Carol Tavris - The Science of Sex and Gender

Host: Indre Viskontas

Back in February, Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer made a decision that pushed gender issues and the work/life balance back into the headlines: she mandated that her employees can no longer work from home. It's a decision that impacts families with children in a big way—and puts a focus on women in the workplace.

Are decisions like Mayer's related to a broader cultural bias against women? Do biological differences between men and women account for the gender disparity in leadership positions in many industries? What do we even know about gender differences? Does science have answers to any of these questions yet? To find out, we invited Carol Tavris, a noted social psychologist and a pioneer of gender studies, to join us in this week's episode.

Carol Tavris received a PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan, and has taught psychology at UCLA and the New School for Social Research. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the Center for Inquiry. Her articles, book reviews and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. The themes of Tavris' work include critical thinking, feminism, and criticism of pseudoscience. Her books include four psychology textbooks, The Mismeasure of Woman, and Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), co-authored with Elliot Aronson.