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than do females.’

      The good professor points out here – as indeed he does throughout the book – that he does not mean ‘all males’ or ‘all females’: he is talking about statistical averages. I contend that success in senior positions in major organisations requires strong systemising skills, not strong empathising skills: so without positive discrimination for women we shall never have gender balance in the boardroom. Gender balance in the boardroom is not of the slightest interest to the vast majority of women; it is of interest only to feminists, an assortment of people – almost all women – driven by left-wing ideology. David Cameron, the current British prime minister, is a feminist despite being the leader of the Conservative party. What times we live in.

      Baron-Cohen writes about the advantages of systemising brains to human males early in the species’ evolution, which fell under the categories of using and making tools, hunting and tracking, trading, attaining and exercising power, developing expertise, tolerating solitude, being aggressive, and being leaders. The advantages of empathising brains to early females are explored under the categories of making friends, mothering, gossiping, being socially mobile, and reading partners’ intentions. Systemising brains are increasingly advantageous to individuals as they climb the hierarchy of major organisations, and this on its own would largely account for the enduring preponderance of men in senior positions.

      Questionnaires for self-assessment of empathising and systemising natures are provided in The Essential Difference.

      There’s a large and growing body of evidence supporting Baron-Cohen’s theory that people exhibiting the condition of autism – a spectrum of disorders which includes Asperger Syndrome – have ‘extreme male brains’. On average, compared to both men and women on average, they are markedly less empathising, and markedly more systemising. Baron-Cohen points out that these people can lead productive lives if their work plays to their strengths rather than their weaknesses. Some autistic men are found in the top levels of IT companies, for example. Studies of identical and non-identical twins strongly suggest that autism is heritable. In people diagnosed with high-functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome, the sex ratio is at least ten males to every female.

      Baron-Cohen puts a figure of 2.5 per cent on the proportion of the population born with an extreme male brain, but what about the extreme female brain, which theory predicts should be as common? He continues:

      ‘All scientists know about the extreme female brain is that it is expected to arise… Scientists have never got up close to these individuals. It is a bit like positing the existence of a new animal on theoretical grounds, and then setting out to discover if it is really found in nature…

      People with the extreme female brain would have average or significantly better empathising ability than that of other people in the general population, but their systemising would be impaired. So these would be people who have difficulty understanding maths or physics or machines or chemistry, as systems. But they could be extremely accurate at tuning in to others’ feelings and thoughts.

      Would such a profile carry any necessary disability? Hyper-empathising could be a great asset, and poor systemising may not be too crippling. It is possible that the extreme female brain is not seen in clinics because it is not maladaptive…

      A contender for who might have the extreme female brain would be a wonderfully caring person who can rapidly make you feel fully understood. For example, an endlessly patient psychotherapist who is excellent at rapidly tuning in to your feelings and your situation, who not only says he or she feels a great sadness at your sadness or great pleasure at your pleasure but also actually experiences those emotions as vividly as if your feelings were theirs.

      However, the contender for the extreme female brain would also need to be someone who was virtually technically disabled. Someone for whom maths, computers, or political schisms, or DIY, held no interest. Indeed, someone who found activities requiring systemising hard to follow. We may all know people like this, but it is likely that they do not find their way into clinics, except perhaps as staff in the caring professions.’

      I have a strong suspicion that many feminists have extreme female brains, although arguably the more ‘masculine’ and assertive feminists may have male brains. The former group have a highly developed sense of empathy, at least towards those of their own gender, and perceive injustice towards women wherever they look. If feminists do have extreme female brains they would also have poor systemising abilities, so they couldn’t be expected to understand evidence which conflicts with their views – in extreme female brains, emotion will always triumph over reason – even if they were willing to try. This might explain why they reject outright the notion of gender-patterned brains, and become emotional when the topic is raised.

      Feminists are among those unfortunate souls genetically predisposed to hold Left-wing views, which isn’t a great starting position in the lottery of life, is it? An article in The Daily Telegraph of 29 October 2010, ‘Feeling liberal? It’s in your genes’:

      ‘Holding liberal views could be in the blood, scientists said after identifying a gene that makes someone more open-minded. The ‘liberal gene’ opens up a person to new ideas and alternative ways of living and could influence their belief in Left-wing politics, according to the research. It may mean that liberals are born, not made, although the effect is exacerbated if an individual has many friends during their formative years.

      The ‘liberal gene’ is a transmitter in the brain called DRD4 which is connected to dopamine, known as the reward currency. Dopamine affects the way the brain experiences emotions, pleasures and pain and can therefore influence personality traits.

      When adolescents with the gene are also socially outgoing with many friends, they seek and receive other people’s points of view, which triggers a pleasurable ‘reward’ of dopamine. This suggests that, as adults, they will be more open-minded and tend to form less conventional political viewpoints, the study said.

      Published in the Journal of Politics, the research by scientists from the University of California and Harvard studied 2,000 Americans. It found those with a strain of the DRD4 gene seek out ‘novelty’, such as people and ways of living different from the ones they are used to. This leads them to have more politically liberal opinions, it found. The person’s age, ethnicity, gender or culture appeared to make no difference – it was the genes that counted.

      Prof James Fowler, who led the research, said: ‘It is the critical interaction of two factors – the genetic predisposition and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence – that is associated with being more liberal. These findings suggest that political affiliation is not based solely on the kind of social environment people experience.’ ’

      The paper’s editorial on the same day contained a piece titled, ‘Lifetime cure for Lefties’:

      ‘Scientists have given mankind many blessings, but the discovery of the gene for Left-wing behaviour must be foremost among them. For now there is a diagnosis, there can be a cure. Just think of it – a quick screening of the unborn infant, a mild course of gene therapy, and hey presto! The disease can be eradicated within a generation.

      Perhaps we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. But even if science falls short of an outright cure, it should still be possible to ameliorate the symptoms. The gene does not automatically make the carrier a Lefty; rather, it triggers the adolescent brain’s reward mechanism in the presence of novel experiences and viewpoints. The treatment is simple: lock teenage sufferers in a drab room, furnished with the works of Hayek and Friedman. True, their social skills will be somewhat stunted. But the benefits will last a lifetime.’

      Canadian-American Steven Pinker is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of a number of acclaimed books including The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002). He starts the book with the following passage on ‘The Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine’:

      ‘Everyone has a theory of human nature. Everyone has to anticipate the behavior of others, and that means we all need theories about what makes people tick. A tacit theory of human nature – that behavior is caused by thoughts and feelings – is embedded in the

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