The World's Best Book Summaries
Is gender important to consider when thinking about health? How does gender affect health? According to Caroline Criado Perez in Invisible Women, our male-as-default mindset results in a gender data gap that harms women’s health. She discusses how this manifests in everyday products and in our healthcare system. Read below to learn how gender and health are interconnected through car crash tests and medicine.
What are the effects of gender inequality in the workplace? What causes gender inequality in the workplace? In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez explains that gender inequality at work is caused by the gender data gap. One effect of this inequality includes disadvantaged hours that work for men, but not women. Read about the other effects of gender inequality below.
How can we get rid of stereotypes and racism? How can we give more political power back to the people? How can we use science to advance civilization? The more we apply scientific thinking and values to the world at large, the better the world will be. That’s the view of Carl Sagan. In The Demon-Haunted World, he argues that scientific understanding and principles can eliminate bigotry, fight tyranny, and bolster democracy. Keep reading to learn more about this important connection between science and society.
How does the gender data gap affect medicine? Why is there gender inequality in healthcare? In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez contends that many people have a male-as-default mindset. This mindset creates a gender data gap in the drug creation process—meaning we don’t know how medicines affect women because we don’t test them on women. Keep reading to learn how the gender data gap affects women’s healthcare, especially with drugs and vaccines.
What is a good woman in today’s society? Should women follow society’s expectations? Untamed author Glennon Doyle deconstructed her beliefs and practices about marriage, motherhood, and family in her pursuit to answer the question: what is a good woman? Doyle’s answer suggests you should be constantly evolving into a more authentic and fully-formed version of yourself. Read on to find out what a good woman is, according to Glennon Doyle’s method of deconstructing old beliefs.
What is anti-science? Is it different from scientific skepticism? What are some of the most common criticisms of science? Science isn’t perfect. It should be challenged, questioned, and even criticized. Some of these criticisms, though, don’t hold water and amount to what could be called anti-science. This is the view of Carl Sagan, who discusses anti-science and addresses four of the most common criticisms that scientists face: science is evil, science is too narrow, science changes too fast, and we might be better off not knowing. Let’s take a look at how Sagan explains anti-science and unpacks these four criticisms.
How does society impact religious beliefs? What beliefs have you inherited from your culture? Speaker, author, and activist Glennon Doyle deconstructed her ideas about religion after a negative experience at a conservative church. Doyle decided that she no longer wanted to be part of a faith tradition that forced her to check her critical thinking and intuition at the door or defer to the judgment of powerful men. Keep reading to find out why asking questions about religion to challenge old beliefs can help you live a more meaningful life.
How much influence does society have over what it means to be a woman today? Does being a woman mean suppressing your true identity? In the book Untamed, speaker, author, and activist Glennon Doyle explores how she freed herself from the strictures of society and embraced her true identity by rejecting the expectations and limitations society imposes on women. Doyle wants her readers to use her story as a framework to examine their lives and deconstruct societal expectations, thereby liberating themselves from the metaphorical captivity that limits their potential. Keep reading to learn what it means to be a woman
What does Carl Sagan mean when he says that the world is “demon-haunted”? What does he recommend as a solution to this problem? Renowned astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan believes the world is in a precarious position. Science has taught us a great deal about the world and brought about many beneficial changes to humanity, yet we still cling to unscientific beliefs and ideas at an alarming level. Sagan argues that, as we advance into the 21st century and beyond, our collective ignorance of scientific methods, values, and thinking may be catastrophic to us and the world we live
What is in-group favoritism? Is in-group favoritism necessarily a bad thing? In-group favoritism is a tendency to favor members of one’s in-group (e.g. in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, etc.) over members of out-groups. On the one hand, in-group favoritism is a good thing because it fosters bonding and cooperation. On the other hand, it causes unfair prejudice and irrational animosity towards members of out-groups. Keep reading to learn about the phenomenon of in-group favoritism, its biological underpinnings, and how to overcome it.