Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong-and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story Paperback – March 6, 2018

Such a good book, I learned a lot. Extremely well written and important to read. Highly recommend it as well as Superior by Angela Saini.

This book reviews the history of science, particularly its increasing exclusion of women as it became professionalized, and several major errors promulgated by male-dominated science and how they have been debunked in the modern era. Examples include the ideas that women are mentally inferior to men, either for unspecified reasons or because their brains were smaller, and that women are naturally sedentary, passive and submissive, and monogamous. This is an excellent brief, readable summary of biased bad science directly relevant to social life and women's rights.There's not as much coverage of less directly harmful areas of science that have been skewed by male bias. For example, there's a brief mention of a past attitude that the "passive egg, active sperm" model represented natural behavior of the humans who produced those gametes. However, that model isn't even true; male scientists avoided admitting that the egg-sperm interaction involves (gasp) receptors on the sperm. The improvement in primatology due to the entrance of women into the field is covered; I suspect that the same is true for other areas of zoology that weren't covered. This book certainly covers the major types of pseudoscience that were - and often still are - directly used against women; a complete catalog of how gender (and perhaps also racial) exclusivity in all sciences may have reduced their historical quality would take multiple large volumes.

Tackles long-standing unknowns with regard to nature vs. nurture as it pertains to gender identity—and actually offers deeply well-informed and satisfying answers, all informed by balanced considerations of scientific findings on the issue. All the while the author emphasizes delicately and methodically parsing apart the effects of the Western scientific field's deeply entrenched historical biases regarding gender roles so as to highlight how this has functioned to perpetuate / reaffirm pre-existing socio-cultural beliefs about gender—which, basically, are often in turn reinforced through this shakey scientific knowledge in society and culture. The book aims to walk back on all of that while also bringing to light these shortcomings—and from there, it carefully walks back forward to consider the latest findings about gender arrived at via empirical evidence / deduced by way of proper execution of scientific method.

I grew up with parents who did medical research so I was already aware of the ingrained bias against women in science but this book does a great job of covering a multi-faceted topic in a clear, cohesive, interesting fashion. I was hoping to read more about the lack of women in certain clinical trials and the consequences for human health, but I was happy with the subject matter covered here. And surprised to read quite a bit about primatology and how that field is dominated by female scientists.

Unfocused and poorly edited, this book spends far more time providing examples of how Western cultures get woman wrong and not nearly enough time examining how the scientific community got women wrong.The author and her editors should have studied The Nurture Assumption and its sequel to gain insight on how to tackle cultural beliefs and debunk bad science. For example, the examination of the Baron-Cohen study of infants staring at faces or mechanical objects could have been a succinct example of really bad science that has influenced other scientists, the media, and the general public. Instead, the authors wanders about for page after page before examining the study’s design flaws and the inability of other scientists to reproduce its results. Similarly, the author could have spent more time and been far more effective on the plasticity of our brains - on how culture itself, by encouraging boys to play with mechanical objects and girls to play with dolls, may in fact create quantifiable differences between the sexes, in spacial orientation tests and verbal interaction levels for example. In such cases, the science is probably getting it wrong because researchers are mistaking causation - outcomes are different because of training, not underlying structural differences in the brains of men and women. In the end, this book contains many interesting arguments worth study but fails in being particularly persuasive.Yes, scientists, being bound by their own cultural straitjackets, get lots of stuff wrong, especially in the social sciences, but over time the scientific method will correct these errors. This book is a step in that direction, but just a small one.

This is a really great compilation of current scientific knowledge, specifically those studies focused on finding differences between the sexes. I really liked the way the author not only talks about current science and societal efforts to use this science as a way to keep women 'in their place,' but also the way she shows how this has been done throughout recorded history. I thought this really brought home how science, among many other levers in society, has been used to try to keep women in an inferior position relative to men. I recommend this book to anyone, especially women tired of hearing worn out platitudes that have been used for generations as an excuse as to why they can't get ahead or shouldn't participate in public life.

A lire de toute urgence pour comprendre comment même la science peut être sexiste. Le tout extrêmement bien documenté et avec toujours de la place pour les théories « adverses »

With a background in science, I liked the reference to many women scientists. Well supported. Women have always been under more scrutiny. It is challenging to have your voice heard in a world where men's opinions/words have historically been given more credibility. I like the concept that our brains, whether male or female is fluid, and that we are greatly influenced by social/cultural experiences. Highly recommend this read. Please introduce to girls of 12, 13 years of age. Science and mathematics provide a sound foundation for more career opportunities. Girls are just as capable as boys to do well with mathematics.

Um excelente livro sobre feminismo e ciência. Muito bem escrito e com informações relevantes.

Inferior is a very readable and thoroughly researched account of how science has ignored, excluded and misinterpreted women over the years.Whether it is the product of unconscious bias or the assumption that women's behaviour is not fundamentally affected by the patriarchal societies we live in, often the finest minds in science have simply got us wrong.Angela Saini tears these preconceptions about gender apart and as well as documenting the history of science that incorrectly judged women to be inferior, she also looks at some of the modern research that is setting the story straight.In the 21st century it seems insane that a book like this should be necessary, let alone required reading, but it is.

The book gives a detailed account of the diverse set of experiments and theories concerning gender. The exposition is broad covering a variety of cases from the beginning of science until nowadays. In all the analysis, the book defends successfully how the motivation of scientists influence the course of their scientific research and how one should be careful when encountering scientific studies concerning gender, because scientists might have overlooked serious flaws of their studies in the pursuit of the answer they believed should be the correct one.