Cordelia Fine

Using findings from the latest information in developmental psychology, neuroscience and education, this book debunks the assumed differences between male and female brain function and reveals the brain's remarkable plasticity and the influence of culture on identity. Reprint.

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference

Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men's and women's brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men's brains aren't wired for empathy and women's brains aren't made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men's and women's behavior. Instead of a "male brain" and a "female brain," Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender.--From publisher description.

how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference

Delusions of gender

Sarah Sammis

Link+ due 7/21/12

Book does nothing but make me angry. For all its length is missing discussions on people who don't fall neatly into either male or female. It just keeps going back to recapitulating the standard stereotypes for the author's neck of the woods. ARGH!

Edward

Everything you ever thought you knew about the science of gender is wrong.

Fiona Coffey

Okay honestly, I hated this book. I probably would have liked it more if I didn't have to read it for school, but I did. And I hated it. 

The author just lists theories about gender differences over and over again, then tells us they're wrong, and moves on to the next one, repeats it over and over again... I think the point was that there isn't really any hardwired differences, but it just felt like the author was trying to reach a word limit and stretching everything out as long as she could. The topic was somewhat interesting, but still... At one point the author talks about people testing emotions on a dead salmon... that was the point where I lost it.

I screamed in frustration while reading this book.

Never read it unless you have no choice.

Antonia Di Castri

‘Fun, droll yet deeply serious.’ New Scientist ‘A brilliant feminist critic of the neurosciences ... Read her, enjoy and learn.’ Hilary Rose, THES ‘A witty and meticulously researched exposé of the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence in so many of today’s bestselling books on sex differences.’ Carol Tavris, TLS Gender inequalities are increasingly defended by citing hard-wired differences between the male and female brain. That’s why, we’re 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 mind’s 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.

Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference

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