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For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less a scientist than Charles Darwin asserted that women were at a lower stage of evolution, and for decades, scientists – most of them male, of course – claimed to find evidence to support this.
Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition or behavior, science has continued to tell us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be described as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of research is now revealing an alternative version of what we thought we knew. The new woman revealed by this scientific data is as strong, strategic, and smart as anyone else.
In Inferior, acclaimed science writer Angela Saini weaves together a fascinating – and sorely necessary – new science of women. As Saini takes readers on a journey to uncover science's failure to understand women, she finds that we're still living with the legacy of an establishment that's just beginning to recover from centuries of entrenched exclusion and prejudice. Sexist assumptions are stubbornly persistent: even in recent years, researchers have insisted that women are choosy and monogamous while men are naturally promiscuous, or that the way men's and women's brains are wired confirms long-discredited gender stereotypes.
As Saini reveals, however, groundbreaking research is finally rediscovering women's bodies and minds. Inferior investigates the gender wars in biology, psychology, and anthropology, and delves into cutting-edge scientific studies to uncover a fascinating new portrait of women's brains, bodies, and role in human evolution.
Introduction
Chapter 1. Woman's Inferiority to Man
Chapter 2. Females Get Sicker but Males Die Quicker
Chapter 3. A Difference at Birth
Chapter 4. The Missing Five Ounces of the Female Brain
Chapter 5. Women's Work
Chapter 6. Choosy, Not Chaste
Chapter 7. Why Men Dominate
Chapter 8. The Old Women Who Wouldn't Die
Afterword
Acknowledgments
References
Index
Angela Saini is an award-winning science journalist, author and broadcaster.
"Angela Saini has written a powerful, compelling and much needed account that challenges deeply rooted preconceptions about sex differences – some blatant misogyny, others buried in thousands of years patriarchy. Inferior shows that both are fundamentally flawed, and beautifully illustrates how science is just beginning to tackle this staggering imbalance"
– Adam Rutherford, author of Creation
"An immensely readable and compelling book, providing up to date and evidence-based ammunition for readers who want to rebuff tired myths stereotyping men and women's brains and bodies"
– Professor Athene Donald
"This is an important book, beautifully written, and with compelling narratives and hard evidence researched through the lenses of anthropology, evolutionary history, psychology, and neuroscience. The evidence for unconscious bias is undisputed – so no matter what you think you think about gender and equality – read this book"
– Aarathi Prasad, author of Like a Virgin
"A thought-provoking insight into the many different stories behind research into the age-old issue of differences between males and females. Clearly and accessibly written, this book offers an intriguing and provocative alternative view of past certainties about men and women"
– Professor Gina Rippon, Chair of Cognitive Brain Imaging, Aston Brain Centre
"In this smart, balanced, and wonderfully readable book, Angela Saini breaks the vicious cycle by which women, having been excluded from the sciences by men who assumed them to be inferior, were judged by those same male scientists to be inferior. Study by study, she objectively reexamines what we think we know about the supposed differences between the sexes. If you have ever been shouted down by a male colleague who insists that science has proven women to be biologically inferior to men, here are the arguments you need to demonstrate that he doesn't know what he is talking about."
– Eileen Pollack, author of The Only Woman in the Room
"Angela Saini's Inferior proves the opposite of its title. It is a lively, well-written, informed account of women's proven powers. She shows that science, long used as a weapon against women, is today an ally in their steady advance. Inferior is another nail in the coffin of male supremacy."
– Melvin Konner, author of Women After All
"This is an important book that I hope will be widely read. Any time biases are identified and corrected for, it is science and policymaking rather than feminism or any particular ideology that comes out ahead."
– Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of The Woman That Never Evolved, Mother Nature, and Mothers and Others
