Customer Reviews

Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

There will always be market for books that tell the reader: "you're better than the people in your life that irritate you." It's a mean-spirited branch of the self-esteem industry. Sometimes these books even claim to be based on "new advances in science."

This erudite work of neurology begins with a scenario about Liz and Tim, whom we come to know well as the book flits on. You may recognize them from TV sitcoms. Tim is forgetful and doesn't properly clean his child after fetching her from the playground. Liz reproaches him, causing him to stammer in bewilderment. Why does Liz get frustrated? Why, it's because she hasn't read this groundbreaking work; she doesn't understand that it's not Tim's fault. He's just neurologically impaired.

Dr. Legato explains: "Liz has more gray matter in the frontal cortex of her brain, the area just behind the eyes, than Tim does. This is the executive center of the brain... Liz also has more connections between the two sides of the brain.." (xvi). She is referring to the nerve cells of the brain (gray cells), which are believed to play a primary role in information processing. She also alludes to white cells, which are thought to carry messages between different parts of the brain. There are numerous problems with Legato's flat statement here. Firstly and most importantly, physiology cannot be equated with function. Nobody knows the relationship between brain size and composition (physiology) and cognitive ability (functioning). No neurologist of standing would blithely draw conclusions from an assertion like "women have more gray matter." (The assertion is incorrect, but more about that later.)

But let's suppose Tim's (alleged) lack of neuronal cells (gray) and connecting material (white matter) explains his infuriating inability to perform simple domestic tasks. Legato cites only one article about brain physiology, "Sex Differences in Brain Gray and White Matter in Healthy Young Adults: Correlations with Cognitive Performance" (from the Journal of Neuroscience; Gur, Turetsky et. al.). This article actually contradicts her assertion that "Liz's left brain, the seat of our ability to process language, has more gray matter than Tim's does" (xvii)). The study reports (from the abstract): "In men the percentage of GM was higher in the left hemisphere, the percentage of WM was symmetric, and the percentage of CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) was higher in the right."

So, is gray the new black for Tim in the all-important "left hemisphere"? Maybe, but let's put this in perspective. There is no part of the brain known to be exclusively responsible for language function, certainly not the "left side" (maybe "Broca's brain" or "Wernicke's area" - but both are highly questionable). The notion of left and right hemisphere differentiation is quaint; it harkens back to books like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Anyway, Legato misrepresents the physical facts. According to a large study by the U of CA at Irvine (reported in "Science Daily"): "In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of - or connections between - these processing centers." (Another source for this is Haier, Rex E Jung and others, 'Structural Brain Variation and General Intelligence', NeuroImage 23 (2004): 425-433)).

Well, perhaps Tim is not a complete imbecile. But let's not be too hasty. The long-suffering Liz does have more neurons (gray cells) in her frontal cortex. Some researchers think this would give her an advantage in "fluid intelligence" (moment-to-moment problem solving), while Tim (with his superior store of gray matter) may have more "crystalized intelligence" (cognition based on stored knowledge). This proposed difference is supported somewhat by intelligence testing (discussed below).

Legato doesn't mention any of this, or the bulk of research about memory. She does have a particular fondness for studies of hormones in fish, applied to humans without a hint of irony. In a hilarious passage she even refers to a play ("The Way of All Fish") to support a theory that the endocrine systems of women in the workplace may be evolving to resemble those of men (xix). The practice of using generalized statements about hormones ("estrogen gives Liz a clearer memory" (xvii)) to make claims about "innate" qualities, is laughable. Brain structure can be plastic: it may change over the course of one's lifetime (e.g. meditation may give you more gray matter). Hormones change from moment-to-moment and no one knows how they influence behavior... Chestnuts cited in this book like "Sex Hormones and Cognitive Behavior in Men" (1987) date from a time when people believed that deficiency of certain hormones caused homosexuality or depression. But hormones are a subtle brew in an ever-changing balance. And this book is about "hardwired" qualities.

That being the case, it's funny the author ignores the vast amount of information available on intelligence and sex. Summarizing assessments of function in huge populations, these studies are better evidence than anecdotes about fish. IQ studies give Tim a 4-5 point average advantage in IQ. Overall, in "general intelligence," Tim and Liz are roughly equal. Tim scores somewhat higher in visual-spatial tasks (useful for childcare?) and math/science. Liz has a slight advantage in verbal ability. Tim may not be as absent-minded as we thought (men score higher in general knowledge); and the splenetic Liz may have a better short-term memory (women show statistically significant advantages). Many of these differences may be caused by environmental factors, not genetics. We don't know.

Fact is, we don't know that much about sex differences in memory or intelligence and this book won't help clarify matters. It's a collection of stereotypes illustrated by anecdotes with junk science backing it up.

If you're smart, you'll stay away.

Refs:
Born, M. P., Bleichrodt, N. & van der Flier, H. (1987). "Cross-cultural comparison of sex-related differences on intelligence tests". Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 18: 283-314.
Haier RJ, Benbow CP. (1995). "Sex differences and lateralization in temporal lobe glucose metabolism during mathematical reasoning". Dev Neuropsychol. 11: 405-414.
Lynn, Richard, with P.Irwing and T.Cammock (2002). "Sex differences in general knowledge". Intelligence 30: 27-40.
Lynn, Richard (1999). "Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: a developmental theory". Intelligence 27: 1-12.

Much of the content of the book is advice (primarily for women). Dr. Legato uses discoveries about male and female brain differences as the basis for advice, but the advice offered is not new or novel.

I would have found the book more compelling if the author had stuck to the science she is qualified to write about.

Five stars for the brain science half of the book; zero stars for the advice half.

What a great title for a book. The author enlightens us to the differences between men and women is such a light-hearted, interesting read. Recommend highly.

I skimmed this at the book store and couldn't put it down. It answered questions I didn't know I had about relating to women. If high school seniors read this book and Women's Reality by Anne Wilson Schaeff, couples would handle relationship drama a lot better.

Here's another excellent 'Men are From Mars' type expose of the underlying meaning of differences between the male and female psyche, this one explaining exactly how males and females are different - and how these differences, right down to brain processing and perception, affect common traits in both sexes. Science, psychology and medicine blend in a lively consideration of everything from cheating in marriage to differences in how men and women talk and problem-solve. Public libraries who found 'Men Are From Mars' popular will find the same audience will readily gravitate to WHY MEN NEVER REMEMBER AND WOMEN NEVER FORGET.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Legato brings new insight into what makes men and women so different. Legato would suggest we are hard wired in the brain very differently. It doesn't take a large leap of faith to acknowledge that there are many differences in the two genders and our thought processes. What is helpful about this book is that through reading it you may be able to better communicate with a member of the opposite sex.

The book does primarily focuses on what makes women unique, or rather the book is written from a female perspectice with advice for communicating with males. It isn't completely indept study of what all are of the qualities that makes each gender unique from each other. She suggests that the hard wiring happens in the womb, and that our brains are wired differently, so therefore we think in our own ways.

It is often been said that women can multitask and think of several different things at once, while males really need to focus on one thing at a time. Legato suggests that women have more connections between the left half and the right half of the brain, and this is what causes this. She also strongly suggests that women should not expect men to multitask as women do.

Throughout the book she discusses why do we hear and listen differently, why women can remember some events much more strongly than men, how to improve communication between the genders, chemistry of romantic relationships, depression, aging, and many other topics. So this book is definately worth picking up and reading, as so much information is to be found in here.

Legato fails to bring together this broad new knowledge together at the end of the book in a concise conclusion. I wished she would have gathered together the highlights between the genders and perhaps given a few more tips at the end of the book. While the book lacks a solid conclusion, it is excellent reading material and would definately serve women well in reading this book.

Being a male I found this book very slow going and had to force my self to keep reading. Best advice buy flowers.