Daphna Joel

Since 2003, Joel has served as the head of the psychobiology department at Tel Aviv University, and in 2013 was appointed chair of the PhD committee of the School of Psychological Sciences.

Academic career

Joel began her academic career during her compulsory military service, in the Talpiot program, which she left after a year and a half. After completing her military service, Joel enrolled in the Tel Aviv University program for outstanding students. She completed a bachelor's degree in medical science, followed by a doctorate in psychobiology (1998), which focused on how connections in the brain are organized. She then joined the faculty of neuroscience, after receiving an Alon fellowship for young Israeli scientists. Her main area of research for 15 years was the cerebral mechanisms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

One of the main questions in Joel's research is whether there is a "male brain" and a "female brain"; whether human brains can be divided in a binary way, as is generally done with human genitals. According to Joel's research, the answer is "no".

One of the most important studies on which Joel's theory is based was done by pharmacologist Margaret McCarthy from the University of Maryland. McCarthy found that characteristics in male and female animal brains can cause changes in their shapes as a result of external circumstances such as stress. Joel concluded from the results of this study and other studies she examined that if under pressure certain areas of the brain can turn from their typical "female form" to the typical "male form" – there is no point in talking about a female brain and a male brain, and that this division is meaningless.

According to Joel, the brain has no sex, and the differences between "female" and "male" brains, though they exist, are minor and unrelated to each other. She was the first to talk about correlation in the context of the brain: a particular area of the brain, such as a large amygdala, does not predict anything about a different part of the brain, say, a small hippocampus. Although there are differences in the brain between males and females, they are not organized. Thus, if a "male" characteristic is found in a particular area, it does not actually mean anything about the masculinity or femininity of the other brain characteristics, which are determined by the complex interactions between sex, genetics and the environment.

Joel's conclusions have been challenged by others in the field of neuroscience, and she met with obstacles getting her first study on the subject published in 2011: Male or Female? Brains are Intersex.

Joel is a member of The NeuroGenderings Network and has advocated in the media for a less gender essentialist approach to neuroscience.