Well-crafted and thoroughly documented, this is a must-read for parents, teachers, and anyone of either sex who cares for...
An authoritative debunking of the notion of a gendered brain.
In her debut book, Rippon (Cognitive Neuroimaging/Aston Univ., Birmingham) examines sex-difference research and finds a dismaying history of bad science and an abundance of design flaws, inadequate controls, and innumeracy. Neurosexism abounds, she asserts, citing studies and naming names with assurance and a touch of acerbity. She calls misconceptions about gender differences “whac-a-mole” myths: Mistaken assumptions, she writes, have “been variously whacked over the years but can still be found in self-help manuals, how-to guides and even in twenty-first-century arguments about the utility or futility of diversity agendas.” Further, research findings are often misinterpreted by the press, creating in the public imagination an inaccurate picture of the so-called “male” or “female” brain. Rippon notes that the view of a gendered brain, which has a long history, is stubbornly persistent today. She cites both social psychologist Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 declaration that women “represent the most inferior forms of human evolution” and Google engineer James Damore’s 2017 blog about the biological causes for the absence of women in technology. Looking at numerous scientific studies, the author sees surprisingly little evidence for brain sex differences in newborns. Rather, she argues, the differences in behavior and interests between boys and girls, and men and women, can be explained by the impact of a gendered world on the human brain. As she notes, gender clues surround children from birth. Attitudes and unexamined assumptions can be toxic, and toys, sports, clothing, and colors have a powerful impact. Young children, writes Rippon, are social sponges, especially attuned to social rules, and their experiences in a pink-vs.-blue world can change the way their brains form. Ultimately, her message is that a gendered world will produce a gendered brain. The result, unfortunately, is that boys and girls are shaped with different expectations and are often driven down career different paths.
Well-crafted and thoroughly documented, this is a must-read for parents, teachers, and anyone of either sex who cares for children.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4702-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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