11/18/10
The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences

One of our biggest pet peeves is our society’s automatic acceptance — the giddy embrace, even — of the theory that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, with nary a space shuttle between them. We’ve written before on the lazy scientists who are suckers for a sexy headline about the “innate” differences between men and women, while touting the seemingly lone, reasonable voice of neuroscientist Lise Eliot in her book “Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps — and What We Can Do About It.” Fortunately, there are now a few other voices of reason voice that have jumped into the fray as of late: First, Barnard professor Rebecca Jordan-Young in her new book Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences; and then “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference” by academic psychologist Cordelia Fine. Slate has a great review of “Brain Storm” here, and after the jump is Publisher’s Weekly succinct starred review of it:

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One Comment

  1. My boyfriend and I both bought me “Pink Brain, Blue Brain” for Christmas last year (I discretely returned my copy). Loved the book even though I won’t be having kids (it is a bit heavy on the advice) — I’m so happy to add these two books to the Must Read list!

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