“The Missing Five Ounces of the Female Brain” and “Plasticity, Plasticity, Plasticity… and the
Rigid Problem of Sex”
Tanasia McKan
In Angela Saini’s book “Inferior,” she suggests that male and female brains are not
dimorphic at all and the sex differences are not as big as many of the scientist makes them
seem. She insists that male and female brains are intersex, and they complement one another.
Saini acknowledges that, “the brain is a unique mosaic of characteristics.” (Saini, 2018) This
means that everyone’s brain is unique which is why everyone doesn’t have the same life
experiences as another person and that’s why the brain has its own individual characteristics.
She emphasizes that reasoning infers why sexual difference seems to be systematically
problematic in the brain because we cannot assume and put all female and male brains into one
category. The author urges that men and women both can have interest in the same type of
things. She also explains how when scientist study the sex of the brain, they tend to look at the
sex differences instead as well as they tend to place emphasis on specific parts of the brain
instead of looking at the brain as a whole and its behavior. She also reaffirms that scientist try to
characterize different parts of the brain to a specific gender. She also reports that it took million
of years for our bodies to develop to how they are, and everything is done for a reason. For
example, our similarities and differences were created in the evolutionary process because it
has a purpose. The author’s conclusion was basically that its going to take time for us to identify
what the correct evolution story is and it’s not going to be easy since there’s so much
controversy. Although it may take forever to change our aspects of how we thought life would
be that is going to be needed in order to rewrite this tale.