Just Like a Woman: How Gender Science Is Redefining What Makes Us Female

by Dianne Hales

In recent years researchers in many scientific fields have actively focused on what being female really means. Their startling Almost every assumption made about women--physical, medical, historical, psychological--turns out to be untested, unproven, or untrue.

Stereotypes about women are as old as time--and as current as still-too-prevalent beliefs based on male models. Acclaimed health writer Dianne Hales brings together the cutting-edge research in anthropology, physiology, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and medicine in a book that reveals the complex interconnections between all aspects of a woman's life from infancy to old age. Gender science is now clearly demonstrating that women are not the second sex but a separate sex, unique in body, mind, and spirit.

Just Like a Woman explains what it means to live in a woman's body, think with a woman's brain, drink in the world with a woman's senses, and react with a woman's sensibility to the stresses and elations of her multiple roles. Refreshingly free of ideology, this meticulously documented book offers a stunningly liberating message that expands our concept of human potential--and will forever change the way every woman views herself.

Genres: Science, Psychology, Gender

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 1999

About the author

Ever since I was a girl, I had only one career goal: to write for a living. And so I have! I've written more than forty trade and textbooks and about a thousand articles for national publications.

Along the way I fell in love with Italian and wrote LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, which became a New York Times best-seller and earned me the great honor of an Italian knighthood.

I then wrote a biography of Mona (Madame) Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the real woman in Leonardo's iconic portrait. MONA LISA: A Life Discovered was an Amazon "best book of the year" in art history and was translated into six languages.

LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World is a sweeping journey through three thousand years of Italian history, celebrating the great contributions of Italy’s artists, artisans, writers, film directors, racers, fashion designers—and more. It appeals to the Italian in all our souls, inspiring us to be as daring as Italy’s gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties, and as irresistible as its lovers.

Reviews

[Ripple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun and informative read, dispute being written and revised about 10 to 20 years ago the language and ideals still hold water in today's advanced climate. Very quick read, I enjoyed every enlightening page.

[Les · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an accessible look, grounded in reasonably recent science (a lot can change in 15 years, but not enough to invalidate this sort of survey), of women's minds and bodies which makes every effort to avoid male-normative standards of the western scientific tradition and look at women as people who are not simply "men - except..."

Much of what I read was eye-opening. Especially disturbing is the paucity of women in critical health research; in every area most studies look only at men.

It is obvious that every woman should read this book; it is written assuming a female reader and is intended to be deeply empowering. Every man should as well; everyone benefits whenever people are empowered. I will be giving copies to my sons.

[Lily Graf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book talks a lot about gender stereotypes specifically about female stereotypes. This book actually was why I decided to write about gender stereotypes in English! It's really inspirational and full of so much information. Women are not less then men, women have been shown as dimmer, fragile, and less. This book explains what being female means. We are strong. Don't feed into stereotypes. I recommend this for women of any age who are passionate about being treated equally.