Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences (HARDBACK)
UK £14.99,
UK Publication September 2010
ISBN 9781848311633
Hardback
Page Extent 368 pages
Buy: | Amazon UK| Waterstones| Book Depository
A vehement attack on the latest pseudo-scientific claims about the differences between the sexes.
Sex discrimination is supposedly a distant memory. Yet popular books, magazines and even scientific articles increasingly defend inequalities by citing immutable biological differences between the male and female brain. That’s the reason, we’re told, that there are so few women in science and engineering, so few men in the laundry room – different brains are just better suited to different things.
Drawing on the latest research in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and social psychology, Delusions of Gender powerfully rebuts these claims, showing how old myths, dressed up in new scientific finery, are helping perpetuate the sexist status quo.
Cordelia Fine, ‘a cognitive neuroscientist with a sharp sense of humour and an intelligent sense of reality’ (The Times) reveals the mind’s remarkable plasticity, shows how profoundly culture influences the way we think about ourselves and, ultimately, exposes just how much of what we consider ‘hardwired’ is actually malleable.
This startling, original and witty book shows the surprising extent to which boys and girls, men and women are made – and not born, empowering us to break free of the supposed predestination of our sex chromosomes.
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'Timely and provocative ... includes extensive research, sharp wit and a probing intelligence, and ... refuses to be satisfied with the delusional myth-making that often passes for popular science.' Metro
'With Delusions of Gender, we welcome a brilliant feminist critic of the neurosciences ... In a book that sparkles with wit, which is easy to read but underpinned by substantial scholarship ... [Cordelia Fine] attacks the ready generalisations on sexual differences made by neuroscientists and their media exegetes.’ Hilary Rose, Times Higher Education Supplement
‘With a fabulous combination of wit, passion and scholarship, Fine demolishes many of the common theories offered to explain the construction of gender in contemporary society ... this marvellous and important book will change the way readers view the gendered world.’ Publishers Weekly (US)
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Cordelia Fine was awarded a PhD in Psychology from University College London. She is now a Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne.
See more books by: Cordelia Fine
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Other editions / related titles:
A Mind of Its Own (PAPERBACK)
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Tags: neuroscience, gender
