One-line summary: A dense but accessible examination of the nature vs. nurture debate as it pertains to neuroscience.



Reviews:

Goodreads: Average: 4.26. Mode: 5 stars (44%)
Amazon: Average: 4.2 Mode: 5 stars (70%)

Sex-based discrimination is supposedly a relic of the distant past. Yet popular books, magazines, and even scientific articles increasingly defend continuing inequalities between the sexes by calling on immutable biological differences between the male and the female brain. Why are there so few women in science and engineering, so few men in the laundry room? Well, they say, it’s our brains. Drawing on the latest research in developmental psychology, neuroscience, and education, Delusions of Gender rebuts these claims, showing how old myths, dressed up in new scientific finery, help perpetuate the status quo. This book reveals the brain’s remarkable plasticity, shows the substantial influence of culture on identity, and, ultimately, exposes just how much of what we consider “hardwired” is actually malleable, empowering us to break free of the supposed predestination of our sex chromosomes.

Warning: Long review is long and opinionated.

( Evolutionary psychology is the phrenology of the 21st century )

Verdict: This isn't aimed at the casual reader, but it's not a textbook either; you don't need a degree in psychology or biology to understand it. If you are deeply invested in either end of the nature-vs-nurture debate -- you firmly believe that God Made Men and Women Different and that's Just the Way It Is, or conversely, gender is 100% socially constructed, then this book isn't likely to change your mind. But it will allow you to discuss the issue intelligently, with more than a hand-waving understanding of what "science" supposedly says on the topic.