Scan barcode
A review by 11corvus11
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine
4.0
This book is smart, witty, funny, and necessary. That said, it is extremely frustrating to read a book about neurosexism that is so incredibly ignorant of intersex and transgender people. Part 2 could be trashed entirely or needs to be completely revamped as it contradicts the very informative parts 1 and 3.
Part two fails again and again and ends up upholding the very gender binary she seeks to expose as fraud. She speaks of intersex people being coercively assigned female or male at birth, being nonconsensually put on hormones, and having their genitals surgically mutilated to meet society's gender and sex expectations in dry binary terms without thinking for a second to challenge this abuse of intersex children based entirely in male doctors' discomfort with gender and sex ambiguity- not because they present any danger to children. She also upholds the binary insistently despite acknowledging great sex differences within each person regardless of assigned sex. I'm not saying that I expected her to dismantle the gender binary completely, but is it so odd to assume that someone drawing conclusions about false brain sex differences would also acknowledge this false binary? Also, using intersex and trans peoples bodies as a cool way to study and reinforce false gender binaries goes against the intentions of this book completely. At least, it seems so.
Despite the glaring misunderstandings of intersex people and transgender people, the book gets 4 stars due to it being well written, entertaining, humorous, and well researched, while covering an important topic and debunking a lot of bad science about gender differences. But, Fine really needs to center the experience of more transgender, intersex, queer, multiracial, and other people of diverse class backgrounds for her book to make the necessary statements it seeks to make.
Note- I read the first edition. There is a tiny chance she may have addressed these issues in a later edition.
Part two fails again and again and ends up upholding the very gender binary she seeks to expose as fraud. She speaks of intersex people being coercively assigned female or male at birth, being nonconsensually put on hormones, and having their genitals surgically mutilated to meet society's gender and sex expectations in dry binary terms without thinking for a second to challenge this abuse of intersex children based entirely in male doctors' discomfort with gender and sex ambiguity- not because they present any danger to children. She also upholds the binary insistently despite acknowledging great sex differences within each person regardless of assigned sex. I'm not saying that I expected her to dismantle the gender binary completely, but is it so odd to assume that someone drawing conclusions about false brain sex differences would also acknowledge this false binary? Also, using intersex and trans peoples bodies as a cool way to study and reinforce false gender binaries goes against the intentions of this book completely. At least, it seems so.
Despite the glaring misunderstandings of intersex people and transgender people, the book gets 4 stars due to it being well written, entertaining, humorous, and well researched, while covering an important topic and debunking a lot of bad science about gender differences. But, Fine really needs to center the experience of more transgender, intersex, queer, multiracial, and other people of diverse class backgrounds for her book to make the necessary statements it seeks to make.
Note- I read the first edition. There is a tiny chance she may have addressed these issues in a later edition.