Leading Neuroscientist Gina Rippon made plenty of headlines this week for debunking the myth that female and male brains are different.

Gina delivered a thought-provoking speech in Swansea as part of the British Science Festival last week. Gina’s research comes at a time when gender issues are highly topical subject matter. Her ground-breaking work is smashing traditional ideas of gendered brains and causing a lot of hot debate! We’re thrilled to see Gina being more widely recognised as the expert voice in this important area.

Cited in a recent article in The Guardian, Gina called out the Science Museum for their pink vs. blue brains test along with other prominent neuroscientists, stating, “The stereotyped view of a ‘hard-wired’ link between sex and gender is wrong and potentially harmful as it implies that this is somehow the ‘natural order of things’.”

Meanwhile in the Irish News, Gina’s asserts that any differences between male and female brains are based on environmental factors and how almost all human brain tests are skewed from the start because gender is always incorporated. Gina’s research is proving that there are differences between individual brains but they are not because of gender.”There is no one aspect of the brain even which if a scientist looked at it they could tell whether it came from a man or a woman.” said Gina, in a story that was also picked up by ITV news.

Writing for The Telegraph, Charlotte Lytton praised Gina’s bold insights and straight talking, “Traditional beliefs that ladies are hardwired to juggle several things at once are a total “myth,” according to Professor Gina Rippon from Aston University, and if they do appear to have a certain aptitude for it, this has arisen from societal expectations and not biology.”

Lastly, Gina’s criticism of the ‘neurotrash’ industry and its determination to keep gender myths alive in brain research shows how well her words resonated and piqued lively discussion.

About Gina Rippon:

Gina Rippon is a world expert on brain-imaging techniques, and Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Aston University, Birmingham UK. With a background in psychology and physiology, she uses state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques to investigate the links between individual differences in brain activity and individual differences in behaviour. Book Gina Rippon to speak at your next event or conference.

“Gina’s ground-breaking work is an important corrective to the damaging myths that have arisen around the way human brains work. In showing that bad science perpetuates negative gender stereotypes, she opens up a dialogue on the practical steps organisations and society as a whole can take to address gender inequality.”

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