Inferior by Angela Saini – a powerful exploration of women's 'inferiority'

When Mrs Caroline Kennard, an active member of the women’s movement in Boston, wrote to Charles Darwin in late 1881 seeking reassurance that his theories of evolution didn’t entail the inferiority of women, she was disappointed by the great man’s reply. The author of On the Origin of Species wrote back: “there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance, (if I understand these laws rightly) in [women] becoming the intellectual equals of man.” While Darwin’s scientific work has certainly withstood the test of time, his views on the capabilities of women have not, as Angela Saini reveals in her quietly powerful new book, Inferior.

Subtitled “How science got women wrong and the new research that’s rewriting the story”, Inferior explores the science of gender difference, which turns out to be far more complicated than Darwin supposed. In doing so she uncovers how science has been no better than any other field of human endeavour in freeing itself from the historical and cultural baggage of societies that have long treated women as the second sex. Saini peels back the meritocratic veneer that still coats much of science to reveal a shabbier interior.

The book ranges widely over the scientific investigations of the differences between male and female in humans and other animals. Saini looks at the bias towards male subjects in medical research, and peers into studies of hormonal and gender influences on brain size and structure. She examines the evolutionary and ethnographic evidence for differences in behaviour, work patterns, social power and sexual promiscuity, and digs into the intriguing theories that are competing to attribute the menopause to the influence of patriarchy or of the role of grandmothers in childcare.

Step by step Saini reveals that in all these areas, early findings of clear differences between men and women – almost invariably to the advantage of men – have frequently unravelled upon deeper and broader scrutiny. Disparities evaporate when one takes a more holistic view of the variation between individuals, or extends the investigation to other animal species or human tribes, or simply repeats the experiment with better controls. Saini leavens her careful dissection of the science of gender differences with surprising accounts of the hunting prowess of Agta tribeswomen in the Philippines, the habitual affairs of married Himba mothers in northern Namibia, and the violent dominance of female bonobos over males (the inverse of chimpanzee behaviour).

The tone throughout is measured. Saini’s even-handed treatment of disagreements over the proper interpretation of results and observations should give even hardened sceptics pause for thought. Her balanced approach is reinforced by the care taken at every turn to cite her sources. The text might lose a little poetry because of this attention to detail, but it is a price worth paying to make the book as resilient as it needs to be. Although respect for evidence is often spouted as the sine qua non of science, the reality is often very different – especially in the study of human behaviour, which is so readily perturbed by norms and presumptions that affect us all. The prickliness of some of Saini’s interviews with male researchers is telling, but not as revealing as the accounts of some of the women scientists she spoke to. Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, whose work in the 1970s on Langur monkeys challenged established ideas about female passivity and promiscuity, met stiff resistance from male colleagues that was not altogether scientific: stick to housework, she was told.

Things may have moved on from the 1970s but not far enough. Regular reports of male professors preying on female researchers, and a career pipeline holed repeatedly by the dismissal of the abilities and commitment of women show that academia is still pervaded by sexism. There is greater awareness of the issues, to be sure. The Athena SWAN charter is one tool, albeit a bureaucratic one, for bringing about change within UK universities. But Inferior is a nimbler and sharper instrument. An important and necessary book, its cumulative effect is to make apparent the importance of diversifying the perspectives brought to scientific research, so that it might be strengthened and enriched. It should help also to speed the arrival of the future that Caroline Kennard hoped for over a hundred years ago in her response to Darwin’s disappointing missive: “Let the ‘environment’ of women be similar to that of men and with his opportunities, before she be fairly judged, intellectually his inferior please.”

Inferior is available for purchase at the Guardian bookshop.

@Stephen_Curry is a professor of structural biology at Imperial College. He is a member of the boards of Science is Vital and the Campaign for Science and Engineering.