Gender Differences In Research

There is a widespread belief among scientists that they have been successful at objectively forming scientific theories, but upon further inspection it is clear to see that may scientists incorporate gendered biases into their findings. There is an entire scientific field dedicated to determining what biologically separates males and females, and what behaviorally separates men and women, generally focused on defining which group is superior. This type of science restricts findings to a binary category, forcing certain findings into categories they most likely do not actually fit neatly into. In a similar fashion, many of these theories often disregard external factors, attributing sex, gender, and sexuality differences to biological causes …show more content…
There have been many publications of various studies intending to highlight how males and females differ in terms of linguistic variation, behavioral facets of their daily lives, as well as neuropsychological differences in structures and functions. For Deborah Cameron, these scientific findings are far from convincing, especially because of the presence of contradictory theories and minimal empirical data to support them. Cameron (2010:526) briefly mentioned a 2006 study that claimed women spoke significantly more words on a daily basis compared to men, but it turned out to have false data and no real support at all for this claim. Often times, findings and data are altered via simplification for audiences to have a better understanding of the study. However, these alterations can lead to complete changes in the significance of the data that gets reported. In fact, when a similar study was actually run to test the words spoken theory, researchers found no significance differences between men and women (Cameron 2010:526). Throughout their article, Cameron discusses similar events where researchers alter their findings to support believed gender stereotypes thus contributing to the reinforcement of biases and inequality. Cameron also touched on the concept of “’the new biologism’ – a resurgence in both expert and popular discourse of the idea that the behavior and relations of men and women should be understood as expressions of ‘deeper,’ biologically-based differences” (2010:528). This idea comes in and out of the scientific spotlight and publications at different moments in time, particularly when various aspects of life seem to be becoming more equal. For new biologism, the main message is that men and women are just different so stop trying to make changes and just accept it. While there are obvious differences between men and women, new