All posts tagged "Carol Tavris"

Considering how much interest I have in the subject of how pseudo-science is used to belittle women, it's a real shame that I hadn't read, until this week, the bible of critiquing choad-based science, Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex by Carol Tavris. I'm so glad to have corrected my error, because even though this book is 16 years old, it's more relevant than ever in an era when misogynists are seeking to canonize Larry Summers for talking out of his ass about something he doesn't understand. The book is a refreshing blast of common sense, with Tavris arguing that women are not inferior to men, superior to men, opposite from men, or the same as men. In fact, the book is based around the idea that if you ask the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers, and society is going to continue to fail to understand women as long as we conceive women as not-men instead of as-women. Or, more importantly, as themselves, which is people who are diverse. (As are men.)