His experiment may be flawed (and I definitely believe it is), but I still think the theory has merit, and deserves further investigation. And the fact that either sex is just as capable of learning a technical skill is proof only of intellectual equality, not necessarily of inherent male or female tendencies. Inclinations toward emotional or systemic modes of thinking don't necessarily define overall intellectual capability.
But there's no evidence that 'emotional' and 'systemic' are even dichotomous. How is a preclusion to read and understand human emotions and feelings at odds with and mutually exclusive to a preclusion to think in abstract systems? Sure, you can present 'opinions' that certain people seem more rational and certain people seem more emotionally savvy, but I know a lot of people who are both and a lot of people who are actually neither good at understanding systems nor feelings.
Personally, I have no problem understanding complex systems: I'm an honours math student with a high GPA, but I also consider myself to be a sensitive and understanding person. Many of the smartest people I know are also the most emotionally sensitive, and if anything I'd be more likely to point out a correlation, rather than an exclusivity between the 'emotional' and 'systemic' thinking. I understand that my personal observation does not constitute a scientific theory, but if a scientific theory is flatly contradicted by my personal observation I would expect a verifiable reason why this is so. If shit starts falling up instead of down, it will be time to take a very hard look at this 'gravity' business.
As a scientific theory, you're asking me to accept (or even just entertain, I suppose) the idea that a vague and nondescript dichotomy between brain types which cannot even be demonstrated to exist may apply in different proportions to the different sexes when it is flatly contradicted by observable evidence. I'm not being an egalitarian zealot here: what you're saying is genuinely about as reasonable as asking me to entertain the theory that maybe unicorns are real.
Not to mention there is an abundance of scientific observation noting distinct differences in brain activity between males and females that indirectly supports the theory, and is available for peer review.
So yes, socially speaking there is equality between the sexes. But on a biological level, to say the brains of men and women are wired the same is a mistake.
The criticism of many observed FMRI differences between men and women is that there is insufficient context to judge whether these are truly 'biologically hardwired' or simply developmental. Statistically, we have reams and reams of evidence about performance and preference which fit very well with a model based on development and socialization but are simply not explained by the idea that men and women are hardwired with these different preferences and skills. In fact, we have historical and cross-cultural evidence that flatly contradicts many of our presuppositions on masculine and feminine identities which are, to an enormous extent, quite clearly based on our modern social concepts.
It is obviously false to say that there are
absolutely no differences in male and female physiology or brain chemistry: women have separate hormonal responses relating to child-birth and child-rearing which are not present in men, for one. On the other hand, it is then very easy to take something which is of an ambiguous origin and chalk it up to being "just how men/women are". There's no evidence that men are more rational and women are more emotional given equal opportunity for education and equal socialization. I can't see most of this as anything other than an untenable extension of bad science used to justify an irrationally discriminatory world view.
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