But as researching for Undead Sexist Cliches taught me, it’s as subject to human bias as most human activities.
This is something Stephen Jay Gould’s excellent science histories have pointed out repeatedly, as have multiple books I’ve reviewed here before: Sexual Science, Paleofantasy, Testosterone Rex and Delusions of Gender. All do an excellent job breaking down the sexist thinking and stereotypes that have led science to warped conclusions. Victorian science, for instance, knew brain size didn’t correlate directly to intellect but as they knew men were smarter than women, obviously the difference in brain size proved it (it didn’t).
BITCH: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke is another book that does a fine job studying how male biologists interpreted animal behavior through sexism: animal males are polyamorous and aggressive, female are monogamous and passive, etc. Cooke dives into the details and it’s informative. She looks at the evidence showing females are not passive sexual partners or simpler organisms and some of the tricks women’s bodies pull in some species, for example complicated vaginal tubes that choke off unwanted sperm jets.Extremely informative.
INFERIOR: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini suffers from having read so much on this topic; if I was coming at it fresh, I’d be a lot more impressed (this is not the author’s fault). Like the other books she shows how newer research shows older assumptions about female passivity, low sex drive, lack of intelligence, etc. are off-base. A good job, though some of the theories Saini writes about go back longer than the book shows (identifying the corpus callosum as the root of gender brain differences goes back to when I was in college).
#SFWApro. Cover design by Kelly Blair, Undead Sexist Cliches design by Kemp Ward. All rights to images remain with current holders.
