Customer Reviews

Brain Gender

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Without disregarding social influences, this book thoroughly examines various biological perspectives on gender roles, sexual identity, and sexual orientation. The author has clearly done extensive research on the various studies concerning the relationship between hormones, development, gender, and behavior in both animals and humans, while critically examining the validity and usefulness of each study's results.

Obviously, the more you already know about the brain, the easier it is to understand, but for the most part this book is an accessible read for the average adult.

In Brain Gender, Melissa Hines presents a succinct, detailed, and well-supported examination of the current understanding on what makes humans male or female. The following review will provide a synopsis along with a critique of specific parts and aspects of the book.

Overall, the book would be a very useful tool for anyone interested in the science behind the concept of gender. While the author's writing style is not always the most engaging to a layperson, she succeeds in explaining very complicated topics with enough background to inform even someone with little science knowledge and enough detail to still challenge a reader with familiarity of the field. The best aspect of the author's writing style is her ability to present multiple sides of an argument on a given issue. She is very willing to draw conclusions from the research she presents but still leaves subjects open for discussion and debate.

The book is laid out in a very reader friendly format. It is divided into 11 chapters, each discussing a different aspect of sex differences. Chapters are subdivided by headings, which makes the text easy to scan by a reader looking for specific information. The following will provide a brief synopsis and review on each chapter.

I. SEX DIFFERENCES IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR:
This section is an introduction to the volume. The most significant statement that Hines makes in this chapter is that,

"the sex difference in height among men and women...is more than twice as large as the sex differences in many psychological traits"

This statement and following discussion does a tremendous job of setting up the tone for the rest of the book - that beyond physical characteristics and gender identity, males and females are not that different.

II. IS IT A GIRL OR IS IT A BOY?
Here the author discusses a variety of gender development disorders along with the biological background of sexual differentiation and development. The graphics in this section may be difficult for some readers to view because they depict abnormalities in the human genitals. However, these pictures are essential for the reader to understand what Hines is describing when discussing disorders of sexual development.

III. THE SEXUAL ANIMAL:
IV. SEX AND THE ANIMAL BRAIN:
Both sections III and IV concentrate on the biology behind sexual behavior and cover such topics as the role of hormones, anatomical/physiological differences between males and females, and differences between species.

V. GONADAL HORMONES AND HUMAN SEXUALITY:
Here Hines provides some of the most interesting knowledge in the book on human sexuality and gender. The overall theme of the chapter can be summarized by the following quote:

"it is helpful to know that human sexuality is not unidimensional. Instead, it is made up of several facets, each of which might relate to gonadal steroids, perhaps in different ways."

VI. SEX AND PLAY:
In this chapter, the differences in how boys and girls play is discussed. This chapter is important because childhood play can be a useful tool for studying influences of other factors, such as hormones, on typical gender-specific behavior.

VII. ANDROGEN AND AGRESSION:
This chapter focuses on the difference in aggression levels between men and women, which is a strong sex difference but also one of many misconceptions.

VIII. HORMONES AND PARENTING:
Here Hines discusses difference between males and females in their ability to parent and the common conception that women make better parents. She concludes that biological influence is negligible compared to social influences.

IX. ANDROGEN ESTROGEN AND COGNITION:
This chapter addresses the difference in male and female cognitive ability - a very controversial and misunderstood issue. The conclusion is essentially that no difference exists. However, Hines' discussion of the social implications is very engaging and insightful.

X. SEX AND THE HUMAN BRAIN:
A review is presented on the physical differences between the female and male brain. The discussion is very detailed and presents an abundance of empirical data.

XI. ENGENDERING THE BRAIN:
The final chapter concludes with a discussion of scientifically differentiating between environmental and physical influences on human gender, which can be summarized by the author's statement:

"No matter whether hormones or other factors, including social factors, cause us to develop in a certain way, the hormonal or social influences have been translated into physical brain characteristics...thus, the distinction between biological and social/cultural causes is false."


Throughout the entire text, the author sporadically uses images and tables. Most of the images are utilized to explain the anatomy of genitalia or parts of the nervous system. Occasionally tables and graphs are used to explain experimental findings. While most of the images add to the overall reading experience, some images included seem pointless and add little to understanding the concepts presented. The book would definitely be improved if more tables and figures were used to explain experimental results because often the statistics of studies seem to get lost in the body of the text, which does not do justice to their significance.

One of the most valuable aspects of the book is the extensive glossary of terms related to the study of gender and neuroscience. This section greatly improves the accessibility of the book for layman readers. This section prevents readers from needing to search through previous sections for definitions or explanations that may have been forgotten through the reading of the volume.

TO FUTURE READERS:

Buy this book if you have any interest in learning about the science behind matters such as gender identity and homosexuality. You will not be disappointed in the wealth of information you will receive.

If you are researching a specific aspect of gender development/differentiation this book is a great place to start. The book contains 44 pages full of citations that can guide you to more extensive research on the topics covered.

If you are unfamiliar with the subject area, I would not recommend skipping between sections, as the author tends to build off of previously discussed subjects.

IN SHORT: Great topic, great writing, and a great steeping stone for further research on the topic!

As big of a fan I am about evolutionary psychology, especially looking at the sex/gender differences between men and women, I was not so thrilled by this book since it provided such information in much more of a formal and scientific manner. It's not much of an easy read, mainly because of such heavy scientific content presented to such particular individuals who are not very much into the sciences. Despite all things considered, it's very well-written, quite interesting, and very similar to many things I've read on JSTOR.

I have been buying every book I can find about gender and learning. This book is the most scientifically credible book I have found that explains what the differences are between male and female intelligence. It carefully explains why it is no big deal by showing that the distributions within the genders are 10X as wide as the slight differences beween the averages. She says height is a much more significant difference between the sexes than is any intelligence sub-factor.

"Brain Gender" is top notch, providing a rich and thought-provoking survey of the field.

First came Darwin's Sexual Selection Theory. Then came Robert Trivers' Parental Investment Theory, which filled in some of the lacunae of Darwin's theory. Then came mountains of evidence from animal studies producing evidence consistent with the Theory. Then came Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology informing sociologists, apologetically, that if they didn't hitch sociology to biology, they were doomed forever to wander in the wilderness without a map, for they had no real theory. Then came the hordes of feminists shrieking like harpies, threatening, even physically assaulting Wilson and other real scientists. The threats were real and effective because feminists already dominated the psychosocial sciences, already had university deans and administrators by the proverbials, already controlled publishing houses. Then came the Founding Fathers of evolutionary psychology, trying to act like real scientists without inciting the feminists to riot, losing their standing at their universities, and being blackballed by publishers. Even the great Wilson wound up contradicting himself in order to pacify the feminists: men and women are radically different, but, oh, please, don't think I mean that the feminist goal of an androgynous society is therefore not possible. The more drastic the claimed differences, the more drastic the apology. In A Natural History of Rape, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer, after receiving threats from feminists, obsequiously included a separate chapter in which they apologize for their findings and hasten to assure feminists that all the evidence and the conclusion that rape is probably an adaptation are really, really meaningless, because the rape instinct can be drummed out of boys in a single generation. Sigh. Such genuflecting to feminism was not good enough for feminists. Seeing that they could not defeat Darwinian Theory, however, they changed their strategy from outright condemnation to reinterpretation of the evidence or to creating their own biased evidence. Melissa Hines is one of these latter day feminists. Now that three of every four psychosocial "scientists" is a female and likely a feminist cadre, even evolutionary science has been trashed. One might as well read a novel by Jacqueline Susann or watch one of the "reality" shows on TV. I see that Amazon is offering her book with Anne Moir's Brain Sex as a British geneticist. First published in 1991, Brain Sex was the book form of a five-hour, five-part TV documentary. Her book and documentary represent cover the same material that Hines' book covers, but is far more true to the facts and fair in its viewpoint. I personally see her Brain Sex and anthropologist Donald Symons' The Evolution of Human Sexuality as the two books most true to the scientific spirit on the market. In my opinion, they should be the first books included in EvSci 101.