Monday, 2 June 2003 - 10:48 AM CDT

how funny was that essay??? seriously...those tests were absurd! there were so many things that should have been taken into consideration, but being the men that they are, they didn't bother!!! only men would do something like that!

Monday, 2 June 2003 - 11:44 AM CDT

Pre-Reading Activity for ?Women?s Brains?

>Science is objective.

I agree with this statement because ?Objective means that which belongs to, or proceeds from, the object known, and not from the subject knowing, and thus denotes what is real, in opposition to that which is ideal -- what exists in nature, in contrast to what exists merely in the thought of the individual?, and science is what exists, not what we think. Science gives us proof to our thoughts, rather than science being merely our thoughts.

>In the most intelligent races, as among the Parisians, there are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains. This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion. All psychologists who have studied the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man. They excel in fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason. Without doubt there exist some distinguished women, very superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, of a gorilla with two heads; consequently, we may neglect them entirely.

Well, the only way I could possibly agree with this is if I were a total sexist male in the ancient times. This paragraph is so outrageous that it makes me laugh. I think if the sexes were switched around (the female being the smarter), I would agree with it. (J/k) Actually, I don?t agree either way! I think mental capacity is dependent on the individual, not the sex of the individual. This statement is crazy, and I would like to talk to the author. I must admit, I do feel closer ?to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man?, because the adult man is so stupid to ever think we are that unintelligent. I would rather be closer to a child because their mentality is obviously higher than that of the author! Ha-ha. Inconstancy, fickleness, what a joke! Haven?t they ever heard that a woman knows exactly what they want! LOL.

Post-Reading Activity for ?Women?s Brains?

?Women?s Brains? was a very intriguing essay. I did not enjoy it altogether, but it kept me interested. When I first started to read this essay, I was in disbelief. I forgot how women used to be viewed because times are so different now. Women?s intelligence is much more respected than it was before, but it is not equal yet. As I read through the essay, I started to be less shocked by the crazy claim about woman?s brains. The ideas were supposedly supported by society, and therefore were less outspoken. The claims about woman?s brains were obvious to the average person. Today, if someone heard the claim about women?s brains, they would be outraged, and think it is crazy. (Well, depending if the person is a sexist or not.) Towards the end of the essay, the author started to appeal to me with his ideas. He pointed out the mistakes in calculating women?s mental capacity. I found it interesting when Maria Montessori said ?Women, she concluded, were intellectually superior, but men had prevailed heretofore by dint of physical force. Since technology has abolished force as an instrument of power, the era of women may soon be upon us?? This made a lot of sense to me, and I agree with it. I don?t think men were superior because they were smarter, but only because they were physically stronger. I don?t know what my life would be like if things were like they were when women were so inferior. Women?s education would supposedly be ?a dangerous chimera?, and we wouldn?t be respected by men. Our duties would only be ?to raise children, love, and be passive.? I couldn?t stand to be passive all of the time. I think I would lose my mind. This essay made me very angry when I read about the brain weight of male compared to female relating to intelligence, because it made no sense at all, and the people who wrote about this thing were so respected. I felt relieved when there was a correction to the relationship between brain weight and intelligence. ?Correction for height and age reduces Broca?s measured difference of 181 grams by more than a third, to 113 grams.? Broca wasn?t famous because he was a scientist, but because he gave men something to feel superior about, and since men had the power then, he was praised. I?m still confused on the author?s position on women?s intelligence. Does he support women?s intelligence or not? He seemed not to support this in the beginning, but then by the corrections of Broca?s theories, he supports women?s intelligence.

Monday, 2 June 2003 - 2:27 PM CDT

PRE-READING
1. To answer this..yes I'm a dork..i had to look up what objective mean. What I came up with is that it means "free of the mind" or "without being affected by a personal bias." I must say that I agree that science is objective. If one thinks to all of the issues that are scientific (i.e. cloning, IVF, etc.) there has always been some religious group against it. They are against it because it goes against what one believes. Science does not take anyone?s feelings or beliefs into consideration; it just follows its own natural laws.
2. I honestly think this little paragraph is funny. Its so stupid its funny. Not only do they put down women, but poets and novelists as well. Of course one does not have to be a genius to guess that a man wrote this?right? It is so silly to say that a woman?s brain is similar to that of a gorilla. Wait?didn?t man evolve from a gorilla..so at one point his brain was the same size. Anyway, our brains are not the size of a gorillas! Its silly to say one is superior than the other..and it would be just as silly to try and justify which one is superior when neither is. We are equal?if we didn?t need each other..we wouldn?t have been created as pairs..so there!

Monday, 2 June 2003 - 10:27 PM CDT

Pre-Reading Activity for ?Women?s Brains?

? Science is objective.
I agree with this statement because it holds true. Science in fact is a goal. Science is the invention of new things that will help us in our lives. People have high aspirations when it comes to inventing new things. If it is a good thing and is going to be beneficial in today?s society, then it should be created.

? In the most intelligent races, as among the Parisians, there are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains. This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion. All psychologists who have studied the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man. They excel in fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason. Without doubt there exist some distinguished women, very superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, of a gorilla with two heads; consequently, we may neglect them entirely.
I disagree with this statement because women do in fact have some logic in their brains. But I am not saying that women are smarter than men nor men are smarter than women. We should treat others as equal because there are a great deal of, both, ignorant women and men out in the world today. I think that the things that were said in the paragraph above seem to be a little harsh and I think that women are offended. Is it realistic to compare your brain with a gorilla?s one.

Post-Reading Activity for ?Women?s Brains?

?Women?s Brains? incorporates very controversial ideas based on women?s intelligence compared to that of men?s. As I mentioned above, I?m not for the ideas that women are smarter than men or men smarter than women. There are ignorant people in our world but it should not make one gender seem as if they are smarter than the other. Especially since Broca has based his conclusions on very small group of people. His studies were very limited and I don?t understand how someone could make such invalid (to Broca valid) conclusions with such limitations. I think that this prejudice of men against women does not come from results of studies based, but it comes from a lack of knowledge from other reasonable sources. Men were the ones that came up with these ideas. So it clearly shows that they favor their gender as the smarter ones. Maria Montessori said that ?Women were intellectually superior, but men had prevailed heretofore by dint of physical force.? To me this seems that men are more competitive than women and that is why they are the way they are. It seems that men cannot take competition and then always have to be right. People are basically bias against their own genders having the most brain power. I think that people should take a serious study in the future between a reasonable number of men and women and she again what the results will produce. Personally I think that are computer should take these tests in order to prove correct, effective results.

Monday, 2 June 2003 - 11:10 PM CDT

Its kinda funny how this Eliot kid is trying to justify that woman are inferior to men because of the size of their head is different than that of men. Did this man fail to notice that the rest of us are a lot smaller as well!? Of course women aren?t going to have gigantic heads..the rest of our structure is smaller...I think it'd look kind of off if we had these massive heads...! Anyway..it?s not the size of a person's brain..but how they use it...we could use that argument with other appendages . .but I don't think to go there! (i'm talking about people's hands you peeverts!) Okay?as I continue on reading I see that the author makes this point: ?we might ask if the small size of the female brain depends exclusively upon the small size of her body,? (272). Thank you! I think that the fact that this Eliot dude, despite the fact there is evidence against his argument, just keeps going back to the point that women are less intelligent than men is being a dork. He probably wants to @#%$! some lady friend out there so is talking out of his arse. Oh lord?then he goes on to talk about how women must be protected by men..is that why they?re heads are bigger?they need more to think with?and still don?t do it write. I?d like to bring up the argument that men don?t ask for directions. I?m stuck with a lot of them in my family..i know this one..so if they?re so smart..why can?t they just ask for directions?C?mon! Okay?back to the essay. I like that fact that Gould is seeing all points of the argument?now there is an intelligent male! Okay, okay?the end is better..he goes into detail on how the ?tests? are untrue in their outcomes?thumbs up to you..Gould

Monday, 2 June 2003 - 11:15 PM CDT

what up my peoples! I know i was missed in class today...but my thoughts are here regarding an interesting short essay called "Women's Brains." When i first read the title, i thought to myself will this be one of those essays where Towfiq will be the laughing stock or will he actually get the last laugh because he agrees with the author's sayings of men being superior to women. come to find out Towfiq i know you're laughing at us!! (saying "it's not pish posh...I told you guys i was right!) lol
Here's all my Pre-During-and Post reading Assignments:

Pre-reading Activity-
science is objective
yeah....it's not really biased because it is based on observation and tests that are undeniable because they are evidenced and obvious to man.

Reaction to paragraph on women's brains
I think they basically got the sexes mixed up. what they meant to say was that men's brains are the size of a gorilla. lol The thing that ticked me off about this essay was that fact that they identified women as having "fickleness, inconstancy, absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason." The irony of this statement is that when the author was making this comment...he was actually talking about himself in making such an irrational comment like this.

During Reading

I took lot's of notes that included: "WHAT! I can't believe he did these tests! What is this? What kind of hypothesis was that!"
yeah thatz what was going through my mind

Post Reading
In the beginning, i thought this was going to be a scientific paper based on findings of women's brains being superior to men. lol Boy was i wrong. who the heck os this author anyway. i wanna meet him and have a woman-to-man chat.
One quote that stood out to me while reading was: "Broca depited himself as an apostle of objectivity, a man who bowed before facts and cast aside superstition and sentimentality." This man is funny. how could he believe such a myth when this isn't evident in his findings. For instance; when another scientist observed Broca's findings, Topinard notes that "Brain weight decreases with age, and Broca's women were, on average, considerably older than his men. Brain weight increases with height, and his average man was almost half a foot taller than his average woman." So according to this Broca altered the resuts of his scientific research in order to make his theory of men being superior to be proven correctly. As you can see here, this totally contradicts Broca's philosophy of being the "apostle of objectivity" because indeed he isn't. I'm sorry to bring this up, but as a Christian I don't believe the philosophies of this essay. i mean men have some levels of superiorty but overall I think women have just as much to offer as men. This essay is interesting to discuss in class because there's lots of assertions being made. I've learned how some people still have an old-fashioned way of thinking about women and their "lack of."
I'd still like to have a woman-to-man convo with him (the author)

Tuesday, 3 June 2003 - 10:30 PM CDT

From the beginning I was bombarded with different references to people and organizations that felt strongly about the inferiority of women. In the beginning of ?Women?s Brains? I had the immediate impression that the essay was going to argue the inferiority of women. As a result I was resisting myself throughout. Oddly enough, as I read more, I realized that Stephen Jay Gould wasn?t exclusively writing about the state of a woman?s brain, but the objectivity of science itself in modern society. Needless to say, my mood brightened ever since. I am glad to know that certain former scientific research is inaccurate when it concerns women.
During my reading there were many remarks that grabbed my attention. Among them was when Broca sates that when women begin to take part in ?their? (men?s) battles, it will be the end for the sacred ties of the family. After reading this I thought, ?How bizarre!? Yet once I continued thinking about what he was saying, I noticed that in all actuality Broca?s statement was true. The outcome of our involvement in the professional world was in part a disintegration of the family. I refuse to believe that this was exclusively women?s fault. For it wasn?t. Outcomes and occurrences is the product of an effect. The formula would go as follows: CAUSE-> EFFECT-> OUTCOME. In this case the cause would be women beginning to work. The effect would be the inability for society to cope, deal, and modify their lifestyles to this progression. And finally the outcome is indeed the disappearance of ?everything that maintains the sacred ties of the family.?
My beliefs are like a juggler?s balls. I throw them up and around, all the while having them transform into solid and most definite principles. The ones that are proven wrong or absurd simply fall to the ground and roll away from my existence. ?Women?s Brains? by Stephen Jay Gould is a day in that juggler?s life.