SUSAN writes:

Doreen Kimura, aged 80, died on Feb. 27 of this year in Vancouver. There hasn’t been much in the media about the passing of this brilliant, politically incorrect neuropsychologist. Here’s a link to one of the obituaries I found from the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science.

Kimura’s Scientific American article, “Sex Differences in the Brain” (Sept. 1992), was a real classic. In 1992, she also helped found and headed the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.

Of particular interest is the following passage from the Canadian obituary: “[Studies of damaged brains] led Doreen to the view that men’s and women’s brains may be structurally organized somewhat differently, a radical view in the feminist climate of the late twentieth century. In the later years of her career, Doreen was a spokesperson for the view that sex differences might exist, and had a right to be studied by researchers, despite the controversy that surrounds differences between the sexes. Her views on sex differences in brain organization and sex differences more generally were described in her book, Sex and Cognition (MIT Press, 1999).”

I always wondered from her last name whether she might be of Japanese ancestry, but apparently not, to judge from her photos and the account of her early life in Saskatchewan. The obituaries I’ve seen mention only a daughter and granddaughter–nothing about a husband–so I’m assuming she was divorced. (As we’ve noted on your blog, former spouses go down the memory hole when it comes to obituaries these days.) Perhaps, like the writer Erica Jong, she took her professional name from a long-gone Oriental spouse?

— Comments —

Jay from Goshen writes:

It is impossible to convince some people with rational argument. A good example of irrationality is captured by the exchange, here.

I’ve given up on convincing anyone of the biological roots of sex differences. You either get it or you don’t. You might as well argue with people about gravity.

Now, those of us who do get it, can have legitimate differences of opinion after the fact as to how society should deal with these differences. But to deny them outright is either willful ignorance or outright insanity.

I believe that denying sex differences is equivalent to jumping out a ten-story window and expecting the laws of gravity to be suspended. Which is what we are doing now, as a society.

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

It looks like Kimura was married to a Case Vanderwolf.

Her daughter Charlotte Thistle (her daughter added the middle name “Thistle”), is described as nee Vanderwolf. Here is information on her.

I looked up Vanderwolf through several ways, and I found this PDF file: Psychology’s Feminist Voices Oral History Project: Interview with Mary J. Wright:

But as chairman of the department, while I did not call myself a feminist, I was working very hard to deal with nepotism. I wanted to hire couples, married couples, and Case and Doreen Vanderwolf were married and I hired Doreen. I couldn’t hire them both for a couple more years (2 to 3 years) but I broke those nepotism rules…

This is the best I can come up with on what Case Vanderwolf looks like. More on Vanderwolf here.

So, Doreen looks like she was married twice, at least. Her first husband sounds like he has Dutch heritage. His photos show dark hair with whitish streaks of “grey” hair. Here‘s another photo (black and white image – click on the photo to enlarge it), but his non-grey hair is not blond.

Anyway, he looks to be the father of Charlotte Thistle.

Now, Charlotte Thistle doesn’t apparently have Japanese background, but she is darker, and the product of a first family.

She married a blonde-haired, blue-eyed man (scroll down here). She had their baby daughter before she married him. She is involved in a new-agey dance troupe, and sings (and dresses) in a folksy/hippy kind of style (here are some tracks).

I wonder how her mother felt about this? And if it didn’t really matter to her? Some academics are good at intellectualizing (especially if the data are “true” and they are real scientists), but have a hard time extrapolating that knowledge into real life.

May 13, 2016

Charlotte Thistle writes:

I found and enjoyed your thread about my parents, Case Vanderwolf and Doreen Kimura.

I thought I’d help you by filling in some of the details you were missing.

My mother’s first husband was Doug Kimura. When they divorced, she kept her married name because she preferred it over her maiden name which had been Hogg. She later married my father, had me, and when they later divorced, she reverted back to Kimura.

She told me a funny anecdote about when she was in university taking a class in Russian language. On the first day of class, the professor said to her, “Ah, Mizz Kimooora … is first time Japanese lady take my class!” She was sitting in the front row (and very obviously not of Japanese descent!) Our ancestors were German and Ukranian.

My mom and I were very close. She moved to live near me on the West Coast after her retirement and I visited her often and nursed her during her final years of failing health. She and my daughter were very close also.

Let me know if I can answer any more questions for you about my mom (or dad)!

By the way, I’ve never been involved in a “new agey dance troupe”. The teachers and choreographers I worked with under Constantine Darling were among the best in the world and included members of Les Ballets Jazz, Toronto Dance Theatre, Chicago City Ballet and many others. Our visiting artists included Evelyn Hart, members of Alvin Ailey company and once, Baryshnikov himself! However, following an injury over twenty years ago, I am no longer pursuing a professional dance career and now teach music to toddlers, which is a wonderful occupation. :) However, as a sideline, I am developing an orthopedic dance shoe to support prescription orthotics, and also getting ready to publish a book and CD of children’s music.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing, and for your clarifications.

I apologize for taking so long to post your comment, which you sent many months ago and which got lost in the shuffle of everyday blogging. I’m sorry for that, especially since there were negative points about you in the above thread that had not been substantiated.

Ms. Thistle writes:

I did indeed publish my book and CD of children’s music, entitled “A Spoonful of Songs” and the CD recently won a Parents’ Choice Award and is available on Amazon. :)

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