Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men, Revised Edition (Paperback)

by Anne Fausto-Sterling (Author) "THESE are difficult times..." (more)
Key Phrases: premenstrual emotionality, major intellectual traits, menstrual cycle research, New York, United States, David Barash (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Are men smarter than women, better at math, inherently more aggressive? Are women verbal, subject to monthly emotional storms, and doomed without hormone intervention to a sexless deteriorating old age? Do studies by sociobiologists shed light on gender behavior in humans? Fausto-Sterling, an associate professor of medical science at Brown University, considers all these questions, concentrating on the scientific studies on which popular assumptions are often based. She presents complicated ideas clearly and knowledgeably and is devastatingly critical of the scientific validity of much of the work she cites. Her own opinions unavoidably (and admittedly) color her judgment subtly, but she does great service in exposing the faultiness of many gender studies and presenting the complexity of this important topic. Margery C. Coombs, Zoology Dept., Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
By carefully examining the biological, genetic, evolutionary, and psychological evidence, a noted biologist finds a shocking lack of substance behind ideas about biologically-based sex differences.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; Revised edition (September 9, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465047920
• ISBN-13: 978-0465047925
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #259,477 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a gem among the gender rubble, September 27, 2000

By	Ame Hunter (CA) - See all my reviews

I'm not surprized that more people haven't read this book,because it gives the human being a maze of possiblities and HUMAN potential not limited by gender,which maybe to frightening for the Mars and Venused public to accept,since it leaves the door wide open for limitless potential and variations among persons atributed to individuality and not gender. I found other gender related books to be very limiting,which lead me to take some tests on spatial and verbal ability,let's just say,under the narrow Brain Sex mode,I would have a completely male brain in a female body!..after my test,my suspicions increased and I did some further reading and found this book. The writer explains how researchers may not be entirely ojective, how you cannot in any way base all gender behavior on a limited amount of subjects,since we of course have over a billion persons roaming the planet with many different individual abilites,and how there is an agenda against women's advancement in science and math,which of course demand sound logic and spatial reasoning. Expand your possibities,get the gender limits off your minds, and soar!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars myths exposed , April 6, 2005

By	Rachel (Chatsworth) - See all my reviews

I was always puzzled when it came to these gender studies.
Anee Fausto Sterling tells us about how these studies are
subjective and misleading.How and why we find a continual stapple of books proclaiming 'innate sex differences".
From my own experiences,none of the sex difference books hold
water when it comes to the reality of everyday life.We see
such differences in individuals as to say it's not sex which
is the cause behind them.Everyone should read her book.It is
time to stop reinforcing sterotypes on people.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars read after brain sex to be de programmed, June 15, 2003

By	CC ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

I read the book a few years ago and have ever since been helped
along the way as I wind myself down the path of endless
"sex difference" books.
I read it before I read "Brain Sex" so I wasn't at all able to
be programmed into a set of beliefs so common these days.
Gender studies are flawed,they involve the subjectivity of the
"researcher" and bias.If the "researcher finds a woman to
have a road map and blueprints in her mind,she's said to have
been exposed to male hormones,as though a woman cannot have these
gifts without being somehow a "misfit" according to most
"researchers".And what of the man who has great writing and
memory but poor spatial and math ability? He is neating fitted
into a catagory of male who was exposed to female hormones.
Anyway the writer debunks these myths with straightforward
writing and objective conclusions to confusing answers other
writers come up with to explain a man with a female brain and
a woman with a male brain.
The "researchers" have assigned a very narrow set of abilities
to males and females,and they use the hormone theory to
perperuate it.
Hormones are cousins,and esrtogen,androgens,testostrone,progestrone are found in both
sexes and in individual amounts.This in turn gives little
truth to the notion of hormones playing a part in male or female
brain wiring.
Brains are not fixed,a spatial brain can be in a female and
a verbal in a male.
Read the book and find out how subjective and bias gender
research actually is.