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r061nm's review against another edition
3.0
This book outlines the evidence that there is an innate neurological disposition between men and women that predisposes women to have an empathetic brain and men to have a systematizing brain.
Baron-Cohen does a good job of laying out evidence for his contention that there is a biological difference in men's and women's brains which produces different strengths and weaknesses. However, there are several weaknesses in his argument that he doesn't adequately address. One of my biggest issues is in calling the systematizing approach the male brain and empathizing approach the female brain just because they each occur somewhat more often in one sex than the other. His own graphs show a lot of overlap! He includes quizzes at the back of the book to determine if you have the systematizing or empathizing brain. The quizzes were entertaining, but it was hard for me to see how they really measured anything real. Does asking someone to answer a question like "I am good at predicting how someone will feel" measure someone's empathy? Or does it measure how empathetic they think they are or want to see or believe they as women should be?
He doesn't discuss the sociological pressures that push males to reject empathy in favor of systematizing and females to do the opposite. Even if his contention is true that there are innate neurological differences, how big would those differences truly be without cultural forces reinforcing them every day in every way?
Baron-Cohen does a good job of laying out evidence for his contention that there is a biological difference in men's and women's brains which produces different strengths and weaknesses. However, there are several weaknesses in his argument that he doesn't adequately address. One of my biggest issues is in calling the systematizing approach the male brain and empathizing approach the female brain just because they each occur somewhat more often in one sex than the other. His own graphs show a lot of overlap! He includes quizzes at the back of the book to determine if you have the systematizing or empathizing brain. The quizzes were entertaining, but it was hard for me to see how they really measured anything real. Does asking someone to answer a question like "I am good at predicting how someone will feel" measure someone's empathy? Or does it measure how empathetic they think they are or want to see or believe they as women should be?
He doesn't discuss the sociological pressures that push males to reject empathy in favor of systematizing and females to do the opposite. Even if his contention is true that there are innate neurological differences, how big would those differences truly be without cultural forces reinforcing them every day in every way?
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