Book Review - Inferior

Taking us on an eye-opening journey through science, Inferior challenges our preconceptions about men and women, investigating the ferocious gender wars that burn in biology, psychology and anthropology. Angela Saini revisits the landmark experiments that have informed our understanding, lays bare the problem of bias in research, and speaks to the scientists finally exploring the truth about the female sex.

Women - they're like men, but worse. If we (rightly) assume man as the default, then women will always be sub-par. In fact, they only really evolved thanks to men. That's basically what science teaches us, right?

Angela Saini's look through the history of science is remarkable when viewed through the lens of feminism. How much science has simply been missed because (male) scientists weren't interested in viewing what female monkeys were doing? What advances have we lost by men deciding that female animals are too inconvenient to study?

An excellent book which should help shape how you view scientific developments and the limits of understanding our own place in culture.

Ultimately it never quite answers the question of whether we're really all that different. Broadly we're similar - and many of our differences are due to social and environmental factors. But it is a breath of fresh air when it comes to discussing the short-sightedness of our scientific fore-fathers.