Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget (Hardcover)

by Marianne J. Legato M.D. FACP (Author), Laura Tucker (Author) "Math class is hard!..." (more)
Key Phrases: more gray matter, prairie vole, Helen Fisher

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American
A four-year-old could tell you that men and women are not the same, but even adults struggle to explain why. That is where Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget steps in. Citing a plethora of recent research, Marianne J. Legato sets out to describe why men and women vary so widely in their reactions and thoughts. In so doing, she hopes that readers will grasp the science of our biochemically controlled brains and, in light of it, seek to limit discord between men and women in the home and workplace. A tool kit to fix the male-female communication conundrum is an admirable goal, but one that Legato does not quite achieve. Although the science behind our divergent brains provides mini-epiphanies, the focus of the book gets lost in its mix of memoir, guidance and concrete science. The information to help the sexes get along better shows up occasionally, as in a brief reference to a mother who employs what she now knows about the male brain to fi ght less with her teenage son. Still, there are a lot of diversions along the way. One distraction is the decidedly female vantage point taken. Legato, a champion of rectifying medicine’s lapse in female-focused research, is a doctor who founded Columbia University’s Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine, where the word "gender" might as well be "female." For a book trying to bridge knowledge gaps, Legato represents the male world in strikingly few instances. The skewed view may arise from trying to force the theme of "the sexes are from different planets." Legato might have better served the reader by explaining how sex-based brain revelations can affect our lives—how doctors could provide better health care when it is geared toward each sex, how teacher could optimize student learning by tailoring their approaches, and, yes, why women in the bedroom need not be offended if their male partners do not necessarily want to cuddle. Despite missing the opportunity to explore the future relevance of gender brain science, the book does offer a fair amount of enlightening information. Although Legato does not provide that much guidance for how to use our new awareness, a thinking person can start to figure it out. And whether you are male or female, isn’t that what our brains are for?

Sarah Todd Davidson

Review

"Reading this book is a total ‘aha’ experience from start to finish. As a therapist and scientist, I cannot begin to describe how helpful it will be to anyone who has ever been perplexed, angered, confused, or frustrated by anyone of the opposite sex."—Alice Domar, MD, author of Self-Nurture and Healing Mind, Healthy Woman

"Readers cannot help but share [Legato’s] fascination with a subject that has such a direct impact on all our relationships."—Cleveland Plain Dealer

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (August 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579548970
• ISBN-13: 978-1579548971
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #243,706 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The antidote to relationship-poisoning perceptions, September 9, 2005

By	M. L Lamendola (Merriam, KS USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Diversity is great, but tolerance and understanding are rare. Men often expect women to think and behave as men, and vice-versa. When this doesn't happen, we can be impatient to the point of rudeness. Women frequently assume an insult or indifference that isn't there. Men are frequently miffed when women dredge up an issue we thought was already resolved. The misperceptions can easily poison a relationship, and often do.

But men and women are attracted to each other precisely because we are different. We complement each other. Perhaps if we understand in what ways we are constitutionally different, we'll not only tolerate the differences but learn to enjoy them. This book provides the means to take a giant step in that direction.
While the "why" of these differences is a matter of philosophy, religion, and speculation, the "what" of them is becoming increasingly clear. Dr. Legato reveals the "what" in a nonjudgmental manner. As a physician, she's trained to analyze information and provide healing advice--that's her perspective. This book reflects that, thus making it a useful tool to anyone seeking to have healthy relationships.

We all are familiar with the sex-specific traits that irritate and exasperate. Most of us aren't familiar with the studies that show men and women process information with different parts of their brains. We aren't familiar with the myriad other differences, and these go all the way down to the cellular level.
This book begins with a scenario that sounds all too familiar. It's a quarrel, and you can empathize with both sides as it unrolls. Dr. Legato then takes us behind that quarrel, showing that neither side intended anything negative. But the perceptions of negative intention ran high.

If men can learn to say, "She's going to have these expectations of me," we can prevent the kinds of arguments that drive us nuts. Dr. Legato provides insight as to what those expectations might be. Not that we men need to make a list. We just need to remember a few key things, such as the fact that women are nearly always multi-tasking and they hear and listen differently than we do.

If women can learn to say, "He's going to have his own expectations and not see and hear things the way I do," they can also prevent many of the arguments that drive them nuts. As Dr. Legato is a woman and does not pretend to think like a man, she takes the female perspective in much of her text. Personally, I hate it when someone with expertise in one area just assumes expertise in another--so I found Dr. Legato's intellectual honesty to be a real plus.

Part of her intellectual honesty involves looking at things from the physician's perspective, and not pretending to psychoanalyze the entire human race. So, we readers are treated to seeing how the physical brain and the physical body affect our behavior, thought processes, interpersonal communications, and other aspects of who we are and how we relate to others.
But this necessarily opens the door to some other issues, which she discusses in the last three chapters.

Chapter 7 discusses the differences in how men and women react to stress, and the implications that has for us.

Chapter 8 looks at depression, and this information alone justifies the cost of the book because most people who are depressed don't know it and therefore don't do anything about it. Depression is probably more the rule than the exception, though we typically think of depressed people as folks on the verge of suicide. So we think that if we're not feeling suicidal then we must not be depressed. That misperception greatly diminishes our ability to function wholly and to fully enjoy life. Get the book, and read this chapter first.

Chapter 9 touches on a topic that is, frankly, scary to many of us. You've had those days when you can't find your keys, when you jokingly refer to "having a senior moment," or can't remember a friend's phone number. And you wonder, "Am I developing Alzheimer's?" You may also wonder what's wrong with you these days, because you have once again agreed to be in two places at once. As the frequency of these events increases, our response goes from disturbing to alarming.

Understanding what is going on can help us cope. If you're over 40, get the book for this chapter alone. Not only will it help you understand your own situation, but it will help you be more patient with your aging mentors and other important people who increasingly seem to be losing the sharpness that once impressed the heck out of you.

A book like this doesn't come along every day. Nor do we, as people, think much about why we have problems between the sexes. Put these two facts together, and you have a solution to some of the most vexing annoyances that plague us.

Form is important, as it dictates readability. Fortunately, this book scored very well on substance and on form. This book actually uses Standard Written English (SWE). This was a refreshing change from the Pidgin English that so many of today's authors slop onto our reading palettes. The care taken in writing this book shows that the author and publisher actually cared about the reader. That's a huge plus.

46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Information and Helpful Recommendations, September 4, 2005

By	Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty (Port Orford, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I never gave much thought to the "real" differences between males and females, other than the obvious physical differences we all learn about in our earliest years, but, somehow, I knew there were more profound differences than I had recognized and, for the most part, had ignored them. Like all males, I have interacted with the opposite sex all my life and merely chalked up the personality-bound dissimilarities between us as the result of socio-cultural influences and the ways in which we were individually treated. Physiological research into the variances between the sexes, other than the visible ones, was not a subject much emphasized nor much discussed. How times have changed! Brain studies, with investigations into the chemistry of hormones, proteins, and the like, plus the explosion of knowledge about genes and their influence on human physiology and behavior, have provided us with new and fascinating insights into the fundamental asymmetries which exist between men and women, regardless of the environment in which they were raised.

In her new book, "Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget," Dr. Marianne Legato has summarized much of the recent research and used the results to offer a very practical guide for ordinary men and women to use in evaluating gender relationships and for understanding the psychological and social differences between the sexes, based on the biology involved, with the hope that such awareness will help avoid many of the difficulties that occur within marriages, friendships, and other types of associations. And she does all this while entertaining the reader with interesting anecdotes and sidebars, using an easy writing style which is pleasing to both the mind and the eye. This is quite an achievement in a book which contains much technical information gleaned from recent scientific studies within the disciplines of medicine, physiology, biology, and such.

She begins her book with an interesting "true and false" feature. "True or false: Sex is determined by our biology." Do you know the correct answer? "True or false: There are significant differences between the brains of men and women." The answer may surprise you! "True or False: The brain has a sex at birth." Some people may be surprised here also. "True or False: Men's brains are bigger." Never thought about this topic before, but now I have; is it true or false? This is just a sampling of the "true and false" feature she has in the first chapter; some of the other topics she tackles are just as provocative and are sure to raise the hackles of some members of both sexes. But, after all, "truth" is truth, and sometimes a bitter pill. Political correctness has no place in the natural and physical sciences.

Chapter Two is devoted to the question: "What attracts us to one another and how do we fall in love?" Having been in love many times myself (on various levels, of course!), I often wondered what provided the "essential key" to falling in love with a particular person while ignoring another person even though similar in many ways. Well (and please don't let this information dampen your romantic relationships!), a lot of it has to do with chemistry and your brain. Many of us have said over the years, mostly with tongue in cheek: "I guess the 'chemistry' between us is just right and that's why we fell in love." Now we can take someone seriously who says that because, in fact, there is scientific evidence supporting such a statement. We weren't wrong after all. We just didn't know why we were right!

Virtually all of us have noticed, I think, that there's often a communication problem between the sexes. Women complain that men just don't listen to them and don't respond in the way desired. Men complain that women are always dredging something up from the past that isn't important anymore. And so it goes. Dr. Legato discusses, in the third chapter, this matter of listening, hearing, and remembering. Yes, there appears to be a biological explanation for differences in the way men and women communicate. The reader will be fascinated with the findings, and the author provides, in Chapter Four, some helpful guidelines for diffusing and preventing communication problems between the sexes ("Legato's Laws").

In Chapters Five and Six, the author discusses marriage, family, and parenthood. Stress and depression are the subjects of Chapters Seven and Eight and, yes, there are differences in the way women and men react to stress, and depression has differing gender characteristics. The final chapter turned out to be of specific interest to me since it deals with men, women, and aging (I am approaching still another birthday). The title of this chapter, "Where Did I Leave My Keys?," could have well applied to me a few months ago when, indeed, I lost my keys and didn't know where I lost them (left them in my post office box). But the fact is, I am finding myself not as sharp in the memory department as I was when younger. As Dr. Legato points out, and few of us seem to think about, our brains are aging right along with the rest of our body. She says she also has to pay more attention to where she puts her own keys now, "so I won't spend 15 minutes looking for them the next morning." I can relate to that.

In conclusion, I can say, without any reservations, that this book is an excellent read. I can't think of a person who won't benefit from the information contained within and the helpful guidelines and recommendations the author provides. Admittedly, I am biased in favor of works which translate contemporary scientific research into useful information for ordinary readers. After all, of what good is science if it doesn't help us live better lives? As one critic has stated: "Reading this book is a total 'aha' experience from start to finish." I couldn't agree more.

36 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A women's book with the intellectual depth of an advice column, September 20, 2005

By	A Reader from Chicago (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

I wasn't impressed by this book, which I bought because it sounded good based on the reviews. First, the book is written to women, which is not of itself a bad thing. And has the intellectual depth of some of the lighter women's magazine articles. "I" is used a lot more than I have ever noticed in a book before, so it reads like a one-way telephone conversation. While there is some scientific information there, the language lacks the sort of precision that is necessary to get more than a women's magazine grasp of the science that is discussed.

On page 114: "Psychologist Shirley Glass, PhD, has done a number of important studies on infidelity. According to her, the phenomenon is fairly common: Twenty-five percent of wives and 44 percent of husbands admit to having had extramarital intercourse. I suspect the numbers are much higher than that, and if I look at the relationships I've seen fall apart of the course of my lifetime, I'm pretty sure that I'm right." Maybe it's me, but I don't think we can just discount a study of a married population merely based on what we have observed in failed marriages.

On page 32 a section is entitled "Women Determine Whether Courtship Will Continue and the Pace at Which It Does". That is an odd statement, and would seem true only when the man wants to continue the relationship and wants to go as fast as, or faster, than the woman. I am not sure where that section title came from since there is nothing in the paragraphs within that section that address anything related to that section title.

So, from the parts of the book I read, I found only one insight and found the communication level to be simplistic. The insight is from a story about a doctor whose wife asked him how his day went, and he had nothing to say, because he was very busy all day, so what was there to say? But then he learned that his wife wanted to hear stories about his day, so he made a note of remembering some stories, such as patient X was cranky today. And for his wife, who was a housewife who stayed home raising the kids, bringing her these stories was like bringing her flowers.