There’s lots of very interesting detail of many studies, such as the one using CVs of identically qualified people where women were less often preferred to men for management or academic jobs. She’s also pleasantly sarcastic from time to time. It’s no wonder, she says, how even this slight reinforcement (or not) of generally accepted stereotyped differences between the sexes could equally well restrict a choice of career.įine summarises excellently and makes the science she’s surveying accessible to those of us who know nothing about psychology or neuroscience.

Similarly, if the test is prefaced by a negative reinforcement – that women generally perform less well than men – then their results are significantly poorer. If people taking the same maths test are told firstly that women tend to perform slightly better than men at this test, then, surprise, surprise – women do perform better than if no positive reinforcement exists. For instance, she talks about the existence of “stereotype threat”, and summarises several studies which indicate that if people – both men and women – are subjected to some sort of stereotype before a test, this can significantly affect the results of these tests.

It’s not that she argues in the book that there aren’t differences between men and women, but rather that these are more the result of social pressures and expectations. Fine’s surveys of the studies which have led to these conclusions being drawn, however, show that they don’t stand up to serious scrutiny, or else could easily be explained by factors other than innate differences between the sexes.

Cordelia Fine is an academic psychologist, and her aim in this book is to review – not necessarily the science of gender difference, but the interpretation by psychologists and neurologists that essential gender differences exist which have a basis in biology.įine begins her survey of the literature with various popular writers who have found huge differences between the way men and women behave, interact, and in general think about things, and have concluded that there is some innate biological differences which make men, on the whole, ‘systemisers’, and women ’empathisers’. I was first introduced to this book by Nymeth in her excellent review back in January this year: it sounded interesting enough to buy straight away, though it’s been several months since it was first put onto my to-read pile.

Cordelia fine gender