Skip to main content

Testosterone Rex - Cordelia Fine ****

It seems that books about the myth of gendered minds are somewhat like busses - wait ages for one, then two come along close together. I've already reviewed the superb Inferior by Angela Saini, so it was fascinating to be able to contrast Cordelia Fine's impressive Testosterone Rex.

 This is a full-on take on the whole business of the ways that men and women aren't (and are) different. You may think that there's no need to do this in today's world. After, all, we all recognise gender equality, don't we? However, not only is it taking a long time for this to percolate through to equal pay (at the time of writing this review there's been quite a fuss about this at the BBC), it's clear that acceptance that the bias still exists is often, at best, skin deep. I was fascinated to see an online argument, started with a post by a (female) physicist on the topic, only to have a string of male scientists, who really should know better, pile in with a combination of denial, excuses, and attempts to counter studies with anecdotes, somehow forgetting that anecdotes are not data.

 Even more so than with Saini's book, Fine's makes me feel sorry for evolutionary psychologists - these academics are really getting it in the neck with findings that suggest that at least some of their long-held views aren't based on fact. Part of the reason I particularly feel their pain here is that Fine is more full on than Saini: fiery, snarky and writing much more of a polemic than Saini's cool, careful and scientific approach. My suspicion is that the approach taken in Testosterone Rex might have the wider appeal, even though, for me, Saini's book has the edge.

 Luckily, though, the two titles aren't really competitors. There is a strong overlap of theme, but each has a significantly different focus. Here relationships, sex and everyday life are stressed more (down to those infuriating 'girls' and 'boys' aisles in toyshops), while Inferior came particularly from the viewpoint of the influence of gender bias on education and careers, scientific careers in particular.

 I found Testosterone Rex an enjoyable read (I hate the name, though in fairness, Fine does spend a lot of pages on the misunderstanding of the influence of testosterone and how, for example, trading floors are not so much testosterone-fueled as testosterone-generating). The book did sometimes feel a tad repetitive, as in the end it's a vast series of examples illustrating the same point. And, for me, there was also too much about animals. Having established early on that we are very different, even from the other primates, and that there was no point in using animal examples as 'natural' behaviour for us, there didn't seem any point continuing with the animal stories. 

 If you enjoy a good piece of punchy, persuasive writing, but are still to be convinced that 'boys will be boys' or that 'women are naturally less inclined to jobs requiring assertiveness or aggression' this is a must read. If you are already fully committed to equality, you will also enjoy having your beliefs reinforced. Sadly, some will still see this as political correctness gone mad. It's not - it's about getting the scientific basis right, rather than rolling out the same dated and simply incorrect arguments.
Hardback:  

Kindle:  


Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rockets and Rayguns - Andrew May ****

The Cold War period saw dramatic developments in science and technology, coinciding with the flourishing of the science fiction genre. In Rockets and Rayguns, Andrew May draws on the parallels between reality and fiction, each influencing the other.

Inevitably a major Cold War theme was the threat of nuclear war, and May opens with the bomb. It's fascinating that fiction got there first - nuclear weapons were featured in science fiction when many physicists were still doubting the practicality of using nuclear energy. Of course, it's a lot easier to simply take a concept and dream up a weapon than it is to make it for real - for example, H. G. Wells' prophetic nuclear bombs from his 1914 The World Set Free were nothing like the real thing. And some science fiction devices concepts - notably ray guns and force fields - came to very little in reality. However this doesn't prevent the parallels being of interest.

May gives us a mix of the science - describing how nuclear we…
Post a Comment
Read more

Galileo Galilei, the Tuscan Artist – Pietro Greco ****

Near the beginning of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, he refers to a ‘Tuscan artist’ viewing the Moon through an optic glass. He’s talking about Galileo – one of history’s greatest scientists, but not the most obvious person to slap an ‘artist’ label on. Yet Galileo lived at a time – the Renaissance – when it was fashionable to dabble impartially in both the arts and sciences. Look up ‘Renaissance man’ on Wikipedia and you’ll see Galileo’s picture right there underneath Leonardo da Vinci’s. It’s a less well-known side to his life, but it crops up again and again – interspersed among his many scientific achievements – in this excellent new biography by Pietro Greco.

If you’re looking for interesting trivia, you’ll find plenty in this book. Galileo’s father was a musician with scientific leanings, who carried out some of the first experiments on musical acoustics – which Galileo may have assisted with. As a young professor of mathematics, Galileo delivered a couple of lectures on …
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ultimate Interplanetary Travel Guide - Jim Bell **

Not too long ago, NASA brought out a series of spoof ‘space tourism’ posters for various destinations in the Solar System. For people like me, who have watched NASA depressingly fail to send humans to the other planets for decade after decade, it was just another painful twist of the knife. On the other hand, the posters probably have more appeal for younger and less cynical minds, by presenting familiar astronomical objects in a new and engaging way. There may even be scope for a whole book along these lines – and that’s what Jim Bell has attempted here.

The main thing I learned from it is that my brain is programmed to read either fiction or non-fiction, and can’t handle a 50:50 mix of the two – which is what this book is. It drove me mad –  not least because I could see that the same material, presented as straight non-fiction, could have made a really excellent book. Using the NASA posters as a starting point, he could have enumerated the potential ‘tourist sights’ at each location…
Post a Comment
Read more