You can make claims based upon research. That's how it works.
There indeed probably is a sociological difference, but that doesn't make it any less real. Biological development often works in tandem with sociological gendering. It might be the case that women actually retain a better capacity for colour differentiation due to a societal need to do so. When you grow up as a girl, with an emphasis on beauty, colour differentiation becomes a more central task.
This would also fit with some evolutionary psychological theories that state males are biologically inclined to be more rash and hardline in their perception of all things due to a need to make critical, split-second decisions on safety.
It would also be congruent with other findings about the senses and nervous system in women, such as them retaining more of their cerebral cortex density post-puberty than men do (trans women retain more, as well).
In reality though, different neural presentations occur throughout both sexes. There are some that are found primarily in one sex, though, such as the neural presentations that seems to correlate with possessing ASD (mostly evidenced in males).
Yes, this is the more complex and nuanced nature I was talking about. I was just sceptical of the idea that it’s due to cone density and that this also applies to all trans women.
I’m trans too, but everything gets complicated when it comes to the brain. Sex is a social construct(a useful one, but still a social construct) just like gender, so it’s not all clear cut on “this neurobiological thing happens in cis women so therefore it must happen in trans women)
Gender is a social construct. Sex is not. A lack of properly studying and taking into account the differences between female and male biology has resulted a lot of preventable injuries due to safety measures being made for female-shaped males instead of females and illnesses being written off as “menstrual issues.”
Sex is a social construct in the same way that classification of species is a social construct. It is a loose collection of traits grouped in boxes we colloquially refer to as male or female. It is a very useful social construct, yes. It is extremely important to be able to classify these traits effectively in order to ensure the best treatment. But in the end, it is a trait only we as a society prescribe to individuals, not a fundamental aspect of the universe.
This exactly. We group a lot of shit into the “female sex” and “male sex” boxes that are either entirely environmental and thus extremely mutable and individual or just outright false. For a prime example of both, see the ways pain is handled in male-socialized/male-presenting patients vs female-socialized/female-presenting patients.
You get the social aspect that teaches each gender that they should ignore pain under different circumstances, and then supposedly evidence-based but often subconsciously cherry-picked medical praxis about pain tolerance that collapses utterly as soon as you try to find any physiological explanation. Or apply the tiniest shred of empathy without layering it in sexism (the big one here is assuming that labor pain can be compared one-to-one to other pain. In reality, the hormones associated with labor have major effects on how the pain is experienced and later recalled, making the comparison even less useful than other pain comparisons, which are pretty useless to begin with.)
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u/Shadowgirl_skye Aug 10 '25
Sorry I really gotta doubt the validity of this research. We’re getting far too close to gender medacimism with these kind of claims.
Just looking at the abstract of the top google search result reveals it doesn’t seem to account for sociological differences.
Looking at some other studies suggests differences only in some colour ranges.
The reality is this is far to complex to be making these types of claims