Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences

THE BRILLIANT AND HUGELY INFLUENTIAL BOOK BY THE WINNER OF THE 2017 ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOKS PRIZEFun droll yet deeply serious. New ScientistA brilliant feminist critic of the neurosciences ... Read her enjoy and learn. Hilary Rose THESA witty and meticulously researched exposé of the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence in so many of todays bestselling books on sex differences. Carol Tavris TLSGender inequalities are increasingly defended by citing hard-wired differences between the male and female brain. Thats why were told there are so few women in science so few men in the laundry room - different brains are just suited to different things.With sparkling wit and humour Cordelia Fine attacks this neurosexism revealing the minds remarkable plasticity the substantial influence of culture on identity and the malleability of what we consider to be hardwired difference. This modern classic shows the surprising extent to which boys and girls men and women are made - not born. Review We are all in [Fines] debt. She has the expertise to check the research references cited by academic as well as popular books on the subject and she has the clarity and wit to impart her findings to the lay reader. She exposes shockingly lightweight research that is taken seriously and nuanced research that is misreported. -- GuardianThe hard data is illuminating and engaging but Fine manages a light touch throughout. This is a truly startling book. -- Independent on SundayTwo books came out this year (2010) which in the long-term could change how we view gender for ever. ... Cordelia Fines Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences (Icon Books) finally debunked the myth that men and womens minds are significantly different .... Both books were favourably reviewed and hotly discussed. Over time their conclusions could have far-reaching consequences as significant as The Female Eunuch. -- Viv Groskop GuardianA fascinating subject. A bracing argument. -- Evening StandardDelusions of Gender ... carefully and with great precision demolishes the nonsense that pervades the popular and technical literature pretending to be scientific fact exposing it as truthiness which is nowhere close to truth. ... When I first heard about this book it was clear even before reading it that this is the book weve been waiting for. Now having read it I can assure you that it is even better than I thought it could be. ... Buy it. Get your friends your colleagues your family members to buy it or buy it for them. Get it to your local school board. Make it required reading not only in gender studies but in freshman sociology biology education and business courses. Get it on the New York Times bestseller list. ... Our culture is saturated with sloppy self-reinforcing non-thinking about gender. It will take a monumental effort to get it off those tracks. Delusions of Gender is an excellent place to start. -- Professor Judy Roitman Association for Women in Mathematics NewsletterFine is fun droll yet deeply serious. Setting a cracking paceDelusions tackles the power of implicit association (those unconscious associations we make about men and women) and of negative stereotyping plus the empathising/systematising theory proposed by psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and the messy world of brain scans and genetic research. Her conclusion: we are in thrall to neurosexism. -- New ScientistThe result of Fines irritation is a witty and meticulously researched exposé of the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence in so many of todays bestselling books on sex differences... Can we stop talking about brains now? Those who cant and anyone else who would like to know what todays best science reveals about gender differences - and similarities - could not do better than read this book. -- Carol Tavris TLS[Brain Storm