Here’s a humdinger from B.F.–a man, no less:
“Carrie Lukas‘ gushing review of ‘The Female Brain’ by Louann Brizendine remains proudly on the home page of your website.”
[And it’s still there! Click here to read it.]
“Her delight in the book is not surprising. as the women at IWF always take such joy in anything that might support inequitable social policies–after all, as Ms. Lukas points out, the book proves women are less rational than men and more emotional.
“This leads to such outrageous demands such as men taking responsibility for child care. Of course, once women realize such demands are simply a matter of hormones (irrational hormones, presumably) they will be happier with their lot in life.
“Yet surprisingly, for such an intellectually rigorous site as IWF, the review remains posted even though since its publications there have been serious questions about the accuracy of its claim. When requested to provide data or the studies to support her conclusions Dr. Brizendine has been unable to produce anything. Sounds like junk science to me.
“Of course, for the ladies-who-lunch crowd at IWF, junk science is only something to raise when advocating for tort reform or to bash feminists. I suppose one should not judge Ms. Lukas or the other ladies at IWF too harshly; after all with all those hormones buzzing around, we can’t expect them to show manly traits such as accuracy in what they write.”
OK, I bug-sprayed the buzzing hormones for a second or two, so I’ll try to think rationally. Where exactly does Carrie’s review lack “accuracy”? From what I’ve read about Brizendine’s best-selling book, Carrie did a fair summary. And since the book has garnered many an enthusiastic review (including this one from Robin Marantz Henig of the New York Times, a periodical that can scarcely be called conservative), Carrie’s summary is scarcely out of the mainstream.
As for your assertion, B.F., that Brizendine “has been unable to produce” data supporting her conclusions, I typed this into Google: “louann brizendine female brain data question.” I eventually came up with this post by one Mark Liberman, who I think is a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. It seems from his post that Brizendine produced plenty of data–although Liberman happens to disagree that it supports her conclusions. Who’s right–Brizendine or Liberman? Since Liberman seems to be on a crusade against Brizendine (click here for his attack on New York Times columnist David Brooks, who also likes Brizendine’s book), I myself feel compelled to take his views with a grain of salt (from the saltshaker at my daily lunch with the ladies). You, dear Inky readers, now have the links and can decide for yourselves.
Now–off to lunch and to dream up some truly “inequitable social policies”!