See also the Neurocritic's take.
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Naomi Wolf's "Vagina"
Naomi Wolf's "Vagina" is full of bad science about the brain - is an article I wrote for the New Statesman. It's about a new book which is... not very good.
I didn't come up with the title by the way, but I do rather like it.
See also the Neurocritic's take.
See also the Neurocritic's take.
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13 comments:
That's too bad the book's apparently so shoddy --- I had been hoping it might be more in the vein of Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, which I found hugely informative and entertaining.
(That last quote you highlighted, about dopamine being a Feminist Neurotransmitter, was ridiculous!)
I think the article in new statesman is crappy, you are picking on very small details such as the specificity of findings, and event the translation between rats and humans, and this is largely not the message of the book, as I have understood it.
Would you seriously be that picky if this was a book about some other topic?
I think Wolf has an important point, moving away from traditional accounts (freud) of female sexuality.
Too bad the gut reaction is to not listen to the bigger message. As always when discussing female sexuality, we seem to need to tame it.
@Anon 22:04
"I think the article in new statesman is crappy, you are picking on very small details such as the specificity of findings, and event the translation between rats and humans, and this is largely not the message of the book, as I have understood it. Would you seriously be that picky if this was a book about some other topic?"
I thought you were being sarcastic until I read your latter sentences. Regardless of the bigger message, there is an intrinsic problem when people start misrepresenting science in the popular media, and I fully support any attempts to correct the record (even though we are usually on a hiding to nothing). If the book is written metaphorically then by all means, draw the parallels. But when there are chapter headings suggestive of scientific literature reviews then it is time to poke holes. Sad that the bigger message then gets lost because of it, but that's the price Wolf pays for being waaaaaaay out of line with the science. Tough.
Vagina ? That's.. different. What compelled NS to read about the vagina intrigues me. It's a complicated piece of apparatus sir.
Anything about the vagina has to be fiction. No way science or any other discipline can remotely understand the power of the punani. Wars have been fought over it. Not even the Greek gods could fathom. Science can die but the vagina will live on.
From Naomi.. 'Could a profound connection between a woman’s brain and her experience of her vagina affect her greater sense of creativity—even her consciousness?'
Nothing wrong with that. It is a well known neurological fact that a man's penis rules his brain. If I did have access to that fMRI machine I would scan the penis first in order to understand the mind. It has been proved, for example, that management demonstrate a tendency to be big dicks.
Anoynmous: Not at all; she's the one trying to 'tame' it by reducing it to no more than a handful of neurotransmitters.
She's not a neuroscientist. This isn't a journal article. What about this, is not specifically debunking a claim no matter how outlandish that claim may be. I applaud her for raising awareness to the field of neuroscience, connecting it to activism no matter how s* the book might be. Lays aren't going to remember whether the dopamine was more or less. Perhaps someone in the field like NS can write an informed science book about the vagina and neuroscience. My vagina ! My brain ! Love to hear that as a political slogan. She's given more public awareness, more research dole for neuroscientists. Great? End justfies the means.
What surprised me is that Neurocritic had read it. I had my dose of feminist rantings when my sister went through her phase after being dumped and after flipping through few of hate filled books i thought best keep my eyes away from that, the content might jump out and snip of my family jewels.
But his/her observations are funny. You can't open a magazine, newspaper or whatever when waiting for the doctor/dentist without some baloney about dopamine and others substances as if they are some magical potion.
Can become the next new witchcraft, magic lovepotions made from "100% pure natural dopamine and oxytocin" will entrance your target. 1234,99$ for 5 ml.
Sometimes women are their own worst enemies when it comes to stereotyping.
After a rape, you are emotionally damaged and it will not be an easy thing to forget. This will affect your brain in a profound way. Not everyone know this, and spreading that knowledge can be an important way to empower victims.
Same with the vagina, I have no doubt that it has an influence on women's consciousness. Love, sex and childbearing are central parts to being a woman. Moreover, females are notoriously understudies in basic and applied neuroscience, which is still a huge problem for the field.
The strength of Wolfs book is that she is reclaiming biological arguments. It is unfortunate that there are mistakes and oversimplifications.
I fail to see the connection between a vagina and " I have no doubt that it has an influence on women's consciousness"
I don't have one but the male counterpart and i actually never ever think about it except when my wife is in 'that' mood.
I seriously doubt women are that shallow they go around thinking about their vagina's all day or that the mere presence of it influences her consciousness in any remarkable way.
Reproduction takes place in the womb, (so i'm told) so if anything they'd go around being influenced in their consciousness by their wombs
And rape is a crime of violence not a sexual act. And whilst it can't be a nice experience to go all hysterical about it for the rest of your life is the fault of psychologists or a feeble personality or both.
"Same with the vagina, I have no doubt that it has an influence on women's consciousness. "
not much if you follow Chivers study.
"And rape is a crime of violence not a sexual act. "
yes right.
Taking one of Naomi Wolf's supposed howlers "dopamine is the ultimate feminist chemical in the female brain" and Neurocritic's response "Dopamine is not a feminist neurotransmitter, unless snails and insects have been secretly reading Betty Friedan and listening to Bikini Kill."
Apart from pointing out this's like saying because some kid colouring in the pages of a copy of Darwin's Descent proves its contents're meaningless gibberish I personally don't "feel sorry for Ms. Wolf" as Neurocritic puts it because this's as bad an example of "shooting fish in a barrel" as when I once read someone deploring the absurdity of the phrase 'the pen is mightier than the sword'.
As I responded to that person a) taking the phrase literally's either willfully or stupidly misunderstanding it and b) if you'd ever done martial arts you'd also know the pen actually IS literally mightier than the sword because they're easier to conceal and you can kill people with one in far more ways and in a far shorter time than it takes to even begin raising a sword.
But here's another Neurocritic bon mot in response to Wolf's "Those of us who are not scientists often forget that brain chemicals are vehicles for very profound human truths" "I thought brain chemicals were vehicles that bind to receptors and trigger signal transduction molecules. Even the most reductionistic neuroscientists among us realize we are worlds away from understanding how oxytocin might explain morality".
In that case why's Neurocritic even writing blogs dissing others? Because apparently according to him until we cease being worlds away from understanding how things like oxytocin might explain things like morality we must just sit there and say nothing and let brain chemicals be vehicles which bind to receptors and trigger signal transduction molecules because to do otherwise is meaningless and pointless.
Another Neurocriticism "feminist biology apparently tells us that the vagina is the delivery system for profound female truths...So women who aren't having orgasms cannot be confident liberated feminists??"
Here he sounds like the leader of the 'Eyeless People' who tells the artist visiting them as far as they're concerned there's no such thing as sight and what the artist calls eyes're actually cysts which're automatically removed whenever their children're born.
I really thought I'd stumbled on a good new site until I read this particular piece.
I hope your other stuff's closer to the standard of the Geometric Illusions of Astronauts piece.
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