Much like that right brain/left brain myth (no, it's not a thing), people still cling to the idea that there's something inherently different between male brains and female brains.
Now, science can prove that men and women are not, in fact, wired differently.
A new research paper published in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences has shown that the vast majority of brains are made up of a collection of traits considered to be more commonly found in male and female brains.
"Our study demonstrates that, although there are sex/gender differences in the brain, human brains do not belong to one of two distinct categories: male brain/female brain," the researchers wrote.
Generally, all brains have a mix of so-called "female" and "male" traits (which just means that they are more commonly found in that gender) and only hold very slight gender differences overall.
“Rather, even when considering only the small group of brain features that show the largest sex/gender differences, each brain is a unique mosaic of features, some of which may be more common in females compared with males, others may be more common in males compared with females, and still others may be common in both females and males," the study examiners explained.
Researchers conducted the study with 1,400 magnetic resonance images (MRI) of different human brains, focusing on what was commonly thought to be key gender differentiating regions. To their surprise, less than seven percent of these brains were internally consistent with male or female characteristics, which means that more than 90 per cent of the examined brains showed variations of male and female traits, like a mosaic.
This evidence suggests that brains, much like people, do not fit into one gender binary.
"The idea of a unified 'masculine' or 'feminine' personality turns out not to describe real people," said Rebecca Jordan-Young, a professor of women's gender and sexuality studies at Barnard College in New York and author of Brain Storm: The Flaws In The Science Of Sex Difference.
"It describes stereotypes to which we constantly compare ourselves and each other, but more people are 'gender non-conforming' than we generally realize," she told Live Science.
So the next time someone references the way men and women are naturally wired, you can cite this study and tell them it's all in their head.
Previously published at W Dish.
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