This book, a veritable bombshell by Cordelia Fine, deserves to (and probably will) go down as a classic of both iconoclastic feminism and popular (though highly academic) psychology. It was on the reading list for one of the topics in a philosophy module on feminism that I took last spring, so I borrowed it off a friend (thanks Charlotte) for a couple of references, and got quite taken in by how good it was, so, naturally, I acquired a cheap copy. It has been one of many that I've been breezing through during my current predicament (a family holiday - I've been in a hammock, drinking either tea or beer depending on the time of day, being slowly browned by the Dutch sunshine, working my way down the aforementioned stack of books, and occasionally accepting the prompts of my relatives to join them for some sort of 'compulsory fun', for pretty much the whole last week - absolutely ideal).
Anyway, you're not here to read about my actual life (at least I don't think you are, like, I have no clue who reads this anyway as even on the best of days it's just my thoughts about random books, so you might well be a bit odd, no offence) - the book.
It's a thorough, and I mean thorough, debunking of the gender difference psychology. Much popular 'knowledge' about gender differences is that they are innate, ingrained into the very being of men and women; their brains our wired differently which means they think, act, and react in very different ways, with men being more independent, aggressive, assertive, logical, and analytical, and women more empathetic, cooperative, interdependent, supportive, and emotionally savvy. Basically, men are great at being active agents doing whatever they want to do, and women are great at helping them by fulfilling roles of subservient femininity. This is an unavoidable situation based on how men's and women's brains fundamentally operate; it's unfortunate that it means a woman will be way less likely to ever become a president of something or that a man be an impeccable house-husband, but we can't really call this inequality - as it would be psychologically risky to try to encourage similar activity for men and women, given their basically different mental functions. It's better if culturally, we just accept that women are great at fulfilling their subordinate stereotype, and men can do whatever else they want (as long as it doesn't involve too much housework or feelings). This is a harshly straw-manned but not too inaccurate depiction of the position of most of those seeking to justify the status quo gender-wise. Lots of very depressingly well-selling books about gender difference (including this nugget of heretical pseudo-christian drivel), many hailing from the kind-of-reputable field of popular psychology (heard of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? my A-level English Language teacher said it was, I quote, "pure bollocks", and after reading this I'm inclined to believe him) seek to prop up and confirm pretty much this situation. Gender inequality? It's not as big a problem as feminists would have you think, because men and women's brains are WAY different.
You can probably tell that I don't buy this, and neither does Cordelia Fine, who just also happens to be an extremely well-reputed neuroscientist. She names this position 'neurosexism', the perpetuation of patriarchy through pretend psychology. I won't be able to even get close to explaining her full arguments or body of evidence (there's 42-pages of highly-scrutinised academic references, so I trust the expanse her scholarship), but as a general gist, neurosexism is bunk and gender is almost entirely normative.
Part one of the book examines how our minds, being extremely complex things when operating in social contexts, take on board our own and others' presumptions in subconscious and largely unnoticed ways - leading to inadvertent but powerful assumptions about things (i.e. implicit bias - if you've never heard of this take this test and prepare to be terrified at how racist and sexist your subconscious probably is) that may adversely affect our capacity to relate to them. This means that if we're aware of gender stereotypes, we unwittingly become conduits for making ourselves and other people fall into line with them - scary stuff.
Part two is a blow by blow examination of the core arguments made by neurosexists, the key experiments and data they use to back up their claims, and, calmly, Cordelia rips it all to shreds. The academic procedures of those who propagate neurosexism are appalling, making claims without substantiated evidence; the studies they do cite lack statistical reliability, and even where experiments do seem to imply something significant, there was generally some hefty oversight in the scientific method of setting it up. There is little robust evidence for brain gender differences existing, and masses upon masses of non-gender-related psychological experimentation that treated men and women in the same way and worked - because, shock - their brains are actually very similar.
Part three is an examination of the sinister, subversive, subliminal process called socialisation. If gender isn't wired innately into our brains, then how and why do men and women grow up to be different? Very easily, because of the deep-rooted subconscious effects outlined in part one being prevalent throughout a person's childhood. The normative aspects of gender (i.e. ALL expectations or presumptions about someone based on their sex) are extremely widespread and significant in human societies, so children, as they develop and work out how to take their place in the world, learn how to participate in the grand game of gender. Disconcertingly, part of learning the rules entails forgetting that it's a game at all, and entering into a lifelong pretense that the rules one abides by are in fact an irremovable part of who the player is as a woman/man.
Throughout the course of her book, Cordelia Fine has not only done a no-holds-barred takedown of neurosexism (part 2), she has also built up a convincing case for how gender, as a normative construct rather than an innate psychological reality, can affect people's behaviour so deeply (part 1) and retain its presence across generations (part 3). Let me now place this book into the wider context of my own reading life. A while ago I became convinced (by S. M. Okin's little depth-charge of political philosophy, Justice, Gender and the Family) that gender, as a normative construct, was responsible for perpetuating gross societal inequality and should therefore have steps taken to disarm it as a normative force. My main remaining area of curiousity here then was whether gender was primarily normative, as opposed to being partly innate - and Fine has convinced me of the former, so, I guess, onwards with Okin's abolition of gender!
What else can I say? Around the general framework of the points I've tried to overview here, there is an abundance of insightful and interesting food for thought on the topic of gender difference, human minds and behaviour, how we operate in societies, and so on. It's a difficult read given the sheer density and intensity of her scientific analysis and discussion, but she has an incredibly easy writing style to follow, making even the very complex points quite accessible. She's also hilarious - her acerbic waspish remarks about neurosexists and their ilk, not to mention the dry absurdity of mock-anecdotes that she uses to illustrate occasional points - I don't think I've laughed out loud at a non-fiction book as much as this one in ages. (Also, the title is a pun on 'delusions of grandeur' - something that I entirely failed to notice until half an hour ago, when my dad laughed at it and said "ah that's a clever title", much to my bafflement. Dunno.) If you're a self-avowed feminist, you should definitely read this book to provide ammunition in arguments with those who accept neurosexism. Conversely, if you're keen on social psychology and aren't entirely convinced one way or the other about gendered brain difference, you should definitely read this book. This probably isn't one for a general reader though, unless you're really interested - I mean, if you are a general reader and you've read all the way to the end of this post, you probably get the gist anyway, but hey, knock yourself out if you like the sound of it.
Anyway, you're not here to read about my actual life (at least I don't think you are, like, I have no clue who reads this anyway as even on the best of days it's just my thoughts about random books, so you might well be a bit odd, no offence) - the book.
It's a thorough, and I mean thorough, debunking of the gender difference psychology. Much popular 'knowledge' about gender differences is that they are innate, ingrained into the very being of men and women; their brains our wired differently which means they think, act, and react in very different ways, with men being more independent, aggressive, assertive, logical, and analytical, and women more empathetic, cooperative, interdependent, supportive, and emotionally savvy. Basically, men are great at being active agents doing whatever they want to do, and women are great at helping them by fulfilling roles of subservient femininity. This is an unavoidable situation based on how men's and women's brains fundamentally operate; it's unfortunate that it means a woman will be way less likely to ever become a president of something or that a man be an impeccable house-husband, but we can't really call this inequality - as it would be psychologically risky to try to encourage similar activity for men and women, given their basically different mental functions. It's better if culturally, we just accept that women are great at fulfilling their subordinate stereotype, and men can do whatever else they want (as long as it doesn't involve too much housework or feelings). This is a harshly straw-manned but not too inaccurate depiction of the position of most of those seeking to justify the status quo gender-wise. Lots of very depressingly well-selling books about gender difference (including this nugget of heretical pseudo-christian drivel), many hailing from the kind-of-reputable field of popular psychology (heard of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? my A-level English Language teacher said it was, I quote, "pure bollocks", and after reading this I'm inclined to believe him) seek to prop up and confirm pretty much this situation. Gender inequality? It's not as big a problem as feminists would have you think, because men and women's brains are WAY different.
You can probably tell that I don't buy this, and neither does Cordelia Fine, who just also happens to be an extremely well-reputed neuroscientist. She names this position 'neurosexism', the perpetuation of patriarchy through pretend psychology. I won't be able to even get close to explaining her full arguments or body of evidence (there's 42-pages of highly-scrutinised academic references, so I trust the expanse her scholarship), but as a general gist, neurosexism is bunk and gender is almost entirely normative.
Part one of the book examines how our minds, being extremely complex things when operating in social contexts, take on board our own and others' presumptions in subconscious and largely unnoticed ways - leading to inadvertent but powerful assumptions about things (i.e. implicit bias - if you've never heard of this take this test and prepare to be terrified at how racist and sexist your subconscious probably is) that may adversely affect our capacity to relate to them. This means that if we're aware of gender stereotypes, we unwittingly become conduits for making ourselves and other people fall into line with them - scary stuff.
Part two is a blow by blow examination of the core arguments made by neurosexists, the key experiments and data they use to back up their claims, and, calmly, Cordelia rips it all to shreds. The academic procedures of those who propagate neurosexism are appalling, making claims without substantiated evidence; the studies they do cite lack statistical reliability, and even where experiments do seem to imply something significant, there was generally some hefty oversight in the scientific method of setting it up. There is little robust evidence for brain gender differences existing, and masses upon masses of non-gender-related psychological experimentation that treated men and women in the same way and worked - because, shock - their brains are actually very similar.
Part three is an examination of the sinister, subversive, subliminal process called socialisation. If gender isn't wired innately into our brains, then how and why do men and women grow up to be different? Very easily, because of the deep-rooted subconscious effects outlined in part one being prevalent throughout a person's childhood. The normative aspects of gender (i.e. ALL expectations or presumptions about someone based on their sex) are extremely widespread and significant in human societies, so children, as they develop and work out how to take their place in the world, learn how to participate in the grand game of gender. Disconcertingly, part of learning the rules entails forgetting that it's a game at all, and entering into a lifelong pretense that the rules one abides by are in fact an irremovable part of who the player is as a woman/man.
Throughout the course of her book, Cordelia Fine has not only done a no-holds-barred takedown of neurosexism (part 2), she has also built up a convincing case for how gender, as a normative construct rather than an innate psychological reality, can affect people's behaviour so deeply (part 1) and retain its presence across generations (part 3). Let me now place this book into the wider context of my own reading life. A while ago I became convinced (by S. M. Okin's little depth-charge of political philosophy, Justice, Gender and the Family) that gender, as a normative construct, was responsible for perpetuating gross societal inequality and should therefore have steps taken to disarm it as a normative force. My main remaining area of curiousity here then was whether gender was primarily normative, as opposed to being partly innate - and Fine has convinced me of the former, so, I guess, onwards with Okin's abolition of gender!
What else can I say? Around the general framework of the points I've tried to overview here, there is an abundance of insightful and interesting food for thought on the topic of gender difference, human minds and behaviour, how we operate in societies, and so on. It's a difficult read given the sheer density and intensity of her scientific analysis and discussion, but she has an incredibly easy writing style to follow, making even the very complex points quite accessible. She's also hilarious - her acerbic waspish remarks about neurosexists and their ilk, not to mention the dry absurdity of mock-anecdotes that she uses to illustrate occasional points - I don't think I've laughed out loud at a non-fiction book as much as this one in ages. (Also, the title is a pun on 'delusions of grandeur' - something that I entirely failed to notice until half an hour ago, when my dad laughed at it and said "ah that's a clever title", much to my bafflement. Dunno.) If you're a self-avowed feminist, you should definitely read this book to provide ammunition in arguments with those who accept neurosexism. Conversely, if you're keen on social psychology and aren't entirely convinced one way or the other about gendered brain difference, you should definitely read this book. This probably isn't one for a general reader though, unless you're really interested - I mean, if you are a general reader and you've read all the way to the end of this post, you probably get the gist anyway, but hey, knock yourself out if you like the sound of it.
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