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A review by laurapk
x+y: A New Formula For Overcoming Gender Bias by Eugenia Cheng
3.0
Eugenia Cheng challenges successfully our understanding of gendered thinking, but I found the book a bit hard to follow at times. The mathematical parts were not the problem, especially when Cheng uses multiple dimensions to represent more clearly a complex problem (the imaginary numbers and the root problems results were quite interesting parallels to our over simplification of 'male' vs 'female' traits on one or more dimensions). Rather the problem for me was the non-mathematical part. I felt there weren't enough arguments (or the same arguments were repeated too much) for her congressive society manifesto.
Briefly, Chent argues that we can group actions into 'ingressive' (competition dominated) and 'congressive' (cooperation dominated). She makes a valid point that competition would normally be required for resources that are limited, and that our society creates the illusion of scarcity for resources that are not only abundant, but also grow when they are shared, such as education. (I would say though that while education is not a limited resource, the number of teachers and the time they can offer to students are limited resources; the rise of online educational platform greatly alleviates these restrections). Therefore an ingressive society that pits people against each other sooner than it's actually needed stifles shier, more congressive people who don't fair well in high competition scenarios. I agree with her point, but she didn't really prove that ingressivity was intrinsically bad. I agree with her that we are obsessed with competition and winning, but casting ingressivity as always bad didn't seem very believable either. I'm currently also reading Testosterone Rex, and I believe Cordelia Fine makes a better argument for what I suspect Cheng was trying to say: that there is no reason why nature would have handed down hard blueprints for maleness and femaleness. Primates and humans are highly adaptable species, which have succeeded based largely on group dynamics. The argument that 'nature wants us to be this way and not that' is dumb, since flexibility is our biggest asset. An ingressive society is not necessarily better, and current events seem to suggest that we're harming each other more with our obsession for competition and winning. Society and biology is flexible and aptitudes overlap a lot between the two genders (not to mention the people falling outside the binary distribution). Her example of the baboon society that changed drastically within one generation (due to an epidemic of tuberculosis exacerbated by aggressive competition) perfectly illustrates her argument. Unfortunately not all her arguments are as easy to follow, and it's a pity, because I believe this to be a very important book.
Briefly, Chent argues that we can group actions into 'ingressive' (competition dominated) and 'congressive' (cooperation dominated). She makes a valid point that competition would normally be required for resources that are limited, and that our society creates the illusion of scarcity for resources that are not only abundant, but also grow when they are shared, such as education. (I would say though that while education is not a limited resource, the number of teachers and the time they can offer to students are limited resources; the rise of online educational platform greatly alleviates these restrections). Therefore an ingressive society that pits people against each other sooner than it's actually needed stifles shier, more congressive people who don't fair well in high competition scenarios. I agree with her point, but she didn't really prove that ingressivity was intrinsically bad. I agree with her that we are obsessed with competition and winning, but casting ingressivity as always bad didn't seem very believable either. I'm currently also reading Testosterone Rex, and I believe Cordelia Fine makes a better argument for what I suspect Cheng was trying to say: that there is no reason why nature would have handed down hard blueprints for maleness and femaleness. Primates and humans are highly adaptable species, which have succeeded based largely on group dynamics. The argument that 'nature wants us to be this way and not that' is dumb, since flexibility is our biggest asset. An ingressive society is not necessarily better, and current events seem to suggest that we're harming each other more with our obsession for competition and winning. Society and biology is flexible and aptitudes overlap a lot between the two genders (not to mention the people falling outside the binary distribution). Her example of the baboon society that changed drastically within one generation (due to an epidemic of tuberculosis exacerbated by aggressive competition) perfectly illustrates her argument. Unfortunately not all her arguments are as easy to follow, and it's a pity, because I believe this to be a very important book.