"Women's Brains," the essay by Stephen Jay Gould

Gould is trying to get the reader to see that women have suffered from great social prejudices of many varieties, and that stereotypes about their intelligence relative to men have kept them "in their place." It seems that he is merely making small points about the well-known fact that this culture has been run by men and for men, and that this culture fears and hates women. It is no surprise that science and scientists such as Broca reflect that prejudice. Again, to this reader, Gould's essay and argument seem clearly evident. He is not telling this reader anything he does not already know.

Gould is also saying that we cannot trust science and scientists to give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What science deals with in many cases---measurement---tells us only a part of the story, and often a misleading part.

Still, in case the reader is not aware of this connection between science and misogyny, Gould reminds us, using Broca to represent the most dangerous kind of scientist. Not on

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s of the same name---agreed with Broca in terms of brain size reflecting intelligence and learning capacity---but she disagreed with him when he applied those findings to women. She agreed with him, with respect to children or either sex, but disagreed with him with respect to women. In fact, she believed that women are intellectually superior to men. Montessori's inconsistent responses to Broca and his finding show that we see what we want to see, are blind to what we do not want to see, agree with what agrees with us, and generally come to conclusions which support the prejudices we carried into the investigation in the first place. Gould's conclusion is a refutation of the approaches of both Broca and Montessori: "I would rather label the whole enterprise of setting a biological value upon groups for what it is: irrelevant and highly injurious" (Gould 229). Reading the essay a second time, I find that I am frustrated by the author's detached approach. I agree with him on his basic points, but the overall impact of the study is weak because his own passion does not match that of George Eliot, who he quotes in several passages in which she "lamented the unfulfilled lives of talented women" (Gould 223). Indeed, this is what th
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1657
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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