Neurofeminism

Psychologist Cordelia Fine coined the term neurosexism to describe contemporary sex difference research in neuroscience and psychology. According to Fine (2008), neurosexism “cloaks old-fashioned sexism in the respectable and authoritative language of neuroscience” (p. 69). Feminist criticisms of this research can therefore be described as neurofeminism; just as feminism as a social movement arose in response to sexism, and attempts to identify and overcome sexist beliefs and practices, neurofeminism can be understood as [Page 1240]providing a similar antidote to neurosexist research. Neurofeminist work includes both critical work that examines neuroscience research and also empirical neuroscience research that challenges the underlying assumptions of sexist research and/or offers an explicitly feminist alternative.