As University of California–Irvine professor of mathematics Alice Silverberg commented: When I was a student, women in the generation above me told horror stories about discrimination, and added ‘But everything has changed. That will never happen to you.’ I’m told that this was said even by the generations before that, and now my generation is saying similar things to the next one. Of course, a decade or so later we always say, ‘How could we have thought that was equality?’ Are we serving the next generation well if we tell them that everything is equal and fair when it’s not?
Welcome to the second instalment of my "Notes on Quotes" book reviews, as officially endorsed by Kevin Kelly*
Back in the day, I studied experimental psychology and neuroscience at university, and for a time, I was supervised by Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen at Trinity College, Cambridge. I can't pretend to be up to date with the latest research any more, but I do still follow along.
For one thing, I'd heard of the various studies (carried out by Baron-Cohen, in fact) about how male and female babies gazed at faces/objects in different ways - which, of course, would imply some kind of biological difference. It sounded pretty convincing, although I didn't read the paper.
What troubled me about the whole strand of "there are biological differences between men and women, therefore we can tolerate differences in society" is that it usually ends up justifying sex discrimination. So I was curious about this book, recommended by Naomi Alderman (of course). I hadn't heard about it when it was published, but it sounded intriguing to me, as a person who used to be in the field and who also cares deeply about sexism. Let's go!
*No, really! Check it out:https://www.goodreads.com/notes/28114110-the-inevitable/49368027-adrian-hon
