Slashdot has linked to a C|Net UK article that purports to list the top ten girl geeks. No mention of the book, and for some unfathomable reason it mentions Paris Hilton. I have no idea how to react to this trainwreck. While I’m encouraged by the mere existence of such a post, I cringe over some of the choices. Lisa Simpson? Darryl Hannah? Ooookay. Wither Willow Rosenberg, then?

Also, I’m completely in agreement with those comments nominating Hedy Lamarr and Mythbuster Keri Byron instead.

Who would you add to the list?

UC San Francisco psychiatrist Louann Brizendine has been getting a lot of attention for her book The Female Brain, which argues that women’s behavior is hardwired into their brains and hormones. I applaud Brizendine’s effort to explore how female brains are different from male ones, and she makes an impassioned argument for getting away from the idea that male brains are “the norm.” Unfortunately, however, the book is a hopeless mashup of decent research and naturalized cultural stereotypes. A smart chapter on how women’s monthly hormone fluctuations can influence perception is followed by chapters that claim “women’s intuition” is caused by women’s hyperactive hippocampuses and that it’s natural for women to honor their “mommy brain,” which wants them to cut back on work.

At one point, Brizendine argues that women and men are so different that heterosexuality leads to lifelong disappointment (though she consigns lesbianism to a short appendix):

Girls who expect their boyfriends to chat with them the way their girlfriends do are in for a big surprise. Phone conversations can have painful lulls while she waits for him to say something. The best she can often hope for is that he is an attentive listener. She may not realize he’s just bored and wants to get back to his videogame. This difference may also be at the core of the major disappointment women feel all their lives with their marriage partners.

Later, she claims that another fundamental mismatch between men and women is the way the two sexes have orgasms. After a reasonable discussion about how female orgasm works — it involves more brain activity than male and takes longer — she makes several outrageous and unfounded claims about female sexuality in general. One is that women who have multiple sexual partners are “out of control” or will make bad mating choices because sex releases so much oxytocin that judgement is impaired (despite the fact that oxytocin can be released without sexual contact). She also goes so far as to claim that sexually-active women are doomed to loveless futures because men are wired to assess women based on “social reputation.” She writes approvingly of one of her therapy clients:

If Melissa had immediately gone to bed with Rob . . . his Stone Age brain might have judged that she would be unfaithful or had a bad reputation. That she was affectionate on the dance floor and went home at a proper hour in a taxi showed him she was a high-quality lady with whom to mate long-term.

I’m not sure a “Stone Age brain” would be impressed with sexually-withholding behavior, let alone getting into a taxi “at a proper hour.”

The worst part, though, is when Brizendine tries to argue that vibrators interfere with bonding between sexual partners. After she’s made the case that female orgasms require a delicate balance of hormones and brain chemistry, Brizendine follows up by claiming that “women like vibrators” because they “provide a faster, easier orgasms.” She describes how one of her clients had trouble coming with her partner, so she “buried her vibrator in the backyard in order to force herself to get used to a real penis.” So women should force themselves to have difficulty coming with partners instead of bringing vibrators into bed, or teaching their partners to be more skillful?

It’s really quite astonishing how Brizendine can plead with us to understand the uniqueness of the female brain one minute, and endorse the idea that women should “get used to a real penis” the next. Maybe men should get used to female sexuality, which includes enjoying vibrators. Just a thought.

Given the conservative tenor of the book, it’s not surprising that Brizendine’s been endorsed by right-wing wanker David Brooks. It makes me sad to think that Brizendine is using her professional position as a highly-respected psychiatrist to advise other women to worry about their “reputations” and neglect their sexual desires. It’s also sad to see her telling women that men are such non-emotional beings that we should expect to be disapointed by them for our whole lives. Shouldn’t we be trying to change our relationships, rather than just learning to live with disappointment?

A new study by Oxygen Media shows that men and women have similar habits when it comes to shopping for technology. But the study ascribes some fairly stereotypical reasons for why women spend so much money on technology. Women are using tech to — you guessed it — stay “connected” to their friends and loved ones. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The study, aptly titled Girls Gone Wired, presents some insights into the way women react with technology — including their buying habits. According to Karen Ramspacher, vice president of research at Oxygen, men and women are more alike than different when it comes to technology. But they have different motivations that spur the use of various technology devices. While men are often attracted to technology for technology’s sake, women see technology as a means to an end. It’s the function of the devices they crave, not necessarily the fun. While a greater percentage of men use technology for fun pursuits — such as listening to music and watching videos, women are more likely to shop online, edit digital pictures and access health services online.

It seems pretty obvious that Ramspacher is imposing her own reading on the study’s findings, especially when she says at one point that women use Digital Video Recorders — but they only use them to watch shows that they will discuss with their friends. Women aren’t allowed to like technology because it’s cool, everything has to be communal. Extra dumbosity points for categorizing women tech consumers using terms like “Techs in the City,” “Techcessorizers” and “Mrs. Doubtwires.”

If you tell women they’re genetically worse at math and science long enough, it’ll become true. Or at least that’s the impression I get from a new paper in the journal Science. (From MadScienceMama.) Researchers divided women into four groups. Each group took an “exam” in which they answered math questions, and the math questions were broken up by an essay in the middle which the women had to study.

One group had an essay that stated that women do worse in math than men due to genetic factors. Another group read an essay which said women do worse at math than men, but blamed it on environment. A third group read an essay that had nothing to do with women or math. And a fourth group read an essay that wasn’t about math, but talked about women artists, thus “reminding” the women of their group membership.

The women who had the essay stating that women are genetically less gifted at math did much worse on the math questions than the women who read the neutral essay. The women who read the essay that blamed environment for women’s lower performance in math did as well as women who read the neutral essay. And the really surprising result: the women who read the essay about women artists did almost as badly as the women who read the essay that said women were genetically inferior at math.

As MadScienceMama says:

The study suggests that genetic theory can give powerful support to discriminatory stereotypes. It is likely due, in no small part, to the way genetics is presented to the public, with an emphasis on determinism.

She goes on to say that this study may not explain the “leaky pipeline” in science, because women who actually work in the sciences may know better than to believe in junky theories about genetics. She may well be right, but the results of this study may go some way towards explaining why fewer women enter the pipeline in the first place.

Former Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala recently took part in a taskforce on the status of women in academic science and engineering. The taskforce’s findings were dismal.

Despite this optimistic piece in Newsweek, women still don’t have proportional representation in academic sciences, Shalala writes:

For more than 30 years, women have made up more than 30 percent of the doctorates in social and behavioral sciences and more than 20 percent of the doctorates in life sciences. Yet at the top research institutions, only about 15 percent of the full professors in these fields are women.

The reason isn’t biology, childrearing demands, or differences in biology, as Alternet’s Caryl Rivers wrote. It’s “discrimination pure and simple.” She cites a river of crap spewed by supposed experts who claim, based on sketchy science, that women’s brains just aren’t suited for anything involving leadership or tricky number crunching. (Warning: reading Rivers’ piece will piss you off.)
Shalala puts it best:

Yes, there are some slight differences in the ways men’s and women’s brains operate. But the same researchers who stress these differences often fail to note the many more areas in which men and women share the same approaches. Study after study indicates no significant biological differences between men and women in performing science and mathematics that could account for the lower representation of women in these fields.

She recommends a raft of policies, including woman-friendly hiring and tenure policies and new federal regulations.

And the problem starts early, as I See Invisible People points out:

My daughers had not a single woman teacher in science or math in high school. My son has had only one. Universities, as well as high schools, need to make a serious effort to recruit and promote women in under-represented areas if we’re to make any headway on the issue. To quote the old public service announcement, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. And that’s exactly what’s happening. I’m encouraged to see the Academies make a stand on it.