and systematising ability is not questioned until the second to last chapter, when Baron-Cohen asks rhetorically if one having one influences having the other - this book, he proclaims, proves that they do! This book - which has until now treated this as fact!

Throughout this book he attempts to argue that our brains are structured around different roles for each gender, the caring, empathetic nuturing role for women, and the organisational, decision making role for men. I was perhaps ill-equipped from the beginning to have much leaning towards this, working as I do in a field based upon ludicrous levels of systemising (cataloguing) and entirely dominated by women.

Baron-Cohen makes pains throughout to suggest that women can have "male brains" too, that these are generalities not specifics, but his choice of language belies this disclaimer. I do not have a "male brain" for example, nor do any women I know, no matter how good at systemising they are. One wants, naturally, to be seen as the gender one is, not as a strange hybrid exception.

For the first few chapters - the period at which my fury was most intense - Baron-Cohen cites few studies, although he makes the most of those he does. He mixes anecdotes in a way that can kinda offensive (regarding the prominence of men in engineering and maths, for example, he simply comments that the professors he spoke to were nice people who would never discriminate based on gender, so the discrepency must be biological. No I am not exaggerating. Yes, really.) The book improves in this respect as it goes on, but the flaws remain big enough to render the research useless in this form.

For starters, Baron-Cohen cites studies of adults, teenagers and children mostly interchangeably, and most studies are of teens and adults, making it difficult to identify how gendered behaviour develops over time. His key early infancy study findings - the infamous babies and mobiles - has never been successfully replicated, despite several attempts. And when you realise the extent to which his argument rests on a study which found a relatively small difference in the amount of time newborns look at a face vs a mobile, it's a little silly.

Secondly, Baron-Cohen frankly plays extremely fast and loose with his own definitions of "systematising" and "empathising" to make different categories fit. For example, at one point he uses a study showing girls are more reluctant than boys to engage in a physically dangerous activity as evidence for their higher "empathy", and he regularly uses examples of girls choosing to forgo something in favour of others as evidence of empathy, despite clarifying in the final chapters that he is not talking about sympathetic empathy. (as a consequence, men & autistic people come across as selfish assholes). At one point, I went to check the internet for a clearer explanation of Baron-Cohen's definitions, and was surprised to find his Wikipedia page much clearer and more informative than this book. In fact, I would recommend it above this book to someone trying to understand his research, and I think it puts him in a much more positive light.

Thirdly, when I started going through the cited studies (more on how difficult that was below!) I discovered that many of the studies on children were conducted in the fifties and sixties, and others had margins of difference much, much smaller than implied in the text. This was particularly irksome given that Baron-Cohen's dismissal of gender bais in the studies relied on norms introduced to gender studies in the last three decades.

As a side note - finding studies to check was a nightmare. Some of this was hardly anyone's fault - the Kindle edition I was reading had not been chaptered correctly, making it impossible to jump to notes. Some of it, however. references were given as endnote numbers. The endnote numbers were allocated sparingly - one for every page or so. The number hence listed around half-a-dozen citations, all in short form. Once noting down the half-dozen citations, you have to go tot eh bibliography to connect them, find the studies (yay for working in a research library!) then try to remember the point Baron-Cohen was claiming they proved. Not transparent. Several points I couldn't find confirmation of, not surprising given the difficulty of the process.

The material on autism - and I know this is what people are interested in - was substantially better than the rest. Baron-Cohen has worked with autistic people, and displayed a great deal of empathy and familiarity. I strongly suspect that his theories for gender have been developed from his work with autistic adults, and then imposed later, as the social awareness/systematising dynamic seems to fit much better. Having said that, his thesis - these were extreme male brains - didn't shed a great deal of insight, and he completely ignores the sensory and other aspects of the disorder. (I could have lived, as well, without Baron-Cohen's deduction that a female equivalent to autism - where women can't do basic logic, but are wonderfully empathetic must exist, but we haven't noticed because such women must be so good at getting others to do everything for them!).

I think I'm running out of puff! The book isn't completely without value. Some of his material on neurology is less terrible (yes, I'm scratching here) and his discussion about intersex individuals similarly. Both of these are better recorded elsewhere though.

Finally then, what was simply most offensive is Baron-Cohen's complete obfuscation of the social situation and role of gender difference. Towards the end of the book, he lists the occupations each gendered brain is best suited for, citing, those with "female brains" "make the most wonderful counsellors, primary-school teachers, nurses, therapists, social workers, mediators, group facilitators or personnel staff". Those with "male brains" in contrast "make the most wonderful scientists, engineers, mechanics, technicians, musicians, architects, electricians, plumbers, taxonomists, catalogists, bankers, programmers or lawyers". Don't worry, ladies, he adds a caveat that female-brains could apply for the PR aspects of these jobs! Yet a page later, he adds, "Society at present is likely to be biased towards accepting the extreme female brain and stigmatises the extreme male brain". Because all those primary school teachers and nurses I know are so much more valued than engineers and lawyers.

This is a really important topic, and this book mostly stands as to why you need to take claims that we "now understand" gender behaviour as mostly rubbish. Books like this just show that this research is still driven by a need to explain away aspects of society that make us uncomfortable, not to explore real differences. That was my key take home, anyway.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The working theory set forth in this book is that there are three basic types of brains (or psychological profiles) that we all fall into. There is what he refers to as a type E brain (which skews towards empathy), a type S brain (which skews towards systematization), and a balanced brain type that blends the two approaches. A type E person would have more of an ability to tune in to the views and emotions of another and might work in fields like counseling, primary school teaching, nursing, therapy, social work, mediation, etc. Basically, they like to work with and help other people. A type S person would have more of an ability to see things as a system which is governed by discernible rules and would work in fields like engineering, mathematics, physics or in trades such as an electrician or mechanic. The balanced brain type does not skew towards either empathy or systematization but blends the two. For example, a medical doctor needs to understand how the human body works (systematization) but also has to be able to interact with people in a caring manner on a daily basis (empathy).

The controversial part of his theory is in noting that there is a statistical correlation between brain type and gender. There are more women in type E jobs than men and there are more men in type S jobs than women. So what is the root cause of this? It goes back to oft debated nature/nurture issue. The author comes down on the side of biology while also acknowledging that culture does play some role. There is a lot of different material covered in this book: communication skills, social hierarchies among the sexes, neuroscience, genetics, the effects of estrogen and testosterone on thinking (and consequently behaviour), cross-cultural studies, and studies with infants, identical twins, and animals. I suppose I ought to point out -as the author does numerous times in the text - that group statistics say nothing about individual people and their behaviour and interests.

Based on the fact that it is far more prevalent in males than females, the latter part of the book considers the possibility that autism and Asperger Syndrome are extreme forms of a type S brain: very high on systematization and very low on empathy. An example of this extreme systematization described in the book was a boy who by walking to school with his mother every morning was able to work out and recall instantaneously from memory which car on the street corresponded to which house, when the parking permit for that car expired, and what the serial number of the permit was. As an example of low empathy: '...an employee with AS [Asperger Syndrome] might say (truthfully) to a prospective client, "Our company produces low quality goods that are unreliable." Or a young man with AS might say to his female office colleague, "You've got big breasts." Or a man with AS might say to someone at a dinner party, "Your voice is loud and stupid." Or a child with AS might say to his teacher, "You're stupid." All of these statements might be true, but it is just self-evident to us that they should not be said. Such things are far from evident to someone with AS." The book concludes by speculating as to whether there might also be an extreme type E personality in society - a hyperempathizer - and what they might be like.

I found this fascinating reading. Based on the seemingly even distribution on one star and five star reviews on the site and relatively less middle of the road ratings, I suppose this might be a book that many people are either going to love or hate.

[Leon RE · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never seen so little said in so many words. This book is BS masquerading as science. The author often presents no solid evidence or studies for his claims. How Simon Baron-Cohen is so well-respected and influential is beyond me. You don't need to be a scientist to recognise the countless flaws in this book.

As Pippi said, the author constantly contradicts himself and changes his mind endlessly. The inconsistencies stand out like big blearing eyesores. For example, he says gender differences are “hard-wired” and “innate”, but they are also “only averages” and “don’t apply to everyone”. He goes on talking about psychopathy and murder being more common in males, and relating the occurrences to gender, then when it comes to his main argument - that autism is the "extreme male brain", he clarifies that autistics are not psychopaths or violent. He also at one point argues that girls are more verbally aggressive than boys, implying an act which requires low empathy, and at another point argues that girls are generally less aggressive and more empathetic than boys.

Plus, I hardly see a point in arguing that autism is the "extreme male brain" when about a quarter of autistic people are female, which is still a substantial amount. The book is chalk-full of problems and the rest is just empty words and claims to fill the gaps.

[Anna Kļaviņa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is written by well-respected and influential Professor Simon Baron-Cohen :/ And this is just another Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus "science" type of book. It's not like I'm surprised but I didn't expect it to be so poorly written.

[Falk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Groundbreaking and important – I also much appreciated Baron-Cohen’s terse writing style; there’s a lot of information packed into this relatively short book, so it’s not necessarily a quick read. In shorthand, Baron-Cohen’s theory is one of two different brain types, signified by prominent ability to empathize (type E) and prominent ability to systemize (type S), and the findings are that a larger percentage of females score higher than males in empathizing, while a larger percentage of males score higher than females in systemizing. Since females typically fall within the first group and males typically fall within the latter, Baron-Cohen speaks about the male and the female brain. Further, he shows that there’s an extreme variant of the systemizing type, which he dubs the extreme male brain, encompassing those within the autism spectrum, ranging from severe cases to high functioning ones, and including those with Asperger syndrome. This variation in the male brain is linked to different levels of pre-natal testosterone.

I found this a very intriguing read, and his arguments are meticulously backed up with research data ranging from neuroscience to evolutionary psychology. Baron-Cohen is not contending that biology is everything, but he is providing strong evidence that those above mentioned differences are innate, as well as discussing the ways that genes and evolution have shaped our brains. I was particularly struck by his argument about the many ways low empathy in men has been evolutionary adaptive, a crucial point in this discussion. I gather it would be useful for a reader to have some background knowledge of evolutionary psychology before reading this book, though it is not really necessary.
I also found this book helpful on a personal level. Even though I did already belong to the “nature camp”, there was a lot of insights to be gained from this book, and I am grateful to Baron-Cohen for a couple of eureka moments during the course of the read. It also struck me while reading how very pernicious the extreme nurture stance can be since it is instrumental in alienating both men and women from themselves. It’s a bit like Scholasticism vs. Empiricism or Creationism contra Darwinism: if you totally downplay biology all you’re really left with is dogma or wishful thinking.

Finally, the last three chapters are focusing directly on the autism spectrum, and there’s no doubting the importance of Baron-Cohen’s research for those that fall within this group. There’s also a portrait of Richards Borcherds, a mathematician who has been awarded the Fields Medal; a scientist who has many autistic traits (a few others, e.g. Paul Dirac and Michael Ventris, are also mentioned), though not severe enough to be given an Asperger syndrome diagnosis – but still an example of the extreme male mind. What Baron-Cohen illustrates with showing the fairly slight differences between highly gifted (and high functioning) individuals and others within the large span, and sliding scale, of the autism spectrum is that the extreme male mind is mainly an extreme variant of male intelligence (as was suggested by Hans Asperger already in 1944), and that the Asperger syndrome could better be treated as a difference than a disability.

Given the existence of the extreme male brain, there should also be found examples of the extreme female brain – but being empathizing in the extreme is not necessarily maladaptive (as with the autism spectrum), so while the extreme version of the male brain is relatively easy to locate, the female counterpart is most likely well integrated into society. It is at least not hard to imagine that there are hyperemphatic people. Baron-Cohen also refers to this as systemblindness, because their systemizing abilites would be impaired - also not too hard to imagine because you can always rely on other people in to help you out. The extreme male brain, on the other end of the scale, is characterized by mindblindness, meaning that they are not aware of other people’s mental states. The latter was also the topic his earlier book (1995.) Baron-Cohen ends this book with the following: "Society at present is likely to be biased toward accepting the extreme female brain and stigmatizes the extreme male brain. Fortunately, the modern age of electronics, science, engineering and gadgets means that there are more openings now for the extreme male brain to flourish and be valued. My hope is that the stigmatising will soon be history."
The Appendix contains some very useful tests to a.o. determine your EQ (Empathy Quotient) and SQ (Systemizing Quotient) and also AQ (Autism Spectrum Quotient.) Though I had an inkling about what my own results might show, I was still a bit surprised by the results (which needless to say should be taken with a grain of salt). I got a lot out of this book – in fact much more than I had gathered, and I am looking forward to reading more of Baron-Cohen’s books.




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Adam Marischuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book nearly fifteen years ago and reread it recently. It echoes as much truth today as it did originally and is worth a read no matter where on the spectrum of E to S you happen to be.

The negative reviews are nothing but PC nonsense, people who object to science because they are not getting the results they want. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen is the director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University and a leader in the field of scientific inquiry into psychological phenomena. He is hardly the misogynist troglodyte those who disagree with him paint him as, or worse, the two-bit researcher. In fact, the book could have been significantly shorter had he not kept repeating his excuses for the differences between mean male and female minds. He is so nauseatingly apologetic that this only proves that he occupies the scientific and political centre.His opponents in psychology (or whatever gender-studies swamp they crawled out of) have abandoned all pretext to scientific inquiry and demanded results consonant with their own extreme positions regardless of the science. Anyone who fails to see that never read more than the front cover before reviewing the book.

He summarizes his very modest claims best himself:

on average, females spontaneously empathize to a greater degree than do males...on average, males spontaneously systemize to a greater degree than do females (p. 2-4)

The central claim of this book is that more [emphasis in the original] males than females have brain type S, and more females than males have braintype E. (p.8)

To summarize, neither brain type E or S are better or worse than the other. They appear to have been selected as specializations for entirely different goals and niches. (p. 132)

The chapters are as follows and give a good idea of the flow of the book:
1) The Male and Female Brain
2) Boy meets Girl
3) What is Empathizing?
4) The Female Brain as Empathizer: The Evidence
5) What is Systemizing?
6) The Male Brain as Systemizer: The Evidence
7) Culture
8) Biology
9) Evolution of the Male and Female Brain
10) Autism: The Extreme Male Brain
11) A Professor of Mathematics
12) The Extreme Female Brain: Back to the Future

After defining his terms, Baron-Cohen provides the scientific evidence for the observable differences between males and females in general. At no point along the two spectrums is there only males or only females, a point Steven Pinker made regarding male-female mind differences. Only that at the extremes, there are a larger percentile difference, something noted in autism cases. However, Professor Baron-Cohen is light on the details in this section and just summarizes the conclusions of his research (the Empathizing chapter has 43 separate footnotes, the Systemizing chapter 27, and the chapter on biology another 49 and there are a 30 pages of bibliography). The systemizing mind I happen to have would have liked to look more deeply at the research and would have enjoyed less apologizing for sex differences and definitely less informal language at the introduction to each chapter: "Chapter 8 was quite an uphill climb, but now you have got your breath, let's take stock." (p.117).

Another area of interest which was under-developed was the section dealing with other differences between males and females and how those differences may manifest characteristics similar to autism, may contribute to autism, or may even share a common root cause to autism. His list of language skills, aggression, risk-taking seems incomplete and not fully elaborated upon nor conclusively incorporated into the pre-natal testosterone theory of brain developement.

Anyone who reads this book and does not recognize the general trends in the male and female population knows neither any males nor any females. But that is another whole issue with modern western culture which has desparately attempted to deny, then destroy what at heart is a biologically based behavioural difference.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

An appealing idea due to its simplicity, but it's an illusion of simplicity that's based on dismissal of the theory's weaknesses and over-simplification of the issue. Baron-Cohen glosses over criticisms with flippant dismissal and weak 'yeah buts'.
What is the extreme female brain? By the theory's assertion it must exist and yet no-one can identify it. Furthermore, the basic premise that as ASD becomes more severe in its expression the further along the dimension the individual moves towards the extreme male type (strong systemising, weak empathising) is basically wrong. It is the 'high-functioning' individuals with Asperger Syndrome who score higher on the 'empathising-systemising' dimension, essentially disproving Baron-Cohen's assertion.
It's a useful theory that has allowed for a new way of thinking about ASD, but it is certainly not a comprehensive and satisfactory theory in and of itself.
If you're interested in this idea you might want to have a look at Badcock and Crespi's Imprinted Brain Theory. This theory is similar to Baron-Cohen's but is more valid and testable, and is proving to have some support.

[Judas · Rating 1 out of 5]

so far this book is a giant slap in the face to good science...

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just another book that justifies sexism and stereotypes by cherry picking studies.

[Sibyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an accessible intelligent account of two different - but equally vital - ways in which human intelligence works. We think systematically, gathering facts, building structures, making logical deductions about the way the world operates. But we also think in a more relational,empathic way about other people and how we impact on one another.

Although Baron-Cohen is very clear that he does not wish to assert that men and women exist on different planets, his aim here is to gather together research which indicates that typically males are more orientated towards individualistic 'systems' thinking, while women are particularly likely to that take multiple viewpoints - and relationships with others - into account. The author also develops his hypothesis that high-functioning autists are extreme 'male' thinkers, whose especially focused intelligence may benefit society, despite their apparent awkwardness in everyday life.

I was interested by his theories about the possible evolutionary functions of these differences - even though I would have liked him to devoted at least a chapter to considering the cultural pressures which may influence the brain development and socialisation of children. Also while the mixture of personal anecdote and summarised research makes the book easy to digest, it may mean that the book is rather less 'objective' than its author would have us believe.

Overall though I found reading this an unexpectedly stimulating experience. The issue of what 'maleness' and 'femaleness' might be seems as complicated as ever. But I found it useful to know more about the ways in which our minds can work, to gain a better understanding of the advantages and limitations of different kinds of mental functioning.

[Darius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baron Cohen took more than five years to write this book because “the topic was just too politically sensitive to complete in the 1990s.” The topic he was so hesitant to write about is the difference between male and female brains.

Quite why so many people tiptoe around this subject is something of a mystery, until one considers that there are many people who refuse to even countenance the idea that there are differences between male and female brains. The contention that there are differences between men’s and women’s minds, and that these differences are part-biologically determined and part-culturally determined, is so obviously true that only those who are ideologically blinkered would try to deny it. There are, unfortunately, large numbers of people who refuse to see what’s in front of their eyes if it conflicts with their preconceived ideas.

Baron Cohen amasses a wealth of scientific and anecdotal evidence to support his thesis: that men tend to be better systemisers, finding it easier to figure out how things work, and that women tend to be better empathisers, more easily identifying and responding to another person’s emotions and thoughts. Those with male brain types are more likely to be interested in computers and DIY, for example, and are more likely to spend their time maintaining their cars or fiddling with their sound systems. Those with female brain types spend more time talking with their friends, chatting about relationships, and caring for people.

Baron Cohen maintains, moreover, that these differences cannot solely be attributable to cultural forces, and the evidence that Baron Cohen offers for this idea is overwhelming. So far, so obvious.

More controversial is his theory that autism is an example of the “extreme male brain.” He might well be correct, and he makes a reasonably persuasive case, but it is a speculative thesis nonetheless, and open to debate.

I have two minor quibbles. Baron Cohen goes out of his way to make it clear that he is talking about averages, and stresses that there are many men who are great empathisers, and many women who are great systemisers. At the end of the book Baron Cohen even goes as far as to say that he would “weep with disappointment if a reader took home from this book the message that ‘all men have lower empathy’ or ‘all women have lower systemising skills’. I wouldn’t blame him, given how often he couches his arguments with endless qualifications. These repeated caveats are perhaps necessary given some people’s wilful tendencies to misconstrue his arguments, but they are tiresome nevertheless.

My other criticism: throughout the book he irritatingly describes his argument as a “journey.” So often does he refer to this “journey” that by the end of the book I was beginning to feel a bit travel sick.

[Richard Block · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Science Behind the Bleeding Obvious

Simon Baron Cohen - yes, the cousin of the famous comedian, is a world leading scientist and expert on autism. This 2003 book is an attempt to show what science knows is the essential difference between the sexes- and in this it succeeds admirably. It's central point is that men, on average, are better at systematising, and women, at empathising. Talk about the bleeding obvious. Of course all of this is delivered through clenched teeth so as not to offend feminists.

He goes as far as he can, and it is far, but by no means far enough. Feminism has created a political correctness so self censoring of opinion, especially male scientific opinion, that to say this book walks on eggshells is an understatement. It is clear that culture and environment play a very minor role in these matters and that hormones, genetics and evolution play the leading role in shaping these differences. SBC offers dozens of studies as proofs, constantly cringing with apology so much that you wonder why he wrote the book, until you come to the end. When he posits autism as the extreme male brain, the punchline is delivered. Male brains not only are systematic and lack empathy, but the worst of them produces the freakish excess of autism. As a father of an AS boy, his conclusion is both obvious and hurtful. The terrible truth about sex differences is laid bare by the extreme male brain, as evident in autism, a condition that affects men by a 10 to 1 margin (now it is thought to be 5 to 1 - same difference).

It is an excellent science book, full of facts and ideas, all slightly couched in apology. I wonder what he might have gone on to say without the thought police looking over his shoulder.

[koiboy · Rating 2 out of 5]

In short, this book spent a lot of time categorizing brain types and then repeating the characteristics of them. The author seemed to go on and on at some points that made me skim clusters of pages because I had already read the same thing, rephrased, a few pages or chapters back.

Sometimes I read a book like this and it makes me see the world differently—in a good way (I'm thinking of Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish). But The Essential Difference made me see people as black or white in terms of their brain type ("male brain" or "female brain"), though the author has even stated that a person can be anywhere on the spectrum. However the entirety of the book seems to be about rigidly distinguishing the two types and I can't seem to shake that off.

I did however enjoy the last chapters about Asperger Syndrome and autism. I think I learned more in those two chapters than the rest of the book, because the rest was just a lot of common knowledge said over and over again.

I would not recommend this book to others.

[Sarabeth Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

As much as I tried to be open-minded about this book it just crosses over from scientific evidence to generalizations and sexist claims. Most of Baren-Cohen's arguments are citing a study that you'd need to look up to read more about.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sasha's cousin makes suspect claims about autism and far more suspect claims about the neural foundations of sex differences.

[Edoardo Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Judging by some of the other reviews on Good Reads, The Essential Difference is in danger of falling victim to today’s fraught sexual politics. This is both unfair and deeply unjust to autistic people – Baron-Cohen’s first and continuing main research interest is autism.

Some background. Baron-Cohen conducted the seminal experiment on autism where he and his researchers presented to groups of children, some autistic, some neurotypical and some with Down’s syndrome, two dolls. One of the dolls then picked up an object and hid it under a cup. That doll was then taken from the room and the other doll lifted the cup, took out the object and hid it under a different cup. The first doll was then brought back and the children were asked which cup the doll would look to find the object. The neurotypical and Down’s syndrome children said the cup under which that doll had first hidden the object. The autistic children selected the second cup.

This was one of the first major clues as to the nature of autism, and Baron-Cohen has continued to investigate the condition ever since. He developed a theory that autism is a result of what he calls the extreme male brain, and adduces evidence for this in his book. Of course, for that theory to hold, there have to be differences between male and female brains, and much of the book is concerned with demonstrating that. Which is where Baron-Cohen, a Guardian-reading liberal if ever there was one, has found himself unwittingly on the receiving end of angry feminist attacks. For among some strands of feminist thinking it is an article of faith that there are no inherent differences between male and female brains: it’s all environment and upbringing, a neurological blank slate on which a sexist culture writes boys and girls in shades of blue and pink.

You know what? That’s rubbish. If you want complete gender parity, then let’s even out autism. Let’s have just as many girls as boys remaining completely non-verbal, unreachable, sealed into their own wordless world. Let’s have some girls so acutely sensitive to sensory overstimulation that they have to wear boxing gloves all the time to stop them poking their own eyes out (the family that had to do this forgot one time: their boy gouged his own eyes out). Is that the sort of equality feminists want? As the father of two autistic boys, I’d be happy to share.

And yes, yes, I know that girls are probably under dignosed with autism. But really, it’s not that hard to spot the most acute forms: watch for the boy jumping up and down with headphones on and who can’t speak. Among these most severe cases, boys outnumber girls by 10 or more to one. So let’s have some equality there.

As to whether Baron-Cohen’s extreme male brain hypothesis holds true, that requires further work. It answers well to two of the three main diagnostic criteria for autism – social communication difficulties and behavioural inflexibility – but has less to say about sensory sensitivity. But for parents who are trying to stop their children hurting themselves really don’t need to be conscripted into the feminist war against the patriarchy. We’ve got enough problems to deal with – and Baron-Cohen has been on our side for many years in this struggle.

[Corvus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Baron-Cohen justifies ableism, transphobia, discrimination against various sexualities, misogyny, and other things with cherry picked biological deterministic "science" in a variety of his books. Also apparently I don't exist because I have very high empathy but a "male" brain in many other ways and rather than dismantling this binary, he upholds it to fit his theories.

[Ishmaelax · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pseudoscience that is outright offensive to male-to-female transsexuals with autism spectrum conditions.

[Scarlet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute bullshit

[Elle · Rating 1 out of 5]

skimmed it with trepidation and was exactly as I thought. this book is so disgusting, so damaging that I don't even want to give this away to a charity shop or to another human being to read. It's not worth reading even to pick apart. this book is bad news, and needs to go back into the recycling where it belongs.

I don't like to rate books I haven't read, but I think it's very clear that this deserves one star. Written by a certain mr cambridge scholar im-white-cis-straight-and know everything type, this book has potential to create chaos. examples from the snippets I skimmed through:

-sweeping statements that aren't backed up: "boys are more likely to be autistic" (NOT necessarily true, girls are grossly underdiagnosed and their symptoms often show differently) if you're an expert in autism then the system needs a reboot.

-Cis trash statements: "if I met you on the street I would straight away know if you were a boy or a girl". DO I EVEN NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS? 1) this statement (and book tbh) binarises gender, and doesn't even account for cultural differences in gender identity. (some countries have like 5 official gender identities!!) 2) even If I had hair to the floor, was wearing a pink dress and didn't have a low voice, there is NO way of knowing for certain if I was a girl, boy or whatever. You would not know my genitals, my thoughts, or my life story.

- INTERSEX PEOPLE EXIST. also just a point. you know, a biological point. a point of science. which I don't believe is discussed.

- main point of the book: women are more emotive than men. cool theory bro, shame its hard to prove scientifically when our culture is CONSTANTLY pushing women to be nursing, baby loving homemakers and men stoic, strong protectors. thank you for considering this argument as being a possible explanation for your well backed up theory. (it isn't.)

- its badly written. the writing style seemed a bit shit.

IN SUMMARY : this book isn't worth anyone's time, even for criticism use as it doesn't even provide decent evidence. if after all of this, you still want to read this, then I advise you take a course in gender somewhere. have fun opening your brain.

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

chauvinistic bullshit. the author is completely biased and is laughably self contradictory. e.g. he claims that men have higher SAT math scores as proof that men have systematizing ability, then in the same paragraph, says that the fact that women have higher high school math scores don't count because the tests weren't mathematical enough.. what??

ok, look at the list he has for advantages for the "male brain" vs "female" brain
male brains are good for "trading, power / leadership, social dominance, expertise..." and the female brain for "making friends, mothering, gossip (wtf), reading your partner (wtf???)" is he even trying to be even handed here? Open any research on leadership and strong empathy is shown to be important. Leadership involves building trust and group dynamics, the ability to get things done which involves motivating a large group etc.

the author also uses the example of the low ratio of female Nobel prize winners as proof that men are more "systematic", conveniently ignoring the history of vastly unequal educational opportunities for men and for women up until very recent times.

the author then goes on to cite a bunch of famous scientists and goes on and on about their "male brain", einstein, newton... for the "female brain" part, he talks about people with williams syndrome, and not a single example for a person. maybe he does realize that so far the description of the "female brain" has been very denigrating. I hope he also realizes this is a reflection that his whole premise is bullshit.

the very fact that he choose the name "male brain" for systematizing demonstrates the author's latent intent which is to push gender stereotypes. This gendered naming is gratuitous, he could have just used "systematizing" brain.

Fundamentally, the false dichotomy of systematizing vs empathizing is something the author pulled out of his ass, it's not clear that these are the two fundamental traits of human brains, or if there are two at all.

This is fake science at its worst.

[PolicemanPrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the hypothesis that the male brain is geared towards systemising, and the female brain is geared towards empathising. There does seem to be good evidence in support of that idea, and it’s something that I imagine many people (if they are being honest) have noticed. It describes how the difference may have developed from an evolutionary standpoint. There is evidence that it has a partial biological basis, and limited evidence that it appears in animals.

This book seems to have angered a lot of people because it deals with modern tribal issues; in this case, sex/gender differences. This book was published in 2003, at a time when the social justice movement wasn’t quite at the forefront. It is sad that science is tainted like that, but it is what it is. There is a bizarre drive to downplay differences between men and women. Many of the reviews attacking this book don't seem to have very concrete and substantive objections.

The writing in this book may trigger some people. Some might feel that the subject isn't approached in an 'empathetic' way. For example, it says things like testosterone being a "special substance", "men demonstrate superior skills ...", and so on. It even has this gem of a passage, which some may regard as 'rapey':

In this example, I have systemized a women's fertility, in others words, I have treated it as a system that is lawful. The input is the woman's ovaries, the operation is the increase in a woman's age, and the output is a woman's risk of miscarriage.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book outlines the evidence that there is an innate neurological disposition between men and women that predisposes women to have an empathetic brain and men to have a systematizing brain.

Baron-Cohen does a good job of laying out evidence for his contention that there is a biological difference in men's and women's brains which produces different strengths and weaknesses. However, there are several weaknesses in his argument that he doesn't adequately address. One of my biggest issues is in calling the systematizing approach the male brain and empathizing approach the female brain just because they each occur somewhat more often in one sex than the other. His own graphs show a lot of overlap! He includes quizzes at the back of the book to determine if you have the systematizing or empathizing brain. The quizzes were entertaining, but it was hard for me to see how they really measured anything real. Does asking someone to answer a question like "I am good at predicting how someone will feel" measure someone's empathy? Or does it measure how empathetic they think they are or want to see or believe they as women should be?

He doesn't discuss the sociological pressures that push males to reject empathy in favor of systematizing and females to do the opposite. Even if his contention is true that there are innate neurological differences, how big would those differences truly be without cultural forces reinforcing them every day in every way?

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are those that would like the male and female brains to be more or less indistinguishable - why Simon Baron-Cohen in the introduction points to the controversy in writing this book - but I am glad he wrote it and presents his theory - that is, in its essence a very correct sounding one. He is an expert and mostly all he says sounds true by own experience - and even if you know some who do not fit, the evidence here goes on the general average and have lots of exceptions. An exception does not disprove the average. So, this book shows a good argument for the general way the male brain and female one function - by dividing the characteristics into systemizing and empathizing. This may be an over-abstraction because those words are full of specifics and generalizations - but it has to be abstracted this way in order not to make the case over complicated. Yes, the book still gets a bit dry - but all in all it seems true and well researched.

[Sarah Batista · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a horrible conglomeration of pseudoscience to justify the author's sexism and spread blatant misinformation about autism and how it comes about.

"Male brains are ideally suited for leadership and power... Girls and women are so focused on others that they have little interest in figuring out how the world works."
I-- ok. Ok no. Women are very interested in how the world works and you're a raging sexist that thinks men are somehow biologically smarter (which has been disproved time and time again) and that a woman shouldn't be president.
Much of his data could not be replicated and was to begin with lacking in controls and crowded with confirmation bias. This man is a sad excuse for a scientist.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book, setting aside the angry feminist inside, to learn something new. I started reading and found the writing so infuriatingly poor that it took some serious legwork to learn anything new (about a sentence per two pages). His theory is presented as fact, and I think his entire research repetoire is comprised of his two kids, rather than exemplified by them. The book seems to be a weakly backed amalgam of vague stereotypes about gender-then I look on the front page, and its published in 2004. God forbid this man's scribblings were actually influential. I only finished it so that it could count towards my reading goal for 2020, but honestly I'm ashamed to have it on any list. A boring and fruitless read.

[Joshua Borycz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. A lot of 1 star reviews here from intellectually biased people content to ignore the evidence from the hundreds of studies cited in this book. The findings reported here are not at all controversial amongst the professionals that study these issues or the 99% of the world that sees and takes note of these differences every single day. A select few highly educated humanities majors with too much power are forcing the ideology of the blank slate down the world's throat because they don't understand basic statistics and are overly emotional. Don't let them win. Be strong, be curious, be empirical.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on the topic of gender differences. Only if you believe that we don't born as a blank slate.

[Delaney Drewes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty solid book. I was definitely interested in the sex differences through a social lens, which I could’ve assumed because I love behavior. The autism part was definitely cool and agreeable to some degree, and I’d never heard autism explained in that manner, but my brother (my closest understanding of autism) does not fall into a lot of the points in this book, not that that really matters. Anyways good book and my first nonfiction book which I’m proud of. Not super crazy about it but I do love reading the classic research ways of writing. Took me back to my past days in a research lab