... reading Gina Rippon’s careful and prolonged demolition of the myth of the 'female brain' left me with a powerful sense of relief. Here, at last, are things I’ve long felt instinctively to be true, presented as demonstrable facts ... It is a highly accessible book. It’s also an important one. Quite apart from how interesting the science contained within it is, it has the power – if only people would read it – to do vastly more for gender equality than any number of feminist 'manifestos' ... Brick by brick, Rippon razes this history and, for the (non-scientist) reader, what she says is revolutionary to a glorious degree ... The science in Rippon’s book is complex and multilayered. But she looks, too, at the pernicious influence of psychobabble ... She is brilliant on baby brains ... She is supremely clear-eyed when she comes to unpick the reasons why there are still relatively few women in science. Above all, she has the research that proves that women are as good (or as bad) at visuospatial processing as men ... It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that I felt like cheering when I read this, and perhaps such information will provide food for thought for those campaigning for women to be given so-called menstrual leave.

One could imagine a shorter work, more focused on documenting the state-of-the-art evidence about gender differences in brain imaging. Instead the book spends most of its time in the realm of developmental psychology, or social science in general. Many of these experiments are quite interesting ... it isn’t clear how the research relates to the 'new neuroscience' of Rippon’s subtitle, nor does it reveal much about gender ... Rippon is on even shakier ground in discussing, for example, differences in self-esteem between men and women, where social science convincingly demonstrates that differences exist but brain science so far has little to offer. And the segment of the book on discrimination in science was interesting from where I sit as a female academic, but didn’t seem central to Rippon’s insights or aims ... Where the book really shines — not surprisingly — is in the details about the science of the brain: what we know and what we do not. Rippon’s explanation of how we’ve studied the brain in the past, and how recent technological advances are giving us increasingly precise tools to do so, is endlessly interesting. But in the end, the discussion of how all of this relates to gender plays a bit of a second fiddle. Of course, if Rippon’s ultimate claim is simply that men’s and women’s brains are not so different after all, then perhaps that is as it should be.

Rippon takes a scalpel to the research surrounding sex differences in the brain with precision and humour ... Rippon rightly includes the impact of misleading media reporting and the effects of living in a society that assumes all girls like pink and women can’t read maps ... The context and examples cited throughout are fascinating — from the Tomboy Index to how playing Tetris can easily change the results of a mental rotation performance study ... examples are what makes The Gendered Brain so enjoyable. The chapter on the social brain is particularly enlightening.

Rippon, a leading voice against the bad neuroscience of sex differences, uncovers so many examples in this ambitious book that she uses a whack-a-mole metaphor to evoke the eternal cycle ... accomplishes its goal of debunking the concept of a gendered brain.

There is actually very little discussion of the effect of all this on men and boys, which is a shame ... one of those books that should be essential reading before anyone is allowed to be a teacher, or buy a child a present, or comment on anything on Twitter, ever again … but my fear is that Rippon is preaching to the choir. That said, all systemising brains out there owe it to themselves to read this calm and logical collection of evidence and science, and all empathisers will understand its importance.

Of all the bracing virtues in Gina Rippon’s Gender and Our Brains, Rippon’s sarcasm is surely the most savory ... Her response is to dissect the shortcomings of these various studies with a withering, pragmatic scorn that reads a bit like a secretly recorded trash-talking session in a lab break room. And Rippon has plenty of grist for her mill ... This part of the book feels pretty familiar, particularly the chapters that assess the many social and personal barriers that keep women from entering STEM fields ... Rippon isn’t the writer Fine is—she repeats such clauses as 'beautifully color-coded images' as often as Homer refers to the 'wine-dark sea.' But this, in its fashion, lends credibility to Gender and Our Brains. Rippon writes like a scientist, not a psychologist or philosopher. She makes an irascible but very down-to-earth guide through the thickets of such statistical properties as effect sizes and how they have been manipulated or ignored. And while she certainly deplores the likelihood that stereotypes about women’s deficiencies in 'systematic' thinking will steer many possibly gifted scholars away from STEM fields, Rippon is no solemn moralizer weeping over the sufferings of the downtrodden. (It’s a relief, for a change, not to have those particular heartstrings plucked yet again.) Instead, she is exasperated and impatient at how steadfastly so many of her colleagues have pursued a point so fine it nearly vanishes from sight, how blind they are to the evident biases in their own ideas and work, and how very deeply invested they are in the status quo.

... entertainingly written ... I’m sure she is right that our minds are affected by a world where gender roles matter, but to say that’s the only process at work is extreme ... has Rippon proved that it’s all nurture and no nature? Not quite ... Most biologists and neuroscientists agree that prenatal biology and culture combine to explain average sex differences in the brain. So why does Rippon box herself into an extremist position by arguing that it’s all culture and no biology? Probably because, like me, she’s a child of the Sixties. If all differences are cultural, we can change to make society more equal. I am passionate for an equal society too. But our political beliefs — however sincerely held — should never make us selective when it comes to science.

... does add both breadth and depth to previous discussions and provides a little more ballast to the argument that nature and nurture are not so easily divisible but in dynamic interaction ... This reflection on the historical relativity of stereotypes could have helped to nourish her reflections on the ways to disrupt the 'brain-social context' stereotype loop in the closing chapters, which seem rather perfunctory and even to row back from the earlier more nuanced discussions, stating as she does that 'culture-based problems need to be solved by fixing the culture;' and 'maybe social and cultural factors have a much greater role to play in what looks like biologically fixed differences.' This reads as if she has not quite convinced herself of the very convincing picture of interdependence she has presented. It is also surprising that she skates over the work of other scientists, which would have supported her case such as that dismissing the great stereotype XX and XY as no longer being the truth ... In the end, Rippon, as her predecessor Fine, balks at the 'cultural' hurdle. Perhaps they could both enrich their next publications by finding themselves a social scientist to partner with?

Neurosexism abounds, [Rippon] asserts, citing studies and naming names with assurance and a touch of acerbity ... Well-crafted and thoroughly documented, this is a must-read for parents, teachers, and anyone of either sex who cares for children.

Rippon painstakingly refutes in this exhaustive study long-held beliefs about gender’s role in the development and functioning of the brain ... The most illuminating aspect of her account is an explanation of the 'plastic' nature of the brain, particularly among infants and children ... a powerful and well-constructed argument for gender as a social construct—nurture rather than nature. Some of the harder science in the book is not layperson-friendly; Rippon’s frequently accessible contradiction of sexist myths also contains massive amounts of neuroscience data. Nevertheless, those interested in gender-related brain differences (or lack thereof) will find this riveting.