Thursday 19 February 2009

I Can Smell Your Brains



Now of course I'm the first to criticise men. Horrid, despicable men. And I agree that there is a huge problem with the sexual objectification of women which feeds inequality, discrimination and ultimately violence. Yawn, heard it.

However, even I'm not convinced that a brain scan can show that men think of women in the same way as "tools, like spanners and screwdrivers" (note confusion in above pic). Bad science, possibly but definitely badly reported.

Now I've criticised psychologists before. And we must remember that a psychologist is neither a radiologist nor a neuroscientist. But it does seem that they are making the fairly unremarkable claim that "When there are sexualised images in the workplace, it's hard for people not to think about their female colleagues in those terms."

So yes, girly calendars in the office are inappropriate and are a key signifier of a sexist culture. But there being a "screwdriver" part of a man's brain? Even I wouldn't go that far.

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