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ennabananaz's review against another edition
5.0
Sometimes i arrive at the ridiculous notion that i’ve *now learned everything about feminism*
And then books like this arrive - and show me *you just naive as fuck*
Great thoughts & ideas! Loved it
And then books like this arrive - and show me *you just naive as fuck*
Great thoughts & ideas! Loved it
darumachan's review against another edition
4.0
Joel's research suggests that our brains develop and respond to our environments in "masculine" and "feminine" ways in the sense that certain functions and responses are more common in men and others more common in women. She goes on to show that brain function does not always match up with physical sex (i.e., genitals do not determine whether an individual's brain will exhibit "masculine" or "feminine" traits). Moreover, our brains are constantly changing in response to external and internal factors like stress, behavior, hormones (which fluctuate just as much in male bodies as in female bodies, a fact that I appreciated Joel emphasizing), etc. The most important point that Joel makes is that because of the complexity of the human brain as well as its ability/tendency to change continuously over the course of an individual's lifetime, there is no way to identify just two static categories or "types" as male or female. Rather, each individual's brain will be made up of a range of functions/traits/responses, including some that are most common in men and some that are most common in women. This creates a mosaic that is distinct for each individual and resists categorization-- that is, there are vanishingly few individuals who have brains that could be called 100% male or 100% female.
My favorite example from the book is the hypothetical schoolteacher who offers a group of children the choice between reading a book or playing a ball game, which could result in four groups of children: (1) reading, (2) playing, (3) doing both, and (4) doing neither. Even a seemingly simple and straightforward binary situation (two options) is likely to result in a more complex reality. And, most importantly, these choices would be largely unrelated to the physical sex of the individuals.
My favorite example from the book is the hypothetical schoolteacher who offers a group of children the choice between reading a book or playing a ball game, which could result in four groups of children: (1) reading, (2) playing, (3) doing both, and (4) doing neither. Even a seemingly simple and straightforward binary situation (two options) is likely to result in a more complex reality. And, most importantly, these choices would be largely unrelated to the physical sex of the individuals.
lafi_he's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
This book gave me so many great arguments to use next time the discussion about gender comes up! It also gave some things to reflect on myself and things I want to observe in group settings. It was a little repetitive at some points which is the reason I didn’t give it 5 Stars but I would recommend this book to everyone at any time!
bizlet's review against another edition
5.0
For people who are persuaded by more scientific information this book does a great job of summarizing research done on the question of a "male" brain vs "female" brain and breaks down how while there are trends overall, individually you can't tell much about a person by only knowing their sex assigned at birth.
The last section on a world without gender definitely drifted from research and into opinion but I felt that it made sense from the authors' points of view. If knowing a person's assigned sex at birth doesn't help you much in daily life, then why bother with it at all? There are a bunch of other characteristics that could help better define a person as they are instead of what you think they should be.
I liked the book and I also get that I'm already bought in to the arguments they made.
The last section on a world without gender definitely drifted from research and into opinion but I felt that it made sense from the authors' points of view. If knowing a person's assigned sex at birth doesn't help you much in daily life, then why bother with it at all? There are a bunch of other characteristics that could help better define a person as they are instead of what you think they should be.
I liked the book and I also get that I'm already bought in to the arguments they made.
hannyreads's review against another edition
5.0
This short, dense book is fascinating. Everyone should read this!