Working  Tow

ard  Thesis  Statem

ent  

Purpose   Gould  against  the  manipulation  of  data  and  stereotypical  labels.  Topic   The  specific  example  of  Broca’s  studies  of  the  female  brain  and  how  data  was  interpreted.  Issue     How  does  the  use  of  data  and  numbers  to  label  groups  of  people  affect  them?  Conclusion   Applying  biological  labels  serves  no  purpose  except  to  hurt  groups  like  women.  

Thesis   Gould  argues  that  evaluating  the  biological  worth  group  lacks  utility  and  inevitably  harms  the  human  beings  and  the  culture.  

PTIC and Map: “Women’s Brains” by Stephen J. Gould

Thesis-­‐-­‐Gould  argues  that  evaluating  the  biological  worth  group  lacks  utility  and  inevitably  harms  the  human  beings  and  the  culture.  

Gould  frames  his  argument  using  George  Eliot's  novel  

Middlemarch  in  the  introduction  and  conclusion  

to  illustrate  how  gifted  women  have  historically  been  

suppressed.  

As  a  female  writer  in  the  1800s,  George  Eliot  had  to  use  a  male  pseudonym  in  order  to  find  an  outlet  for  her  

talented  writing.  Middlemarch  was  published  in1873,  the  

same  year  Broca  measures  prehistoric  skulls  in  L’  Homme  Mort  cave  and  finds  less  of  a  difference  between  male  and  female  brain  

size  than  in  his  modern  autopsies.  

The  plot  of  her  novel  illustrates  how  men  have  suppressed  women,  making  them  the  ugly  duckling  whose  beauty  is  concealed  by  

oppression.  

Science  has  been  appropriated  throughout  the  ages  to  manipulate  data  to  support  false  labels  

on  groups  such  as  women.    

Paul  Broca  (1824-­‐1880)  designed  studies  using  craniometry  to  measure  the  size  of  male  and  

female  skulls  to  determine  intelligence.  

Broca  entered  the  project  with  the  bias  that  men  were  more  intelligent  than  women,  which  

tainted  his  methods  and  interpretation.  

Broca  conducted  research  and  misconstrued  the  numbers  and  data  support  his  assumptions  and  prejudices.    

The  research  team  measured  292  male  and  140  female  brains  after  autopsy  and  found  that  the  male  brain  weighed  an  average  of  14%  more  than  the  female  brain.  

L.  Manouvrier  resisted  Broca’s  interpretation  of  the  data  along  with  a  few  women  who  spoke  out  

in  opposition.  

Broca  erred  in  equating  brain  size  with  intelligence  and  in  ignoring  possible  causes  for  differing  brain  size  such  as  height.  

Broca’s  research  team  was  invulnerable  to  objection  because  he  seemed  so  meticulous  with  research  and  documentation  of  male  and  female  brain  weights  and  sizes.  

They  claimed  that  Broca’s  group  was  malicious  and  misogynist  in  

denying  women  equal  intelligence.  

In  1879  the  misogynist  (woman  hater)  Gustave  Le  Bon  viciously  attacked  women  with  these  data,  

comparing  their  brain  size  to  gorillas,  savages,  and  

children.  

The  researchers  evoked  evolutionary  pressures  which  favored  large  brains  in  males  because  they  had  to  fight  for  

food  and  protection.  

Gould  reexamined  all  of  Broca’s  data  and  found  the  numbers  accurate  but  his  interpretations  were  fallacious.  

Topinard  published  all  of  Broca’s  data  in  1988  including  height  and  age  in  addition  to  brain  size.  

When  Gould  corrected  for  height  and  age  the  difference  between  men  and  women  shrunk  by  more  than  a  third,  and  the  remaining  discrepancy  might  be  accounted  for  by  cause  

of  death.  

Broca’s  findings  about  the  supposed  inferiority  of  

women’s  brains  reinforced  the  social  

stereotype  and  harmful  gender  roles.  

Even  though  modern  researchers  still  do  not  agree  on  the  effect  of  height  on  brain  size,  but  Gould  found  the  

difference  is  probably  close  to  zero.  

Women  were  chief  among  many  groups  that  were  hurt  by  stereotypes  including  children,  blacks  

and  other  minority  groups.  

Maria  Montessori,  famous  for  educational  reform  and  

anthropology,  accepted  most  of  Brocha’s  ideas—with  the  

exception  of  his  views  on  women  who  she  saw  as  intellectually  

more  advanced.  

Saint  Theresa  might  have  started  

something  big,  but  as  many  

gifted  women  of  the  day,  she  was  a  “foundress  of  

nothing.”