Sexism!

I'm currently reading The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. It is a refutation of what was written in The Bell Curve and discredits the idea that biology is destiny (i.e., people who are in the lower and upper classes differ biologically from one another). I'm reading a section about how scientists were incredibly biased and consequently skewed their data regarding brain size and weight to support the contention that men are smarter than women, and white people are smarter than all non-white people. Check out this out of control quote by Gustave Le Bon from 1879:

"In the most intelligent races, as among the Parisians, there are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains. This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion. All psychologists who have studied the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man. Without doubt there exist some distinguished women, very superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional as the birth of any monstrosity, as, for example, of a gorilla with two heads; consequently, we may neglect them entirely."

That was way harsh.