Myths of Gender: Biological Theories about Women and Men, Revised Edition

by Anne Fausto-Sterling and Sterling Anne Fausto

Book Overview

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. Features a new chapter and afterward on recent biological breakthroughs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465047920
• ISBN13: 9780465047925
• Release Date: September 1992
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

4.5 Stars for Exposing the Flaws of the Constructs of Sex Differences

I read the second edition of 1992. It includes 48 additional pages to the 1985 original: a preface; a new chapter on brain anatomy concerning sex differences and homosexuality; an afterword. The author explains that the book is imcomplete in so far as it does NOT include the topics women and depression, mothering instincts and transsexuality. Instead she tackles most of all the questions of wether men are really smarter, genes and gender, hormonal hurricanes (menstruation, menopause, female behavior) and how women are put in their evolutionary place (by patriarchy). The central theme is wether there is any scientific merit to the popular perceptions of the myriad sex differences. Anne Fausto-Sterling exposes various past sexist theories by patriarchal scientists, which the latter dropped as soon as they found out that on a closer, updated look, they would actually FAVOR women. Only to be replaced by new misogynous theories. The entire field of sociobiology is unmasked as an illusion. I would like to mention though that races among humans are yet another illusion, as she uses this term all too often according to the times she was writing in. You may be interested in the more elaborate complementing Mismeasure of Women: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex. Also of interest are The Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine) and Nature's Body: Gender In The Making Of Modern Science. PS: On societies with fathers doing a bulk of the child care read for example Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care, for current lack of knowledge about a book of a (lost?) South American people, in which fathers do/did even more of the child care.

myths exposed

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.

read after brain sex to be de programmed

I read the book a few years ago and have ever since been helpedalong 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 tobe 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 thesegifts 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 fittedinto 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 anda woman with a male brain.The "researchers" have assigned a very narrow set of abilitiesto males and females,and they use the hormone theory to perperuate it.Hormones are cousins,and esrtogen,androgens,testostrone,progestrone are found in bothsexes and in individual amounts.This in turn gives little truth to the notion of hormones playing a part in male or femalebrain 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.

This book is a gem among the gender rubble

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!

Interesting and scientific...

I read this book for a summer reading program at my high school last summer. It was interesting and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys science textbook-like books. It was "very non-fiction" w/ stats and facts. Therefore, if you like things that way, and you are also interested in the subject, it's very helpful; a learning experience. The book is informative and helpful, some backing to common myths, some scientific backing to rumors floating around. The downfall is that it CAN get boring and takes forever to read. It's to be read in multiple sittings. In conclusion, it is either great or terrible, depending on your interests.