Thursday, February 28, 2008

random book meme

Lifted from Chas Clifton:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.
My book is Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, lent to me by a friend. I still haven't got around to reading it because I object to its biologically deterministic model of gender, but it is the only non-technical work to hand. So, here goes:
The best parkers are German men with 88% doing it successfully on the first attempt. Parking tests at driving schools show that women generally do better at reverse parking than men during driver training, but statistics show women perform worse in real life situations. This is because women are better than men at learning a task and successfully repeating it, provided the environment and conditions under which they do it don't change.
What a load of pseudo-scientific psychobabble. What about the other variables in the situation; and look at the way that the authors have made an unjustified conclusion based on a few random statistics which may mean something completely different than what they say they do! "Statistics show women perform worse in real life situations" does not justify the conclusion that women work better under circumstances that don't change, or necessarily suggest that that is the cause of it. It could be caused by the fact that some women tend to process many stimuli at once rather than focusing in on one particular stimulus.

Anyway, I tag Liz Williams, Joe Gordon, The Silver Eel, Methodius and Balador to do the same (and post a link in the comments when you've done it, if you choose to accept).

4 comments:

Chas S. Clifton said...

Ah, more ammo for the eternal gender wars!

Yewtree said...

Ha ha yeah. I do not consider myself to be at war with the other gender, but with the concept of prescribed and socially constructed gender roles. But then I'm a third-wave feminist.

Joe said...

I must admit I wouldn't even pick up a book with that kind of stereotype as a title - just having to deal with some of those sorts of books in my previous job used to annoy the hell out of me! Anyway, now I am back online I thought I'd actually try this:

http://www.woolamaloo.org.uk/2008/03/random-book-meme-yvonne-tagged-me-for.htm

Nearest book to where I was sitting was actually a graphic novel, but the meme didn't specify prose only, so I went for it.

Yewtree said...

I have a rather excellent postcard which says "Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with it." Says it all really.