Given the discussions in the motorsport press this year about women's mental capacity affecting their ability to race, I sought out the opinion of Prof. Daphna Joel, a neuroscientist and expert in the relations between brain, sex and gender.
Dr Joel is Head of Psychobiology at Tel Aviv University’s School of Psychological Sciences, and a researcher at the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. I asked her questions based on the opinions of Bernie Ecclestone, Max Verstappen, and several other motorsport personalities who have offered their view on women racers. I also put the question to twitter and Facebook – if you could ask a brain gender expert one question about women in motorsport, what would it be? – And included some of the questions I received.
Prof. Joel is an advocate of the mosaic model of brain and gender. This view on the relations between sex and brain is based on a growing body of evidence gathered from over twenty years' worth of data.
These data demonstrate that the effects of sex on the brain may be different under different environmental conditions (e.g., different levels of stress). That is, what is typical in one sex under some conditions may be typical in the other sex under other conditions.
The hypothesis holds that the result of these complex interactions between sex and other environmental and genetic factors is brains, each comprised of a unique mosaic of features, some more prevalent in females, others more prevalent in males, and still others prevalent in both males and females.
This is also true of gender, that is, of the behavioral and psychological characteristics in which sex/gender differences are oe-Racing:erved (e.g., cognitive and emotional abilities, personality characteristics, preferences, attitudes, etc.). Some of these characteristics show sex/gender differences, but these differences are mostly small and non-dimorphic (that is, with extensive overlap between females and males). Moreover, each person possesses a unique mosaic of gender characteristics, some feminine and some masculine.
However, the brain and gender mosaic hypothesis remains controversial. The general public and popular press generally take findings of gender differences as evidence that men and women belong to two distinct categories.
SEX & THE RACING BRAIN