Book club and diversity group joined to read the book Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong by Angela Saini. I made a lot of notes while reading it, so here they are with my opinions.
I knew that the book tries to be provocative and scientific simultaneously, so I read it carefully. I struggled to read that way. Usually, I read for fun or learning (from the sources that are not pushing an agenda or the agenda is not too different). I think I'm more critical of the book. I agree less but remember more. I wonder what would happen if I read every book that way.
After reading, I had many unanswered questions. When the author presents the research and her debunking of it, I don't dig deeper. I don't know the scientific consensus or the best experiment about that (mind that this is a political topic).
In the book about an unfamiliar topic, I have to be led by the author. She takes few steps in one direction to uncover a problem with an experiment. Then she takes few steps to outline a different one. She tries to look balanced, but you can see some paths not taken, and then you wonder why you didn't get there (Some would make the argument better, but the book would be too long. Some would make the argument weaker).
I had more doubts because she presented "73 cents per dollar" as fact or contradicted herself.
The template of most chapters is simple. Angela presents influential research, mainly from the '70s and '80s (but she is not afraid to debunk Darwin's too) done by a prominent researcher (a man). She explains the setting and influence of the study then invites another researcher (a woman, feminist -- both emphasizes are hers) that outlines imperfections and gives opposite (different) results.
For instance, in the first chapters, she slams Darwin for being only 50 years ahead in science. Then she debunks his dated views.
The whole book reads nicely. The author balances stories and research well.
The second chapter is unique. Angela outlines an enormous advantage of women: they live significantly longer. It starts from birth (if the society is not too much against girls) and continues to old age.
Because of possible pregnancy, a woman's immune system is more adaptive. Also, men almost miss one chromosome (Y is tiny). It has some implications too.
Moreover, men risk their lives at work more.
Our immune systems and bodies differ. It has some disadvantages for women. Mostly men were guinea pigs for new drugs, so the drugs work on them better.
On average, men's brain has five ounces more (Even large brain does not help them know how many grams five ounces are... about 141). The brain's size correlates with the overall size, so since men are bigger, they have bigger brains. There is no link between cognitive abilities and brain size (probably, she didn't say that).
The composition differs too: men have more white matter, women have more gray matter. It also does not mean too much. It's more a question of scaling than cognitive abilities.
It seems that all brains are mostly the same. Only between none and 8% of the people have a distinctly male or female brain.
Moreover, brains are amazingly plastic. They change when we use them. A portion of the difference might span from different occupations, so it's societal (I would be interested in research that women with children to women without).
Male and female bodies create different levels of hormones right from birth. Mause's sexual behavior changes if it gets one injection of testosterone at birth.
Girls with higher testosterone (disease) play more like boys. That happens despite negative conditioning. Mothers force them to behave more like girls.
In general, the distribution in the way boys and girls play is similar to height distribution.
Women empathize, men, systemize. She admits that the difference is about half of the deviation (and I suppose that it's after cleaning it from societal influences because she talks about that just before and then does not mention it). This difference is tiny, but she never explores what that means at the ends of the distribution.
I hoped to find more about the variation hypothesis: men have a higher variance in their cognitive abilities (geniuses and simpletons are men). For me, that's the simplest explanation for what we see in the world. She says that it's not very big (but present) in half a page (this made me think how much is it true).
We live in an artificial environment. Maybe we can get insight into differences when we look at how primitive societies live. Any translation between now and history is dubious. Nevertheless, some people argue that different roles led women and men to develop differently.
What we see is that women can do all the work (men cannot do everything). The puzzle is why we don't have matriarchal societies.
Women also hunt, if it's safe and makes sense (Angela dwelled on an example where women did, but then herself gave very restricted condition when women do). Interestingly, hunting does not provide too many calories: between 30% and 80%, depending on the environment.
Problem with naturality also arises when we talk about childcare. Mothers do it a lot. Interestingly, when scientists analyzed data on the survivability of small children who lost their mother. They discovered that in primitive societies, older siblings than grandmothers increase survivability. Fathers are behind both groups.
Even when men and women have similar roles, they need to alter their behavior when choosing their mate. Mother invest in a child a lot, the father can leave.
There is an argument that men experience higher evolutionary pressure than women, so they need to develop differently (think peacocks feathers, but with muscles or intelligence). Moreover, women are naturally more chaste and men more promiscuous.
After talking about sexual selection, she debunks the chastity of women. She never touches the argument: "Variation of men's offspring is higher than women's". Too bad, I would like to learn what does it mean (or what she thinks about that, for me, the implications are clear, the risk pays off more to men)? But back to chastity: women have sex if it makes sense, and nobody is preventing that.
The author also does not help her case when after strong criticism of science she presents "a research" on how suppressing women was a prerequisite for civilization. She adds (quote): "She (female feminist researcher) was largely dismissed by the scientific establishment, partly because her bold deductions went a little too far against the grain, but also because she made genuine scientific and anatomical errors."
It's nice that she says that something is wrong, but it so much fits her narrative that she needed to have these paragraphs there. What else is shaky but presented as a modern science?
Towards the end, the books getting very bad. Angela writes about the suppression of sexuality of women and how society was build to do mainly that. Then she spends a lot of time talking about bonobos. She tries to draw parallels between their behavior and humans. The similarity is not there. Moreover, few pages back, she fought to prevent comparisons between humans and chimpanzees.
The last chapter reveals a revolutionary discovery. Post-menopausal women are not useless. This chapter is very redundant.
The author seemed methodical in evaluating what men and women did differently in the past. She doesn't mention the war. Not by the slightest. For me, this is intentional. It would not support her point.
As you can tell, I didn't like the book. I outlined the most painful problems here.
I also learned some things. It made me think about how to structure our world to everyone's happiness. But about that maybe later.