Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong-and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story

English language

Published April 25, 2017

ISBN:
978-0-8070-7170-0
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

View on Inventaire

4 stars (1 review)

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story is a 2017 book by science journalist Angela Saini. The book discusses the effect of sexism on scientific research, and how that sexism influences social beliefs.The book was published by Beacon Press in the United States and Fourth Estate Books in the United Kingdom.

3 editions

Science and the patriarchy

4 stars

Recommended by a friend following some earlier reading (Heart of Maleness) this is an interesting feminist angle on popular science tropes. It takes aim at the science, from Darwin onwards, that's been used to "prove" women are inferior to men, and that sex differences are somehow innate and unavoidable. Across a range of different areas, Saini exposes how some big scientific findings are based on very shaky ground. Weak science and patriarchal beliefs have led people to take tiny studies and blow them up out of all importance to reinforce stereotypes, and those working to correct and challenge these assumptions are left to the fringes. Ocasionnally a bit frustrating as she takes her time to debunk flaws that are obvious in the way she describes a study, and she perhaps gives some people a bit too much of the benefit of the doubt, but still well worth reading.