Sex and Cognition

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not convincing
Review: Easy to read and thought provoking, the book describes some very specific differences in mental abilities between men and women. Men are better at hitting a target with a missile and at mentally rotating an object while women are better at fine hand control and at verbal memory.

Two things bothered me about the arguments presented in this book.

One was the attempt to explain the abilities as evolved from the division of labor in early human hunter/gatherer societies. This was contradicted by experiments on rats that showed male rats were better at spatial navigation. This male linked ability could not have evolved in both early mammals and early humans. It would have been better to leave the whole hunter/gatherer argument out as it was not supported by experimentation.

Second, the author mentions "the sex differences...tend to be smaller in Asians and blacks." This would seem to indicate that the sex differences are cultural and not biological. The author assumes that the race differences are biological but gives no evidence to back this up.

The experiments did try to control for many variables such as the person's size, strength, speed, life experience and much more. The author kept the book very much on the science and avoided controversial and subjective politics.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not convincing
Review: Easy to read and thought provoking, the book describes some very specific differences in mental abilities between men and women. Men are better at hitting a target with a missile and at mentally rotating an object while women are better at fine hand control and at verbal memory.

Two things bothered me about the arguments presented in this book.

One was the attempt to explain the abilities as evolved from the division of labor in early human hunter/gatherer societies. This was contradicted by experiments on rats that showed male rats were better at spatial navigation. This male linked ability could not have evolved in both early mammals and early humans. It would have been better to leave the whole hunter/gatherer argument out as it was not supported by experimentation.

Second, the author mentions "the sex differences...tend to be smaller in Asians and blacks." This would seem to indicate that the sex differences are cultural and not biological. The author assumes that the race differences are biological but gives no evidence to back this up.

The experiments did try to control for many variables such as the person's size, strength, speed, life experience and much more. The author kept the book very much on the science and avoided controversial and subjective politics.

Rating:
Summary: Nicely written and well-grounded in science
Review: This is an excellent summary of the current science of male/female brain differences, nicely written and well-grounded in experiment.

I read this followed by Sex on the Brain by Blum, Brain Sex by Moir/Jessel, and The Essential Difference by Baron-Cohen. If you only read one book, read The Essential Difference; if two, then read Sex and Cognition followed by The Essential Difference. The other two are worth reading as well, since they both have some unique material and perspectives. If you read all 4, I think the order I happened to read them worked well.

Rating:
Summary: The death of feminism
Review: When I wrote "the death of feminism" as the title for the review, I specifically meant the first Article of the Feminist Faith, as enunciated by Erica Jong and countless others: "The only differences between men and women are those which are caused by the environment. In other words, men and women are (or would be) mentally and spiritually identical if it were not for the discriminating socialization of our patriarchal civilization."

This article of faith is false. Doreen Kimura shows how many male/female differences are biological, and -- not only are they in place in the fetus at the age of four months -- they can often be observed across different mammalian species. One example is that women, when learning a new route to travel, pick up a lot more landmarks than men. One way to describe this is that men tend to navigate with some over-all directional sense, while women find their way by following landmarks. No big deal, but a very real difference -- and one which has also been observed in rats.

Books like these are invaluable, since they enable discusssion to begin anew on an entirely different level. At least we can stop kicking dead horses like "all sex differences are caused by child-rearing."

The book is full of dry scientific data, but can be profitably skimmed.

Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: The death of feminism
Review: When I wrote "the death of feminism" as the title for the review, I specifically meant the first Article of the Feminist Faith, as enunciated by Erica Jong and countless others: "The only differences between men and women are those which are caused by the environment. In other words, men and women are (or would be) mentally and spiritually identical if it were not for the discriminating socialization of our patriarchal civilization."

This article of faith is false. Doreen Kimura shows how many male/female differences are biological, and -- not only are they in place in the fetus at the age of four months -- they can often be observed across different mammalian species. One example is that women, when learning a new route to travel, pick up a lot more landmarks than men. One way to describe this is that men tend to navigate with some over-all directional sense, while women find their way by following landmarks. No big deal, but a very real difference -- and one which has also been observed in rats.

Books like these are invaluable, since they enable discusssion to begin anew on an entirely different level. At least we can stop kicking dead horses like "all sex differences are caused by child-rearing."

The book is full of dry scientific data, but can be profitably skimmed.

Highly recommended!