TOW #24- Gender Equality

In the past week we've been discussing gender equality within our symposiums, and as the conversations got more heated it allowed many to realize that the issue can not be taken lightly. In the essay Women's Brains by Stephen Jay Gould, from his 1980 book, The Panda’s Thumb, he demonstrates how views can and should change about women. Stephen Jay Gould’s assesses the surroundings of female inferiority over time. Gould uses personal excerpts from scientists in the field that also proved females being biologically inferior, where they directly quote and provide facts and statistics as evidence. It is evident that Gould uses satire towards the scientists research declaring at one time that one of the scientist was “irrefutable”. It is undeniable that Gould views differ from theirs as they trick their readers into falsehood. Later on in the essay, rather than deflecting what others have been saying he refutes it through an attack on their practices and data that "proved" females were less intelligent due to their smaller brains. He finishes his essay by stating that “They [women] must be weighed in the context of a general theory that supported contemporary social distinctions as biologically ordained”. He voices a consequence that makes his readers realize that the data theses scientist offer cannot be the sole things people rely on to determine where women stand, but rather the importance of change that needs to be taken place.