Sex and the Genome

We’ve all heard that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.  The notion that men and woman are different is deeply inculcated in our culture. Yet today science, our growing understanding of the human genome and the interaction of culture and genetics, are giving us a far greater understanding of those differences. 

Harvard Professor of the History of Science and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Sarah Richardson, in Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome, offers a compelling argument for the importance of an ongoing critical dialogue on how cultural conceptions both pre-judge, but also shape o

ur evolving gender roles.

Yet, like almost everything else in the realm of modern scientific discovery, different groups are happy and unhappy with the results of the science.

My conversation with Sarah Richardson: