The Mismeasure of Woman

``Men are normal, women are deficient'' is the tacit message our culture instills, asserts California social psychologist Taviris. In a valuable, enlightening roadmap to sanity for women and men, she argues that there is far more substantial evidence for similarity between the sexes than for differences. She refutes ecofeminists and other theorizers who claim that women are more empathic and peace-loving than men. She disputes feminist historians who argue on shaky grounds for worldwide prehistoric matriarchies centered on Mother Goddess worship; she debunks feminist psychoanalysts who, she says, reinforce Freud's notion that men and women are inevitably worlds apart psychologically. Rejecting the notion that women are less sexual, Tavris deflates the stereotype of the ``coy female'' propagated in sociobiology and pop psychology texts. Her lively study explores how society ``pathologizes'' women though psychiatric diagnoses, sexist divorce rulings and images of females as ``moody,'' ``self-defeating'' or ``unstable.'' She also presents evidence that women's expectations about premenstrual syndrome, a stigmatizing label for a natural set of bodily changes, may actually influence their symptoms. First serial to Redbook, Mademoiselle, Woman's Day and Self; BOMC and QPB alternates; author tour. (Mar.)