All posts tagged "Differences Between Men And Women"

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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.)

I wish Slate would let me embed their frigging videos, because I'd love to embed the one they have up summarizing a series up by Amanda Schaffer examining all the non-science masquerading as science that claims to find vast differences between men and women's brains, differences that always point to women being a biologically inferior sex---stupid, talks too much, illogical, only good for being fucked and diapering babies. Sadly, there are now women writing books in this vein, though of course they dress up the differences in language that pretends that they're not claiming that women are inferior and should be relegated to second class status. If you slap a woman's name on a book that claims women are inferior, it gives it more credibility, which it shouldn't, because believers should automatically assume that the female author is as stupid as the rest of her gender supposedly is. But you know, you can't claim it's sexist if a woman said it.