Men are from Mars, women are from Marks and Spencers
Sunday, August 25th, 2002 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerI was recently struck by the following quotation:
Is this some predecessor of the Men are from Mars, women are from Venus variety of self-help books? Actually no; I lied and changed "coloured races" to "opposite sex". Naughty me. Actually it was from Louis Agassiz (quoted in Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, Flamingo, 2002, p.113). Agassiz was a creationist biologist who thought that not only did God create all species separately in their current locations, he did the same for the various human races as well. He was also a great admirer of Samuel George Morton, the first person to measure skulls and conclude that Blacks were inferior (which was used as ammunition by Southern advocates of slavery). Interestingly, though, Agassiz was against slavery; it brought the races too close together and encouraged miscegnation (he assumed, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the offspring of interracial copulations would be sterile, like mules).
This was sparked off by reading the aforementioned The Metaphysical Club (which gives the social background to pragmatists such as Dewey, Peirce and James) shortly after reading Why Men Don't Listen And Women Can't Read Maps by Barbara and Allan Pease. The latter was fascinating and irritating in equal proportions (very like its more famous predecessor). I found the data interesting, especially the neurological stuff, but being the born-again academic I am, I found the lack of in-text citation annoying. From a linguistic/philosophical point of view, I found the discourse to be glib and logically sloppy, especially when the authors were thumping their "nature versus nurture" tub. All too often the "nurture" side were referred to simple as "people" (or worse), while the good sociobiologists were "scientists", "neurologists", "experts" and so on. No hint of the fact that the "blank slate" view of human nature had been around since Locke, and reached its most radical point with B.F. Skinner. Similarly, I found the constant references to primitive societies facile in the absence of real anthropological references: hunting-gathering societies are uniformly described in terms of cavemen chasing lunch while their women tended the caves or did a little light gathering - not a representative picture by any means (particularly given that our species evolved on the African savannah, which I don't think is full of caves).
While there is much that is good in this book and others like it, I can't help wondering if it is so far from the skull-measuring of the nineteenth century.
Oh well, I suppose if I have the time I'll try to write a proper essay on this. In the meantime, you can check the book out here
human affairs with respect to the opposite sex would be far more judiciously conducted, if, in our intercourse with them, we were guided by a full consciousness of the real differences existing between us and them, and to foster those dispositions that are eminently marked in them, rather than by treating them on the basis of equality.
Is this some predecessor of the Men are from Mars, women are from Venus variety of self-help books? Actually no; I lied and changed "coloured races" to "opposite sex". Naughty me. Actually it was from Louis Agassiz (quoted in Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, Flamingo, 2002, p.113). Agassiz was a creationist biologist who thought that not only did God create all species separately in their current locations, he did the same for the various human races as well. He was also a great admirer of Samuel George Morton, the first person to measure skulls and conclude that Blacks were inferior (which was used as ammunition by Southern advocates of slavery). Interestingly, though, Agassiz was against slavery; it brought the races too close together and encouraged miscegnation (he assumed, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the offspring of interracial copulations would be sterile, like mules).
This was sparked off by reading the aforementioned The Metaphysical Club (which gives the social background to pragmatists such as Dewey, Peirce and James) shortly after reading Why Men Don't Listen And Women Can't Read Maps by Barbara and Allan Pease. The latter was fascinating and irritating in equal proportions (very like its more famous predecessor). I found the data interesting, especially the neurological stuff, but being the born-again academic I am, I found the lack of in-text citation annoying. From a linguistic/philosophical point of view, I found the discourse to be glib and logically sloppy, especially when the authors were thumping their "nature versus nurture" tub. All too often the "nurture" side were referred to simple as "people" (or worse), while the good sociobiologists were "scientists", "neurologists", "experts" and so on. No hint of the fact that the "blank slate" view of human nature had been around since Locke, and reached its most radical point with B.F. Skinner. Similarly, I found the constant references to primitive societies facile in the absence of real anthropological references: hunting-gathering societies are uniformly described in terms of cavemen chasing lunch while their women tended the caves or did a little light gathering - not a representative picture by any means (particularly given that our species evolved on the African savannah, which I don't think is full of caves).
While there is much that is good in this book and others like it, I can't help wondering if it is so far from the skull-measuring of the nineteenth century.
Oh well, I suppose if I have the time I'll try to write a proper essay on this. In the meantime, you can check the book out here
