Scan barcode
midwichtriffid's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
rasakarabasa's review against another edition
3.0
It gave quite a strong and reliable background on scientific studies (and often their historical biases) and some new arguments which always come in handy in "men are better at logical thinking and women are better at multitasking" type of discussions.
I wish we read these books in schools.
Whoever is interested in the subject, I'd also recommend "Backlash" by Susan Faludi.
I wish we read these books in schools.
Whoever is interested in the subject, I'd also recommend "Backlash" by Susan Faludi.
nesdy's review against another edition
3.5
I liked it, and it's not a hard read for such a science-focused book. I was very surprised that so many of the assumptions that we culturally have about men and women have been justified by looking at other species
hazel_georgene's review against another edition
3.75
Interesting material but the way it is presented often seems like it doesn’t know whether the science supports or disagrees with feminist ideas which makes it frustrating and confusing.
caroline77's review against another edition
5.0
Even as we progress toward a more gender-equal world, the belief that women are inferior to men persists. This book by Angela Saini shines a spotlight on that belief in science specifically, a field that remains male-dominated. It persists not only in scientific research itself but in the subconscious minds of male scientists; too many are loath to consider that sexism could play any role in their research. This is obviously upsetting. We put faith in science. If it’s stamped as scientific fact, we trust that it is so. In our minds, scientists rest on a pedestal--impartial; pure; accepting of facts no matter what those may be. But that’s how robots act. Scientists come to their work with their own life experiences, beliefs, and biases. Unfortunately, this leads to flawed experiments but also to an attitude that rejects any results that disprove theirs, especially if a female scientist arrived at those results.
Inferior does two things perfectly: It highlights several biased sex-difference studies that led to erroneous results (some of which have, unfortunately, become widely embraced as incontrovertible fact), and it examines women from a few different angles to dispel bad science and reveal some intriguing truths. The chapters leave no stone unturned, exploring sex-difference research--and how it harms women--in the fields of psychology, biology, sociology, and anthropology. Almost as surprising as the information itself is the extensiveness of the research. Scientists are obsessed. These chapters cover sex difference as it pertains to the brain; sex hormones; gendered socialization; cultural and societal expectations; illness; life expectancy; genetics; fetal sex-selection in male-favoring countries; and women’s roles in hunter-gatherer societies. Phenomena such as the Nordic Paradox, sexual jealousy, and mate guarding also get attention with some vivid explanations. Plus more. Inferior is a comprehensive overview.
Saini also touched on how scientific study has evolved, and she took a hard look at Charles Darwin. The “father of evolutionary biology” is deserving of the title, but it’s easy to forget that he was firmly a man of his Victorian time. He didn’t understand gendered socialization and held fast to his flawed belief that women are born intellectually inferior. When challenged with arguments that poked big holes in this belief, he refused to rethink. Unfortunately, such arrogance isn’t unique to Darwin, and Inferior highlights other examples of egotism and bias that led to rigid thinking and tainted results. It’s annoying but also perplexing: Wouldn’t scientists, as dedicated seekers of truth, push aside anything that could taint results? Wouldn’t the intellectual curiosity that’s part and parcel of science compel them to want to learn about new results? As much as we’d like to believe it’s on a higher plane, science is influenced by centuries of entrenched sexism. It continues to be a male-dominated field of study, and at the end of the day, it has the same problems as any other male-dominated field. Efforts to improve this are ongoing, and science is accessible to women now; however, “accessible” isn’t the same as “welcoming”--to female scientists themselves and to the research that disproves their inferiority to men.
The elephant in the room throughout this book is that too many men resent sharing their traditionally male spaces with women, because doing so poses a threat to men’s sense of identity and to their dominant position in the world. Skewed scientific results betray a subconscious and emotionally complicated resistance to gender equality. In short: The flaws in science can be in the method, but they're also in the fallible people behind the method.
Additionally, there are systemic flaws. Claiming there are huge inferiority-superiority gaps between the sexes has incentives for scientists:
To be perfectly clear, Inferior is not, by any stretch, a cynical, science-denying book. Saini is a scientist herself, and if anything, her book shows a love and respect for the subject. As is fitting for a book decrying bias, she kept her own approach unbiased. She afforded equal time to warring theories, laying out compelling information with a controlled objectivity. In presenting rebuttals, Saini let the information speak for itself by juxtaposing those who conducted flawed experiments against those who didn’t.
The book makes the important point that change can happen, but it’s challenging because it involves beating down something humans have evolved to do for survival reasons: categorize. Another obstacle is the simple reality that sex difference is about people and therefore something concrete that we know well, unlike, say, quantum mechanics. As Gina Rippon says:
We need to condemn science’s sex-based biases precisely because we so revere and accept science. As Saini says, “ . . . what science tells us about women profoundly shapes how society thinks about the sexes.” Inferior pulls off a balancing act that should be impossible: It plants a seed of healthy skepticism in the minds of readers but also respects the facts that science proves. With this book, Saini has established herself as a genuine seeker of truth.
Inferior does two things perfectly: It highlights several biased sex-difference studies that led to erroneous results (some of which have, unfortunately, become widely embraced as incontrovertible fact), and it examines women from a few different angles to dispel bad science and reveal some intriguing truths. The chapters leave no stone unturned, exploring sex-difference research--and how it harms women--in the fields of psychology, biology, sociology, and anthropology. Almost as surprising as the information itself is the extensiveness of the research. Scientists are obsessed. These chapters cover sex difference as it pertains to the brain; sex hormones; gendered socialization; cultural and societal expectations; illness; life expectancy; genetics; fetal sex-selection in male-favoring countries; and women’s roles in hunter-gatherer societies. Phenomena such as the Nordic Paradox, sexual jealousy, and mate guarding also get attention with some vivid explanations. Plus more. Inferior is a comprehensive overview.
Saini also touched on how scientific study has evolved, and she took a hard look at Charles Darwin. The “father of evolutionary biology” is deserving of the title, but it’s easy to forget that he was firmly a man of his Victorian time. He didn’t understand gendered socialization and held fast to his flawed belief that women are born intellectually inferior. When challenged with arguments that poked big holes in this belief, he refused to rethink. Unfortunately, such arrogance isn’t unique to Darwin, and Inferior highlights other examples of egotism and bias that led to rigid thinking and tainted results. It’s annoying but also perplexing: Wouldn’t scientists, as dedicated seekers of truth, push aside anything that could taint results? Wouldn’t the intellectual curiosity that’s part and parcel of science compel them to want to learn about new results? As much as we’d like to believe it’s on a higher plane, science is influenced by centuries of entrenched sexism. It continues to be a male-dominated field of study, and at the end of the day, it has the same problems as any other male-dominated field. Efforts to improve this are ongoing, and science is accessible to women now; however, “accessible” isn’t the same as “welcoming”--to female scientists themselves and to the research that disproves their inferiority to men.
The elephant in the room throughout this book is that too many men resent sharing their traditionally male spaces with women, because doing so poses a threat to men’s sense of identity and to their dominant position in the world. Skewed scientific results betray a subconscious and emotionally complicated resistance to gender equality. In short: The flaws in science can be in the method, but they're also in the fallible people behind the method.
Additionally, there are systemic flaws. Claiming there are huge inferiority-superiority gaps between the sexes has incentives for scientists:
One big complication is that scientists are under enormous pressure to publish their work, and journals tend to publish results that are statistically significant. If there's no big effect, a journal is less likely to be interested. [...] Gina Rippon [a professor of cognitive neuroimaging in the U.K.] believes that sex difference research continues to suffer from bad research because it remains such a hot-button topic. For scientists and journals, a sexy study on sex difference can equal instant global publicity. The vast majority of experiments and studies show no sex difference, she adds. But they're not the ones that get published. "I describe this as an iceberg. You get the bit above the water, which is the smallest but most visible part, because it's easy to get studies published in this area. But then there's this huge amount under the water where people haven't found any differences," Rippon explains. People end up seeing only the tip of the iceberg--the studies that reinforce sex differences.Then, to reach the general public, science journalists distill and simplify research for various news sources. But that’s always a little risky because sometimes they make mistakes in that distillation and simplification. Significant problems also arise when regular people on a variety of outlets, such as social media and message boards, misinterpret science news and then engage in lengthy discussions with others that can take on a robust incorrect life of their own.
To be perfectly clear, Inferior is not, by any stretch, a cynical, science-denying book. Saini is a scientist herself, and if anything, her book shows a love and respect for the subject. As is fitting for a book decrying bias, she kept her own approach unbiased. She afforded equal time to warring theories, laying out compelling information with a controlled objectivity. In presenting rebuttals, Saini let the information speak for itself by juxtaposing those who conducted flawed experiments against those who didn’t.
The book makes the important point that change can happen, but it’s challenging because it involves beating down something humans have evolved to do for survival reasons: categorize. Another obstacle is the simple reality that sex difference is about people and therefore something concrete that we know well, unlike, say, quantum mechanics. As Gina Rippon says:
It’s not something that people don’t know much about. This is everybody’s lives. Everybody has a brain, everybody has a gender of some kind . . . they’ve either been in a mixed-sex school or they have worked in a mixed-sex environment. They’ve got boys and girls. So they see differences. And so, when you say there aren’t really any [differences], they say you’re wrong.However, we’ll struggle to achieve gender equality as long as we cultivate an either-or mentality. Rippon goes on to say that brains are “intersex, a mosaic” and that lumping them into the generalized categories of “male” and “female” shows a lack of appreciation for how impossibly complex and malleable the organ is. Scientists should remember that each brain is unique because each human is unique. They should therefore take a “fingerprint-type approach” when studying brains, Rippon says. Scientist Anne Fausto-Sterling agrees: “Instead of the binary categories we have now, every individual should be thought of as a developmental system--a unique and ever-changing product of upbringing, culture, history, and experience, as well as biology.” Being wedded to categorization is to our detriment.
We need to condemn science’s sex-based biases precisely because we so revere and accept science. As Saini says, “ . . . what science tells us about women profoundly shapes how society thinks about the sexes.” Inferior pulls off a balancing act that should be impossible: It plants a seed of healthy skepticism in the minds of readers but also respects the facts that science proves. With this book, Saini has established herself as a genuine seeker of truth.
katew726's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny and Sexism
Minor: Body horror and Violence