The Great Sex Divide: A Study of Male-Female Differences

by Glenn D. Wilson

Book Overview

Prominent University of London psychologist surveys the result of scientific studies of psychological differences between males & females, & discusses the social & political limitations thereof. Explores traditional stereotypes while revealing new information derived from controlled research. Illustrated by charts & diagrams, this is useful as an up-to-date textbook for psychology classes, but is still eminently readable for the lay person. Social...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 187846504X
• ISBN13: 9781878465047
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Scott-Townsend Publishers
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fast read on the genders' approach to sex, may be offensive

This is a fast read on gender differences. The basic premise is that women have to care for children and so they are wired to take as much as possible from men. Men don't have to care for children and so are wired to have sex with and impregnate as many women as possible. Statements on sex are backed up by references to psychology studies and accompanied by a description of how this would have evolved into that gender. As you might guess given the premise the book deals primarily with gender differences and intercourse, not gender differences and how emotions are handled or other types of differences. That isn't clear from the title, but now you know. The high point of the book for me is that it constantly referred to statistical analyses of data on sex, especially a survey given to men and women (about 1000 men and 2000 women, not to couples). Basically Wilson is going through the published psychology literature on sex and arranging information pulled from these studies into themes. This is what I want to see in a sex book. One thing I didn't like was that Wilson often pushes his own biases in this book. Much of the "offensive" material is simply refutation of feminist viewpoints. For example feminists claim that sex differences are cultural and not biological is well refuted by Wilson when he presents data on factors like guilt and desire for frequency of sex from the 60s and compares it with more recent data. Liberation and much more widespread information on sex has not changed the percentages of these feelings in either sex since more "repressed" times. So there are sex differences that are innate. This din't bother me and I agree with Wilson here. However Wilson is not just challenging theories. He is also pushing his own biases. The chapter titled Origins of Genius clearly demonstrates this. Here Wilson strays from the book's subject of intercourse and presents a very short section which claims that men are naturally more intelligent based on the fact that few women win Nobel Prizes. He refutes the argument that women are disadvantaged socially by saying, well this man was poor and he did this. He does not give a percentage of male Nobel Prize winners from poor families, so there is no way to compare the proportion of disadvantaged male winners of the Nobel Prize with the proportion of female winners. Also he does not once mention pregnancy and child care as being potential added barriers to careers for women. (Note that pregnency and childcare are his basis for all the gender differences so far. But wouldn't childcare require more intelligence than not caring for children?) When he is not talking about sex as a verb he is perhaps out of his field and unable to give a discussion that really grasps the issues. If you are curious about sex from a psychological viewpoint then you are sure to find some gems here. This is an excellent overview of literature for the layman and I recommend it to the curious. However W

Entertainingly written, learned and profound

Entertainingly written, a leading University of London psychiatrist refutes the invalid psychological assumptions on which extreme feminist arguments rely and shows that men and women have reciprocal roles in society, based on identified psychological differences. Contents: Sex and Evolution; Evidence from Human Biology; Evidence from Animals and other Cultures; Can the Differences be Suppressed?; Sexual Anomalies and Difficulties; Talent & Achievement; Aggression and Crime; Social Forces and the Sex War.

Puts to rest a good deal of nonsense. Very interesting.

This book deals about the differences between males and females and why the two sexes think and behave in different ways. Wilson, from Darwinist evoloutionary theory, proves that the differences are ordained genetically because males and females have different roles to play in the reproduction of the human species. This fires the cannon through feminist theories that the sexes are the same. The sexes are not the same, but there is no issue of equality involved because the sexes have both strong and weak points in different areas.Men are more agressive, prone to anger, more sexually adventurous, have better visuo-spatial skills and are slightly smarter. Women are more passive, conservative in thier sexual behavior, empathetic, caring and take a more subjective view of life. These, of course are generalizations, not the exceptions, as the author notes.At the end of the book, it seems that men come off as smarter, more intellegent and in control than women. But the author is free to admit that women are morally superior to men, because it is the male drive towards crime and agression that is the fault of most social problems and wars. Feminism does have legitamite claims, but it is dead wrong by postulating that "society" forces males and females to act certain ways when these are dictated by simple biological function. Feminists should make thier case by appealing to senses of morals and honor towards females rather than making dictates based on faulty scientific theory.