Adam’s rib
For seven weeks, in the womb, we are all female.
Yet, at that point, some of us become male and become a man (much later) when born into the world. Some of us get the “Y” chromosome and also our bodies (if you, like me, were born male) block certain hormones allowing some of us to become male with male features (whatever that is).
That’s the real story of Adam’s rib. Men come out of women.
. . .
Science & gender differences
I read the above in a book called Inferior by Angela Saini, a celebrated and very amazing science journalist from the U.K. I find her writings refreshing and well-stated. You should read her amazing books, Inferior (on women and intelligence) and Superior (on scientific racism).
You will be taken somewhere else. Your mind, unless you are an entrenched racist or sexist, will be liberated.
Saini always cites her sources (she has tons) and she moves carefully through her narratives explaining race, gender, and sex differences in our world.
Saini explores the myth that females are inferior to males in Inferior. She proves, at least to me, that it is mostly a myth. I have three daughters so I know it is a myth.
Saini also pivots briefly in the book to enter the transgender debate. If you are in the ‘make fun of transgender people camp, or the ‘we should make people who are trans be what they are (man or woman)’ camp, or ‘I am against pronouns, even when used by others’ camp,’ she will make you think about these choices as well.
Saini has taken me to a new level of confidence in this area as well. I feel even more liberated from the constrictions of racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic narratives now. I knew where I stood politically, socially, and culturally. Now, I know why I feel that way.
As an example of how our male-dominated world works, a woman politician, Tulsi Gabbard, the former Congresswoman, tweeted recently that she left the Democratic Party because it “thinks the truth is whatever they say it is” and “denies objective reality such as the difference between men and women, and that tries to discredit or silence anyone who dares to challenge them.”
I do not know of any silencing but Gabbard is factually ignorant on this issue. It is her kind of ugly opportunism that is at the root of the divisions on that issue.
Angela Saini wrote on this issue in Prospect Magazine last year just as she writes in Inferior:
It is good that Saini calls out England on transgender matters too. Britain’s approach is to ostracize members of the trans community. Pass laws denying trans children treatment that might be crucial at an early age to prevent psychological damage. This is the approach in the U.S. and many parts of the world.
. . .
Are men superior to women?
But most of Saini’s research and writings in Inferior address the differences between men and women. Are men superior to women?
The answer is emphatic — No.
According to Saini, the differences in society between men and women are mostly cultural and social, perhaps, political. These are social arrangements forced upon us by the societies in which we live. I think of them as false edicts of our suffocating patriarchal world.
Here’s Angela Saini quoted in the Guardian in 2018:
Saini challenges the so-called gap between the sexes, in “spatial awareness, mathematical reasoning or verbal skills between men and women.” Saini describes “those differences” as “tiny, a fraction of a standard deviation.”
The differences, according to Saini, do not “account for the inequalities we see in our society today.” Saini attributes much of the differences to social customs in societies.
“Study after study has shown almost all behavioral and psychological differences between the sexes to be small or non-existent.” — Angela Saini*
The facts on women and men
Inferior is especially dynamic in discussing these kinds of patriarchal myths. She destroys all of it. Women biologically want to be homemakers and stay home, nurture children, cook, and clean is the oppressive mindset of our male-poisoned societies. Not true, according to Saini and the multitude of sources she has amassed.
In fact, there is evidence in societies historically that men want to nurture children as much as the mother of the children. There is evidence of societies where women gathered the food and nurtured the children as well. The world of “us” is way more complex than women are emotionally subdued and men do things, gather the food, provide, etc. This is probably patriarchy.
Our societies, as currently constructed, are dictated by culture, not biological differences. And much of that we know is to advance a status of power and privilege for men, mostly white men.
And it is even bigger than that. Once men of intellectual stature asserted that men are more intelligent than women and superior, it became the scientific gospel. Darwin caused much of it (Inferior ‘s title comes from what Darwin said 140 years ago about the sexes)
The bad information and flawed studies just kept getting replicated and society got in line behind these assumptions. Luckily, over the decades, women scientists and now, Saini is exposing this fallacy and proving it false and damaging.
And like her bold work on race, in Superior, science will rule the day mostly, not the biased attitudes of men afraid of losing their position in the world.
LINK TO INTERVIEW with Angela Saini below and HERE —
Other Sources
*“Evolutionary perspectives on human sex differences and their discontents,” JULIEN DELHEZ; Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Eichweg 19, 37077 Göttingen, Germany (Received: 15 March 2019; Accepted: 03 May 2019)
This post was previously published on Cultured.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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