Delusions of gender
Subtitle: How our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, the author criticizes claims about innate biological differences between men and women's minds as being faulty and exaggerated and considers how cultural and societal beliefs contribute to sex differences. Cornelia Fine is an academic psychologist.
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13recommend
23mentions
18people
2011–2018years
74% recommend22% neutral4% critical
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What Hacker News says
- Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb has implications that I find impact very disparate areas. It's hard work in places though.
The Quark and the Jaguar by Murray Gell-Mann is a wonderfully readable and accessible intro to complexity, which again is a topic that seems to crop up all over the place.
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine cites a shedload of research to dispel gender-related myths. It should be taught in schools, in my opinion.
- Cordola Fine's Delusions of Gender is an excellent counter to Pinker's naturalist essentialism.
Pinker tends to lean to the side of nature rather than nuture in debate around gender influence. The article assumes the readers believe the same. Perhaps Pinker's prior research justifies this language. But after reading Cordola Fine's works, which I think definitely throws salt on nature assumptions, id call assuming this language are held by most to be very bold of Pinker.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/10/gender-gap-m...Susan Pinker Vs Cordelia Fine: - Translation:
When people use Tinder, they behave in the way that the user interface encourages them to. Because Tinder was built with assumptions about dating that are socially conservative, the behavior that the app encourages is behavior which conforms to socially conservative ideas about dating. Because the people who promote these socially conservative ideas like to wrap them in a veneer of pseudoscience, they claim that Tinder reinforces “ancient” behavior.
(Great source on the pseudoscience part: “Delusions of Gender” by Dr. Cordelia Fine. Plenty of others exist. And while I know the pseudoscience part might be controversial to some on here, I hope at least the idea that user interfaces guide user behavior is not.)
- The "actual facts" of what he said are not uncontroversial. They aren't even facts. Cordelia Fine's "Delusions of Gender" has an extensive bibliography of studies disputing the statements he claims are facts.
- "Delusions of Gender" is a good book that explains how brain science, still in its infancy and unable to create good baseline controls to separate cultural from biological factors, is misreported to create garbage headlines like "men like sports and women like shopping because of hunter-gatherer roots", or "female babies stare at faces longer, therefore empathy".
There's interesting stuff in the field, but absolutely nothing that would warrant telling a woman "the science is in". Especially given the track record of people itching to chalk injustice up to biology.
- > that these arguments about innate biological traits are complicated by trans, non-binary, and intersex folks.
2% (outliers) of the population does not invalidate the trends of the other 98% This is just wrong.
> I disagree that it’s possible to write what he did about general populations, then walk it back to say “but of course it doesn’t apply at an individual level.”
Gorillas typically have black fur. So no gorilla can have white fur? Wat?
> there have been some really fabulous responses, including many laying out a lot of research that counters what was in the memo
I'm interested in this research. I have not seen it, nor has it been made available. The following book, with 2 female authors who seem genuinely interested and informed in related topics: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Arent-More-Women-Science/dp/15914...
who reached a similar conclusion to James Damore: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/opinions/williams-ceci-women-i...
Let's at least present the field studies/research, which can throw existing clinical views into doubt. eg Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences by Cordelia Fine is at least a rigorous critique of possible flaws.
It's a little saddening, to have this dialog represent the views of an average engineer.
