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227 reviews for:
The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain
Gina Rippon
3.85 AVERAGE
227 reviews for:
The Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience That Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain
Gina Rippon
3.85 AVERAGE
A measured and thorough takedown of the science of “male” vs “female” brains, from the dawn of science to modern neuroscience studies. (Sadly, the latter seem just as prone as the former to massage results to emphasize female inferiority, even when the opposite result is found).
Spoiler: we’re not that different. Once you control for shoddy science and brain size, there aren’t that many differences left - and many of those are shrinking over time (suggesting social rather than biological causes).
Some supposed differences, like men’s superior spatial skills, turn out to be primarily environmental and can be trained (control for time spent playing video games and differences in spatial skill all but disappear). Ladies, play Tetris. It’s good for you.
Other differences vary based on setting and context, like the phenomenon of “stereotype threat”. Tell women that “men normally do better on this task” and watch their performance plummet. (Interestingly the reverse, telling men that women are better at a task, does not have the same effect on their performance.)
This is as much worth reading for the review of sex differences research, as for its broader examination of the ways in which scientific inquiry can fail to be impartial. How studies showing no differences are less likely to publish than ones finding differences (not necessarily for nefarious reasons, but because negative results are boring), how minor numerical differences can be twisted by university publicists or science media into “significant” findings, how studies on mice and hamsters are reported by mainstream media as conclusive evidence that men are more aggressive or women are more nurturing, etc. etc. etc. Take everything with a grain of salt.
Spoiler: we’re not that different. Once you control for shoddy science and brain size, there aren’t that many differences left - and many of those are shrinking over time (suggesting social rather than biological causes).
Some supposed differences, like men’s superior spatial skills, turn out to be primarily environmental and can be trained (control for time spent playing video games and differences in spatial skill all but disappear). Ladies, play Tetris. It’s good for you.
Other differences vary based on setting and context, like the phenomenon of “stereotype threat”. Tell women that “men normally do better on this task” and watch their performance plummet. (Interestingly the reverse, telling men that women are better at a task, does not have the same effect on their performance.)
This is as much worth reading for the review of sex differences research, as for its broader examination of the ways in which scientific inquiry can fail to be impartial. How studies showing no differences are less likely to publish than ones finding differences (not necessarily for nefarious reasons, but because negative results are boring), how minor numerical differences can be twisted by university publicists or science media into “significant” findings, how studies on mice and hamsters are reported by mainstream media as conclusive evidence that men are more aggressive or women are more nurturing, etc. etc. etc. Take everything with a grain of salt.
I have to admit, this book was a bit of a disappointment to me. The issue of gender differences (or the relative lack thereof) between the genders is one that I'm really interested, so I was pretty excited to read this book. I found that there really wasn't a lot of new-to-me information here. Although I won't claim to be well-versed on all of the studies involved, I didn't find a lot about their findings that surprised me. I also found the formatting of the book to be really repetitive. I thought there was a lot of overlap between each section, and it made it a bit tiresome to read. I kept expecting new information in each section, and instead it felt like everything was just being rehashed over and over again.
I still wouldn't claim that this is a bad book, but it might serve better as an introductory primer to this topic, because at my level of intermediate knowledge on the subject, it felt a bit too much like preaching to the choir.
I still wouldn't claim that this is a bad book, but it might serve better as an introductory primer to this topic, because at my level of intermediate knowledge on the subject, it felt a bit too much like preaching to the choir.
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Brilliant, informative and thorough critical analysis of the existing scientific into sex differences in the brain by a world-leading neuroscientist.
This is a very necessary book!! Let’s stop limiting ourselves and others because of false and self-perpetuating gender stereotypes.
“So, just as with brains, there is no such thing as a typicaly female behavioural profile or a typically male behavioural profile - each of us is a mosaic of different skills, aptitudes and abilities, and attempting to pigeonhole us into two archaically labelled boxes will fail to capture the true essence of human variability.
The more we look at all sorts of different measures from males and females, from fundamental biology through brain characteristics to behaviour and personality profiles, the less and less likely it looks that these measures are coming from two reliably distinguishable groups of people. This obviously has implications for all of our well-established stereotypes and for all sorts of discriminatory practices based, consciously or unconsciously, on these stereotypes.”
P.S. Mad respect for babies. They are really out here terrifyingly aware of and learning the world straight out of the womb.
“So, just as with brains, there is no such thing as a typicaly female behavioural profile or a typically male behavioural profile - each of us is a mosaic of different skills, aptitudes and abilities, and attempting to pigeonhole us into two archaically labelled boxes will fail to capture the true essence of human variability.
The more we look at all sorts of different measures from males and females, from fundamental biology through brain characteristics to behaviour and personality profiles, the less and less likely it looks that these measures are coming from two reliably distinguishable groups of people. This obviously has implications for all of our well-established stereotypes and for all sorts of discriminatory practices based, consciously or unconsciously, on these stereotypes.”
P.S. Mad respect for babies. They are really out here terrifyingly aware of and learning the world straight out of the womb.
Not really what I was looking to read about, I thought the author would be exploring gender identity from a neuroscience perspective, however it was more about sexism due to gender essentialist views.
This book took me so long to finish. I wanted to see it through because the bookclub I moderate on here, The F-Word, chose it as a group read. The author is not at fault for it dragging on so long for me, I just now know neuroscience in a 300+ page book is just too much for me.
I definitely walk away from this better informed on how to read and scrutinize science based articles that make large claims about the differences between the sexes.
I definitely walk away from this better informed on how to read and scrutinize science based articles that make large claims about the differences between the sexes.