43 pages • 1-hour read
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
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Essay Topics
Cordelia Fine, as a female researcher and academic, has firsthand experience of the sexism she discusses. How does Fine’s authorial presence—for instance, her use of humor and personal anecdote—contribute to her arguments?
Fine’s research suggests that many studies of gender difference are hamstrung by researchers’ implicit bias. What design flaws seem to find their way into these studies, and how might one design a study to examine gendered behavior that avoided these flaws?
Delusions of Gender was first published in 2010. Since then, discourse about sexism has become even more prominent in American culture. What connections might you draw between the research in this book and events in recent history?
Neuroscience is an area of science particularly vulnerable to implicit sexist bias. How do received cultural ideas about the brain influence how we interpret the complexities of neuroscientific research?
How does Fine demonstrate her hopes for gender science through her own research? How does the structure of this book make a claim for the kind of science that Fine would like to see?
Who might be Fine’s intended audience for Delusions of Gender, and what evidence supports your claim?
Where do you see evidence of neurosexism in contemporary culture? Analyze a relevant news report through the lens of Delusions of Gender.
Find advertisements that seem to be targeted to women or to men. Informed by your reading of Delusions of Gender, what gender-biased attitudes do you see in the presentation of these ads?
Fine surveys studies of gender representation in children’s literature and media and finds a great deal of sexism. Most of these studies were conducted in the early 2000s. Has the representation of gender in children’s media changed since these studies were conducted, and in what ways? What gender attitudes are commonly expressed in contemporary children’s art? How do they support or dismantle stereotypes?
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