Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

Author:Cordelia Fine [Unknown]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781848313965
Publisher: Icon Books
Published: 2012-07-01T19:31:48+00:00

We never seem to learn.

No discussion of the brain, sex and education would be complete without mention of the now-notorious theory of Professor Edward Clarke of the Harvard Medical School. In his highly successful nineteenth-century book, Sex in Education (subtitled, somewhat ironically as it turned out, Or, A Fair Chance for Girls), he proposed that intellectual labour sent energy rushing dangerously from ovaries to brain, endangering fertility as well as causing other severe medical ailments.41 As biologist Richard Lewontin dryly remarked of this hypothesis, ‘Testicles, apparently, had their own sources of energy.’42 From our modern vantage point we can laugh at the prejudice that gave rise to this hypothesis. Yet we may have little cause for complacency.

Tuck says she has ‘a hunch that in 50 years’ time, maybe only 25, people will be doubled up with laughter when they watch documentaries about the history of education and discover people once thought it was a good idea to educate adolescent boys and girls together.’43 But when I survey the popular literature, I suspect that this will not be where the people of the future will find their biggest laughs. Frankly, I think they will be too busy giggling in astonished outrage at the claims of early twenty-first-century commentators who, like their nineteenth-century predecessors, reinforced gender stereotypes with crude comparisons of male or female brains; or who, like Brizendine with her talk of ‘overloaded brain circuits’, attempted to locate social pressures in the brain. (Here it is, Michael! I finally found the neural circuits for organising child care, planning the evening meal and ensuring that everyone has clean underwear. See how they crowd out these circuits for career, ambition and original thought?)

I end with a plea. Although, as we’ll see in the next chapter, there is something captivating about neuroscientific information, please, no more neurosexism! Follow the four simple steps I set out at the beginning of the chapter or leave the interpretations to the trained professionals. Neuroscience can be dangerous when mishandled, so if you’re not sure, be safe.

As the blogger known as Neurosceptic wisely advises those who peddle neurononsense, ‘Save yourself … put the brain down and walk away.’44

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