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Now, pioneering neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., brings together the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how they communicate, and who they love. While doing research as a medical student at Yale and then as a resident and faculty member at Harvard, Louann Brizendine discovered that almost all of the clinical data in existence on neurology, psychology, and neurobiology focused exclusively on males. In response to the overwhelming need for information on the female mind, Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women’s brain function.
In The Female Brain, Dr. Brizendine distills all her findings and the latest information from the scientific community in a highly accessible book that educates women about their unique brain/body/behavior.
The result: women will come away from this book knowing that they have a lean, mean, communicating machine. Men will develop a serious case of brain envy.
“Finally, a satisfying answer to Freud’s question, ‘What does a woman want?’ Louann Brizendine has done a great favor for every man who wants to understand the puzzling women in his life. A breezy and enlightening guide to women—and a must-read for men.”
—Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence
“The Female Brain is sassy, witty, reassuring, and great fun. All women—and the men who love them—should read this book.”
—Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of The Wisdom of Menopause
“Louann Brizendine has been a pioneer in using medical science to empower her women patients. Now she seeks to share her hard-won knowledge with a wider audience. The result is a timely, insightful, readable, and altogether magnificent book.”
—Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature
“An eye-opening account of the biological foundations of human behavior. Destined to become a classic in the field of gender studies.”
—Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Breast
“In a breezy, playful style, Brizendine follows the development of women’s brains from birth through the teen years, to courting, pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing, and on to menopause and beyond.”
—Deborah Tannen, Washington Post
ONE
The Birth of the Female Brain
Leila was a busy little bee, flitting around the playground, connecting with the other children whether or not she knew them. On the verge of speaking in two- and three-word phrases, she mostly used her contagious smile and emphatic nods of her head to communicate, and communicate she did. So did the other little girls. "Dolly," said one. "Shopping," said another. There was a pint-size community forming, abuzz with chatter, games, and imaginary families.
Leila was always happy to see her cousin Joseph when he joined her on the playground, but her joy never lasted long. Joseph grabbed the blocks she and her friends were using to make a house. He wanted to build a rocket, and build it by himself. His pals would wreck anything that Leila and her friends had created. The boys pushed the girls around, refused to take turns, and would ignore a girl's request to stop or give the toy back. By the end of the morning, Leila had retreated to the other end of the play area with the girls. They wanted to play house quietly together.
Common sense tells us that boys and girls behave differently. We see it every day at home, on the playground, and in classrooms. But what the culture hasn't told us is that the brain dictates these divergent behaviors. The impulses of childrenare so innate that they kick in even if we adults try to nudge them in another direction. One of my patients gave her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter many unisex toys, including a bright red fire truck instead of a doll. She walked into her daughter's room one afternoon to find her cuddling the truck in a baby blanket, rocking it back and forth saying, "Don't worry, little truckie, everything will be all right."
This isn't socialization. This little girl didn't cuddle her "truckie" because her environment molded her unisex brain. There is no unisex brain. She was born with a female brain, which came complete with its own impulses. Girls arrive already wired as girls, and boys arrive already wired as boys. Their brains are different by the time they're born, and their brains are what drive their impulses, values, and their very reality.
The brain shapes the way we see, hear, smell, and taste. Nerves run from our sense organs directly to the brain, and the brain does all the interpreting. A good conk on the head in the right place can mean that you won't be able to smell or taste. But the brain does more than that. It profoundly affects how we conceptualize the world-whether we think a person is good or bad, if we like the weather today or it makes us unhappy, or whether we're inclined to take care of the day's business. You don't have to be a neuroscientist to know this. If you're feeling a little down and have a nice glass of wine or a lovely piece of chocolate, your attitude can shift. A gray, cloudy day can turn bright, or irritation with a loved one can evaporate because of the way the chemicals in those substances affect the brain. Your immediate reality can change in an instant.
If chemicals acting on the brain can create different realities, what happens when two brains have different structures? There's no question that their realities will be different. Brain damage, strokes, prefrontal lobotomies, and head injuries can change what's important to a person. They can even change one's personality from aggressive to meek or from kind to grumpy.
But it's not as if we all start out with the same brain structure. Males' and females' brains are different by nature. Think about this. What if the communication center is bigger in one brain than in the other? What if the emotional memory center is bigger in one than in the other? What if one brain develops a greater ability to read cues in people than does the other? In this case, you would have a person whose reality dictated that communication, connection, emotional sensitivity, and responsiveness were the primary values. This person would prize these qualities above all others and be baffled by a person with a brain that didn't grasp the importance of these qualities. In essence, you would have someone with a female brain.
We, meaning doctors and scientists, used to think that gender was culturally created for humans but not for animals. When I was in medical school in the 1970s and '80s, it had already been discovered that male and female animal brains started developing differently in utero, suggesting that impulses such as mating and bearing and rearing young are hardwired into the animal brain. But we were taught that for humans sex differences mostly came from how one's parents raised one as a boy or a girl. Now we know that's not completely true, and if we go back to where it all started, the picture becomes abundantly clear.
Imagine for a moment that you are in a microcapsule speeding up the vaginal canal, hitting warp drive through the cervix ahead of the tsunami of sperm. Once inside the uterus, you'll see a giant, undulating egg waiting for that lucky tadpole with enough moxie to penetrate the surface. Let's say the sperm that led the charge carries an X and not a Y chromosome. Voila, the fertilized egg is a girl.
In the span of just thirty-eight weeks, we would see this girl grow from a group of cells that could fit on the head of a pin to an infant who weighs an average of seven and a half pounds and possesses the machinery she needs to live outside her mother's body. But the majority of the brain development that determines her sex-specific circuits happens during the first eighteen weeks of pregnancy.
Until eight weeks old, every fetal brain looks female-female is nature's default gender setting. If you were to watch a female and a male brain developing via time-lapse photography, you would see their circuit diagrams being laid down according to the blueprint drafted by both genes and sex hormones. A huge testosterone surge beginning in the eighth week will turn this unisex brain male by killing off some cells in the communication centers and growing more cells in the sex and aggression centers. If the testosterone surge doesn't happen, the female brain continues to grow unperturbed. The fetal girl's brain cells sprout more connections in the communication centers and areas that process emotion. How does this fetal fork in the road affect us? For one thing, because of her larger communication center, this girl will grow up to be more talkative than her brother. Men use about seven thousand words per day. Women use about twenty thousand. For another, it defines our innate biological destiny, coloring the lens through which each of us views and engages the world.
Reading Emotion Means Reading Reality
Just about the first thing the female brain compels a baby to do is study faces. Cara, a former student of mine, brought her baby Leila in to see us for regular visits. We loved watching how Leila changed as she grew up, and we saw her pretty much from birth through kindergarten. At a few weeks old, Leila was studying every face that appeared in front of her. My staff and I made plenty of eye contact, and soon she was smiling back at us. We mirrored each other's faces and sounds, and it was fun bonding with her. I wanted to take her home with me, particularly because I hadn't had the same experience with my son.
I loved that this baby girl wanted to look at me, and I wished my son had been so interested in my face. He was just the opposite. He wanted to look at everything else-mobiles, lights, and doorknobs-but not me. Making eye contact was at the bottom of his list of interesting things to do. I was taught in medical school that all babies are born with the need for mutual gazing because it is the key to developing the mother-infant bond, and for months I thought something was terribly wrong with my son. They didn't know back then about the many sex-specific differences in the brain. All babies were thought to be hardwired to gaze at faces, but it turns out that theories of the earliest stages of child development were female-biased. Girls, not boys, come out wired for mutual gazing. Girls do not experience the testosterone surge in utero that shrinks the centers for communication, observation, and processing of emotion, so their potential to develop skills in these areas are better at birth than boys'. Over the first three months of life, a baby girl's skills in eye contact and mutual facial gazing will increase by over 400 percent, whereas facial gazing skills in a boy during this time will not increase at all.
Baby girls are born interested in emotional expression. They take meaning about themselves from a look, a touch, every reaction from the people they come into contact with. From these cues they discover whether they are worthy, lovable, or annoying. But take away the signposts that an expressive face provides and you've taken away the female brain's main touchstone for reality. Watch a little girl as she approaches a mime. She'll try with everything she has to elicit an expression. Little girls do not tolerate flat faces. They interpret an emotionless face that's turned toward them as a signal they are not doing something right. Like dogs chasing Frisbees, little girls will go after the face until they get a response. The girls will think that if they do it just right, they'll get the reaction they expect. It's the same kind of instinct that keeps a grown woman going after a narcissistic or otherwise emotionally unavailable man-"if I just do it right, he'll love me." You can imagine, then, the negative impact on a little girl's developing sense of self of the unresponsive, flat face of a depressed mother-or even one that's had too many Botox injections. The lack of facial expression is very confusing to a girl, and she may come to believe, because she can't get the expected reaction to a plea for attention or a gesture of affection, that her mother doesn't really like her. She will eventually turn her efforts to faces that are more responsive.
Anyone who has raised boys and girls or watched them grow up can see that they develop differently, especially that baby girls will connect emotionally in ways that baby boys don't. But psychoanalytic theory misrepresented this sex difference and made the assumption that greater facial gazing and the impulse to connect meant that girls were more "needy" of symbiosis with their mothers. The greater facial gazing doesn't indicate a need; it indicates an innate skill in observation. It's a skill that comes with a brain that is more mature at birth than a boy's brain and develops faster, by one to two years.
Hearing, Approval and Being Heard
Girls' well-developed brain circuits for gathering meaning from faces and tone of voice also push them to comprehend the social approval of others very early. Cara was surprised that she was able to take Leila out into public. "It's amazing. We can sit at a restaurant, and Leila knows, at eighteen months, that if I raise my hand she should stop reaching for my glass of wine. And I noticed that if her dad and I are arguing, she'll eat with her fingers until one of us looks over at her. Then she'll go back to struggling with a fork."
These brief interactions show Leila picking up cues from her parents' faces that her cousin Joseph likely wouldn't have looked for. A University of Texas study of twelve-month-old girls and boys showed the difference in desire and ability to observe. In this case, the child and mother were brought into a room, left alone together, and instructed not to touch an object. The mother stood off to the side. Every move, glance, and utterance was videotaped. Very few of the girls touched the forbidden object, even though their mothers never explicitly told them not to. The girls looked back at their mothers' faces ten to twenty times more than did the boys, checking for signs of approval or disapproval. The boys, by contrast, moved around the room and rarely glanced at their mothers' faces. They frequently touched the forbidden object, even though their mothers shouted, "No!" The one-year-old boys, driven by their testosterone-formed male brains, are compelled to investigate their environment, even those elements of it they are forbidden to touch.
Because their brains did not undergo a testosterone marination in utero and their communication and emotion centers were left intact, girls also arrive in the world better at reading faces and hearing human vocal tones. Just as bats can hear sounds that even cats and dogs cannot, girls can hear a broader range of sound frequency and tones in the human voice than can boys. Even as an infant, all a girl needs to hear is a slight tightening in her mother's voice to know she should not be opening the drawer with the fancy wrapping paper in it. But you will have to restrain the boy physically to keep him from destroying next Christmas's packages. It's not that he's ignoring his mother. He physically cannot hear the same tone of warning.
A girl is also astute at reading from facial expression whether or not she's being listened to. At eighteen months, Leila could not be kept quiet. We couldn't understand anything she was trying to tell us, but she waddled up to each person in the office and unloosed a stream of words that seemed very important to her. She tested for agreement in each of us. If we appeared even the tiniest bit disinterested, or broke eye contact for a second, she put her hands on her hips, stomped her foot, and grunted in indignation. "Listen!" she yelled. No eye contact meant to her that we were not listening. Cara and her husband, Charles, were worried that Leila seemed to insist on being included in any conversation at home. She was so demanding that they thought they had spoiled her. But they hadn't. It was just their daughter's brain searching for a way to validate her sense of self.
Whether or not she is being listened to will tell a young girl if others take her seriously, which in turn goes to the growth of her sense of a successful self. Even though her language skills aren't developed, she understands more than she expresses, and she knows-before you do-if your mind has wandered for an instant. She can tell if the adult understands her. If the adult gets on the same wavelength, it actually creates her sense of self as being successful or important. If she doesn't connect, her sense is of an unsuccessful self. Charles in particular was surprised by how much focus it took to keep up the relationship with his daughter. But he saw that, when he listened attentively, she began to develop more confidence.
Excerpted from The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, MD Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
| Introduction: What Makes Us Women | 1 | |
| 1 | The Birth of the Female Brain | 11 |
| 2 | Teen Girl Brain | 31 |
| 3 | Love and Trust | 57 |
| 4 | Sex: The Brain Below the Belt | 77 |
| 5 | The Mommy Brain | 95 |
| 6 | Emotion: The Feeling Brain | 117 |
| 7 | The Mature Female Brain | 135 |
| Epilogue: The Future of the Female Brain | 159 | |
| Appendix 1 | The Female Brain and Hormone Therapy | 165 |
| Appendix 2 | The Female Brain and Postpartum Depression | 181 |
| Appendix 3 | The Female Brain and Sexual Orientation | 185 |
| Notes | 189 | |
| References | 211 | |
| Index | 271 |
1. Dr. Brizendine begins by describing the lack of clinical data on female neurology, psychology, and neurobiology she encountered as a medical student. How did years of emphasis on male subjects skew medical treatment for women and men alike? What did it take for physicians such as Dr. Brizendine to turn the tide?
2. Discuss the book’s discussion of gender and aggression in young children. What do these revelations, such as the fact that girls may inherently go through phases of bossiness as well as cooperatively taking turns, indicate about the way we should socialize children? Should our expectations of “acceptable” childhood behavior be altered in recognition of these innate patterns?
3. How does an understanding of the adolescent female brain ease or even alleviate your own memories of teenage angst? Which episodes seem less disconcerting when put in the context of physiology? Considering the way pleasure centers are stoked by gossip and sexual attractiveness takes priority, is it futile to try to tame the teen-girl brain?
4. What is the best way to reconcile the fact that most girls shun conflict while boys often enjoy it? What are the benefits and challenges of this contradiction? How do the adult manifestations of these features play out in the workplace?
5. Which aspects of Melissa and Rob’s case study regarding dating resonated the most with you? Can these findings be translated into a “prescription” for love? What lessons should single women take away from the observation that men are essentially chasers and women are choosers?
6. What surprised you in Dr. Brizendine’s chapter on sexual satisfaction? Did her distinctions between male and female orgasms differ from what you had previously believed? Does twenty-first-century dating accommodate these inherent gender differences?
7. What are the implications of the “mommy brain” for working mothers of newborns? Would it be beneficial or destructive if more fathers experienced the “daddy brain,” even extreme manifestations such as Couvade Syndrome? Do women inherently want to share the tasks of parenting?
8. Discuss the dangers and advantages of being able to read a man’s expressions with stealth and precision. If you were able to reduce your emotional attentiveness, would you do so?
9. With a better understanding of the inherently different communication styles possessed by men and women, can relationship woes be eased? Or is the communication gulf cause for despair?
10. Does American society embrace the wisdom of menopausal and post-menopausal women? Do contemporary grandmothers receive greater or less respect than in previous generations?
11. Based on the findings in Appendix One, how would you approach the controversial topic of hormone therapy? What is the best way to gain trustworthy advice on this subject from doctors?
12. What predictions can you make about shifting perceptions of gender wars in a culture that becomes more aware of neuroscience? How will the idealized and the fully realized woman be re-defined by our daughters?
13. How might the types of data revealed in Appendix Three shape future discussions about sexual orientation?
14. do the book’s extensive notes and references indicate about the nature of current research? Which fields appear to be the most progressive? What types of research needs are being addressed? What research question would you want to explore if you were to design a study regarding the female brain?
15. What is the effect of reading about personal, often emotional topics through the lens of science? What disputes in previous generations could have been resolved with our current scientific knowledge about gender differences?
16. Which stage currently matches your status in Dr. Brizendine’s chart, “Phases of a Female’s Life”? In what ways does the chart help explain your past behavior and predict your future responses?
Bookwormforlife
Posted February 20, 2010
You know an author is out to prove something when she states that she attended Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley within the first page of her book. Furthermore, you know she wants to be taken seriously when she keeps repeating this claim to fame every few pages and also reminds you of all the thousands of cases she has seen while working at her clinic. What you don't know, however, is why someone who claims to be so experienced relies solely on anonymous studies and personal anecdotes about herself, unidentified friends, and nameless patients (besides one biochemistry professor who was a pole dancer in college) as the basis for generalizations for the behavior of ALL women and men.
Brizendine spends the majority of her book discussing such stories. When she tries to support her claims with scientific data, she is very specific; for instance, a Swiss experiment proved that oxytocin acts as a pleasure stimulant for the brain. Who conducted this experiment? When was it conducted? How many subjects were tested? Such information is conveniently left unmentioned throughout the book in order not to trouble readers' minds with cumbersome facts. Well, if that's the case, then an experiment conducted in NY proved that the brain is actually located in a person's neck and not the head. Brizendine did provide over 70 pages of notes and references, but readers are sure to be able to take the time to match anecdote with reference number when the references are alphabetized without any mention to the chapter they support.
Many of the "facts" this books provides are also very questionable. Men think about sex once a minute while women think about it a maximum of three times per day? Do these chaste women turn on the television, ever? And I'm sure every teenage boy thinks about sex two hundred forty times during the four hours that he spends taking the SAT. (And yet, some boys STILL get perfect scores. They must be great prodigies indeed.) As another example, Brizendine states that women speak an average amount of 20000 words per day while men only speak 7000, a fact that Brizendine obtained from a self-help book written in 1997 called "Talk Language: How to Use Conversation for Profit and Pleasure." I'm sure years of meticulous research were made to prove THAT hypothesis.
Overall, on an academic scale of 1-10, I would give this book a 3. The basic premises of the book is that women and girls seek acceptance and are remarkably intuitive due to possessing low testosterone levels, while men are domineering, aloof, and incapable of reading other people's body language when it does not indicate a direct threat to them. On an entertainment scale, however, I would give it an 8. I had such a great time watching Brizendine try to get me to take her seriously and every few pages evoked quite a few laughs. Some great quotes presented in this literary masterpiece:
"Testosterone has been shown to decrease talking as interest in socializing---except when it involves sports or sexual pursuit."
"Their [adolescent boys'] reluctance to talk to their parents comes out of magical thinking that grown-ups will read between their spoken lines and the look in their eyes and know that the subject of sex has taken them over, mind, body, and soul."
"Activities such as caressing, kissing, hugging, gazing, and orgasm can replenish the chemical bond of love in the brain."
18 out of 28 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 22, 2007
I'm not a huge fan of this book, and probably few males are. Honestly, it seems like thinly veiled male bashing, and I've read that some of the references cited by the author are questionable. For example, the 20000 female spoken words per day versus 7000 male words per day claim. I'd like to meet the person, ANY person, who on average speaks 20000 words a day. That number seems more than a bit high unless you're an auctioneer, not to mention the supposed 3:1 ratio in words between women and men. Another problem I have with this book is that it uses vague generalities to describe supposedly prototypical women and men, without acknowledging the vast differences in personality and behavior between individuals within each gender. There is also an overemphasis on sex hormones versus neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine, where such neurotransmitter systems probably play a prominent role in encoding many of the characteristics the author ascribes to hormones. On the other hand, the author is good at conveying complex subject matter in simple language, and has a pleasing style of writing. I also think she genuinely cares about her patients, and this comes through in her writing. Overall, worth taking a look.
8 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 20, 2009
This insightful book gives us a look into what makes women women. Yes, almost all of our genes are the same, human genes, but the difference between that X and Y chromosomes affects us immensely. It may be confusing to understand, but this book makes it all so much clearer. It shows how the female brain is truly constantly fluctuating. We go through momentous changes at different times in our life, ie. motherhood, that may completely alter our views of the world.
How? Good question. I wondered too, then I read the book.
3 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 30, 2006
While this book brings focus to many differences between men and women, it does concentrate on a lot of stereotypes which have been empirically proven not to be real. The book is unjustified in many of the stereotypical assumptions it confirms, for example, that men cannot recognize emotion while women can. It oversimplifies situations instead of allowing for multiple explanations for certain trends. It is a good read to understand what many people will believe to be the problem however, as long as one maintains critical thinking throughout reading this , then one will find this book far more useful.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.As a widower wishing to understand relationships this is the most informative read to date.
I tear up in that I have made many mistakes in previous marriages. In Dr. Bizendine's book I heard echos of the very conversations (hurtful many times) from my previous relationships.
I would have benefited from this book in raising daughters.
Not the easiest read, but well worth the effort.
-rem-
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 18, 2008
Mr. Fitzgerald's negative review of a book about how women work is understandable. After all, he is a man, not a woman. And as the book review states, the majority of data on brain function is based on the male brain. The female brain is the key to balanced views - seeing both sides and allowing both sides to exist simultaneously rather than pooh-poohing the view that is not agreed with. It is the future of peace in the world and the salvation of the human race. The male of the species who can subjugate their ego will be part of humanity's future. I doubt Mr. Fitzgerald will be one of those.
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 6, 2007
This is is very well-written. It is easy to read for beginers and to understand. Brizendine used several examples, some of which were funny. It is extremely interesting and captivating. Not only women should should this but men as well, you might learn a thing or two!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 12, 2006
I find this book very unflattering to women, mildly informative and beleaguered with sweeping generalizations. What do we know? Yes women are moody ¿ emotional roller coasters ¿ wired to blow their fuse at the drop of a misperception or doubt and are emotionally out of control. Now women, who for centuries have been accused of having no accountability and sense of reason, are being told by this researcher that all they need to do is to pop a pill and they will be contented and complacent. We will all be able have acceptable female friends, female partners, wives, waitresses and window washers, albeit stoned Stepford Wives. The tears will be replaced with calm and cool, and we will be capable of getting on to the next level of business without the fearsome Carries and Camilles. With regard to women¿s intuition and keen sense of perception, clearly the author leaves out the proposition, that woman by nature (as she herself supposes) are nurturing, and needing of approval and acceptance, and are looking harder and longer for anything that would smack of approval or disapproval, and in vigorously doing so are going to find a flaw or inconsistency. Let¿s not confuse trouble making with table tapping. I think this book does an injustice to the centuries of social pressure and brainwashing put upon women who have become convinced that, without drugs, they have no control over their emotions. It underplays the role of drugless self-analysis and confidence building. On the subject of the male brain, she suggests that that is ¿another book¿. Okay somebody, get with it and let¿s even the playing field. Perhaps a more balanced comparative study would make for better sense of this issue.
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 4, 2006
As a woman I have to disagree with the many generalizations in this book. I found many of them to be very untrue. I don't think the author has taken into consideration that many of these behaviors come out in women who are very unhappy. Drugging themselves isn't going to solve the problem, although it may make them feel better. I have not read the male version of this book, and I don't think I will either. It will likely excuse all their behaviors with testoterone, hormones and other brain activity. This book did not take into consideration environement at all either. I give it three stars, because I think that's about how much of the overall answer to women's behavior that it contained. a good 2 stars worth was missing.
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 29, 2012
WOW! Me like very much
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 19, 2012
I read it to my wife, and we winced and laughed as we came to some recognition of events over our 45 years of marriage. Thank you Dr. Brizendine! This is a must read for husbands and wives, fathers and mothers!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 10, 2012
This book provided so much information and insight. use this as a reference for all stages of the female life, from conception to post menopause. I couldnt put it down and finished reading in three days.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.triniteeze
Posted December 4, 2011
This book helps explain many of our thoughts and actions even when you don't understand them yourself. I wish it focused more on relationships and less on menopause, but I still recommended it as a very informational read.
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Posted July 3, 2011
Very interesting, well written and super informative! Highly recommended! Great author
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.CandiBee
Posted May 19, 2011
I can't say enough good things about this book. It details the differences of male and female brains chemically, physicallly and emotionally in a relatable way. Personally I now understand menopause better now and what to expect. I also better understand relationships I've had in my own life from my mother to friends and co-workers. Another helpful part of this book is better understanding the differences in the male brain, and I'm not just talking from the cosmo like please a man angle. I mean how they are hard wired to think differently. In short this book can change the way you handle yourself with men and women of all ages.
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Posted April 27, 2010
I Also Recommend:
This should be a mandatory read for all high school and college students, and again for parents and those getting married! I can't wait to read "The Male Brain" now!!
Brizendine does a wonderful job of explaining technical, medical ideas into language I can understand and re-state to others. This isn't a "Men are from Mars, Women from Venus" type slosh. This book made me understand scientifically why I think the way I do, and why my husband does what he does. It doesn't give excuses, but the facts.
Add this to "Women, Weight, and Hormones" and you've got a dynamic duo about and for women!
Anonymous
Posted January 16, 2010
Great book, easy to read and explains so many things women NEED to know about their brains so that they don't just jump to the conclusion that they are crazy. Talking to a psychologist with training in hormone therapy and with a good understanding of neuroscience, as well as this book are LIFE SAVERS!
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 31, 2009
I found this book to be very compelling, revealing, and affirming.
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 19, 2009
I Also Recommend:
This book combines a lot of information I have read about female hormones and the science of the brain; it presents scientific studies supporting how the female hormones and the brain work together to make us who we are. This book is not just for women but also for the men in their life. I loved this book so much I have bought three more to share with friends!
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted April 10, 2008
Maybe your not a fan because your a guy! There's a bright idea. Maybe this book was meant to go out to more females then men. I don't mean that offensivly at all, but who'd more interested in what a girl does and thinks and progresses in life? Probably girls more then men. And I talk more then 20000 words a day, trust me. She's not trying to be negative, she's explaining. She is not byest in the slightest, and its sounds like your saying she is. You seem to get offended, but men would have probably wrote that girls can't think for themselves and follow others. It's just a book, no need to get worked up. In my opinion personally, I thought this book was interesting. But each to their own.
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Overview
Now, pioneering neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., brings together the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how ...