Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!edhall@rand.org
From: edhall@rand.org (Ed Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women and Brains
Message-ID: <5825@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 11 Nov 88 04:55:16 GMT
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A warning: about a century ago studying brain anatomy was all the rage,
only instead of measuring the thickness of the corpus callosum, they
were measuring the size of the brain and the shape of the frontal lobes.
Using these techniques, scientists managed to ``prove'' that non-white
races were lighter of brain and thus intellectually inferior.  The same
``proofs'' also were given for the intellectual inferiority of women.

Of course, we now know that the correlation between brain weight and
intelligence doesn't exist.  It does, however, correlate highly with
body size, which is why these scientists prefered to use Pygmys as
representatives of the black race.  And, of course, women just happened
to be smaller on the average than men.

(All of this is magnificently documented in Steven Jay Gould's ``The
Mismeasure of Man.'' Given some of the claims I've seen made by certain
contemporary sociobiologists, we haven't advanced very far in 100
years.)

As to the original comment on Lacanian feminists' ideas--it's
fascinating that they have turned what was essentially a patriarchial
philosophy onto its head.  But I don't see any more evidence for their
point of view than the original.  Like others have pointed out, there is
a gross ethnocentrism implied by the male=logic, female=intuition
assumptions they make.  Not every culture was polluted by Aristotle and
friends...

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand.org
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