Women’s Brains by Stephen Jay Gould

1. Gould’s primary purpose in the essay is to provide a rebuttal against the misogynistic writings of past scientists. He strives to first expose what these scientists believed about the inferiority of women based on brain size; then, he moves to providing his own evidence, logic, and a strong defense to disprove the beliefs of these scientists. Gould’s main idea is that while past scientists believed that women were incontestably inferior based on their smaller brain size to men, the truth is that many factors (age, height, cause of death, etc.) impacted the data and made both the findings and the interpretations invalid. Also, the author argues that brain size does not determine intelligence and that the amount of sexism women have faced throughout history is despicable. Including the arguments of Broca, Topinard, and Le Bon, the author shows his desire to inform the audience about the misogynic opinions of the findings of smaller female brain weight on average and to persuade them that these views were disgustingly wrong through logical reasoning.
2. Gould utilizes a rhetorical appeal to logos to disprove arguments of past scientists about brain size and express his view that women are equal in intelligence to their male counterpart. To provide logical evidence to his perspective, Gould discusses the details of his mathematical findings. He claims, “I used multiple regression, a technique that allowed me to asses simultaneously the influence of height and age upon brain size.” Here, Gould clearly is showing the process of his reasoning and provides a valid train of thought. The author argues that the findings of these misogynistic scientists were inaccurate due to external factors affecting their data (i.e. age/body type) and logically proves that not only is the difference in weight between women’s and men’s brains statistically smaller (if there is any), but also there is no proof that smaller brains would mean any less intelligence- nor would it grant any less humanity. Thus, by reason and logic, women should be seen as equals and respected as such.
3. Of course I agree with Gould’s point in the essay! Women have proven themselves to be remarkably intelligent and deserving of equal respect in every field of study. Also, God created us to be equal and in His image, so why would it make sense for women to reflect the image of His knowledge any less? Furthermore, Gould’s findings on women’s and men’s brains seem logically sound. In my life experience, I draw from the classes at Linfield; often, when you look around, you will find that there are equal or more girls in an AP or Honors class than guys; this may be faulty and I am not sure about others’ classes, but I know that in AP Lang Block 1 we have only 4 guys to however many girls, and the same in Spanish 3. Aside from this, the girls in our grade prove themselves to be brilliant and equal every day at school by their outstanding grades and effort in class.