Why I Think "Women's Brains" is an Effective Argument (CRR)

In class we recently read, discussed and analyzed Stephen Jay Gould's "Women's Brains." In his essay, Gould discusses past theories of intellectuals regarding the intelligence of women, which he later proves wrong. To prove the other scientists wrong, Gould analyzes the faults in their data and uses them to his advantage. In my opinion Gould effectively argues his message, that labeling intelligence based on gender or race is "irrelevant and highly injurious." Through ethos by itself and a combination of ethos and logos, Gould successfully sways his audience away from previously accepted ideas that women are inferior to men.

In the beginning of the essay, Gould starts to build his ethos. In the first paragraph, he uses advanced scientific terminology such as the words "anthropometry" and "craniometry." After using each one, he defines the words in simpler terms so that the members of his audience that have no scientific background can understand. By defining the terms, Gould not only appears knowledgeable, but he shows that he took his audience into consideration. Demonstrating that his audience can trust him and can believe that his information is correct effectively builds his credibility and altogether strengthens his audience. Also, the fact that Gould gave background information about Paul Broca, one of his quoted scientists, gives the audience the impression that Gould did not gather his information from any random source and that his information in the essay is accurate. This effectively adds to his argument because the audience knows that Gould's essay is not based upon false information.

Throughout the essay, Gould builds his credibility with the use of logos. His logos works together with ethos to make him seem reliable to his audience. For example, Gould refuted Broca's data regarding the average weight of men and women's brains with his own data. Gould took other factors into consideration such as height and age to gather his evidence. According to Gould, Broca's women that he tested were older than the men, which means that their brain size has decreased with degenerative disease. Also, Broca's men he tested were half a foot taller than the women, which also has an effect on brain size.  Gould stated that the average difference between men and women's brains according to Broca was 181 grams, but after re-calculating with the height and age in mind, the average difference was 113 grams. By proving to his audience that he put more thought into his data and was not biased toward the women he tested, Gould appears more reliable and trustworthy than Broca. This is effective because now the audience is more likely to believe Gould and agree with his claims. After reading about how much thought and work Gould put in to prove Broca wrong, I now view Gould as a more credible scientist. Being able to apply his knowledge of degenerative disease and height effects on brain size to his research and data between genders makes him come off as not only trustworthy, but knowledgeable about his subject matter as well.

With the rhetorical devices of ethos and logos, Gould presents his argument effectively to the audience. By using definitions, background information and quantitative data to improve his credibility, Gould convinced me that his data was overall more accurate and logical than Broca's. The fact that Gould remained as unbiased as possible throughout the essay and took factors into consideration that were undermining the brain size of women really told me that Gould is reasonable. Even though women were thought of as inferior at the time and that was the widely accepted belief, Gould found a way to refute the claim. In my opinion Gould effectively delivers his information through ethos and logos, which strengthens his argument  and convinces me to agree with him.