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Louann Brizendine

Louann Brizendine M.D.

The Female Brain Hardcover – August 1, 2006

by Louann Brizendine M.D. (Author)

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Every brain begins as a female brain. It only becomes male eight weeks after conception, when excess testosterone shrinks the communications center, reduces the hearing cortex, and makes the part of the brain that processes sex twice as large.

Louann Brizendine, M.D. is a pioneering neuropsychiatrist who 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 whom they’ll love. Brizendine reveals the neurological explanations behind why

• A woman remembers fights that a man insists never happened

• A teen girl is so obsessed with her looks and talking on the phone

• Thoughts about sex enter a woman’s brain once every couple of days but enter a man’s brain about once every minute

• A woman knows what people are feeling, while a man can’t spot an emotion unless somebody cries or threatens bodily harm

• A woman over 50 is more likely to initiate divorce than a man

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.

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304 pages
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English
Publisher

Broadway Books
Publication date

August 1, 2006
Dimensions

6.37 x 1.07 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

0767920090
ISBN-13

978-0767920094
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This comprehensive new look at the hormonal roller coaster that rules women's lives down to the cellular level, "a user's guide to new research about the female brain and the neurobehavioral systems that make us women," offers a trove of information, as well as some stunning insights. Though referenced like a work of research, Brizedine's writing style is fully accessible. Brizendine provides a fascinating look at the life cycle of the female brain from birth ("baby girls will connect emotionally in ways that baby boys don't") to birthing ("Motherhood changes you because it literally alters a woman's brain-structurally, functionally, and in many ways, irreversibly") to menopause (when "the female brain is nowhere near ready to retire") and beyond. At the same time, Brizedine is not above reviewing the basics: "We may think we're a lot more sophisticated than Fred or Wilma Flintstone, but our basic mental outlook and equipment are the same." While this book will be of interest to anyone who wonders why men and women are so different, it will be particularly useful for women and parents of girls.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, explores groundbreaking issues in brain science with mixed results. Critics debate the author's presentation and research; some extol her many and varied sources and the book's accessibility, while others take her to task for relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence and "dumbing down" the text (Robin Marantz Henig cites the author's repeated use of "cutesy language" and slang). Despite the critical ambivalence, the author certainly has the credentials to write this book. Brizendine graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine and draws on research done at the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic, which she founded at UCSF in 1994. So the question is, do you require step-by-step proof for conclusions some consider controversial, or are you willing to take her word for it?

From Booklist

Neuropsychiatrist Brizendine acknowledges she may be going out on a lonely limb by asserting that males and females have distinctly different brains. She says that, in addition to certain hard-wired dissimilarities, male and female brain chemistries differ in being powered by hormones so potent they can reshape each gender's conception of reality (which in no way is related to ability). Thanks to advances in noninvasive imaging technology, such as positron-emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, scientists have been able to quantify the effects of hormones on brain receptors. They have also been able to study how and when surges of specific hormones "marinate" the brain, affecting everything from gender education to sexual responsiveness to aggression. Brizendine doesn't rule out socialization as a factor in gender identification, but she insists that biology must take at least half the credit. What with nearly 70 pages of references to the research upon which she constructs her argument, out on a limb Brizendine may be, but who's left to hand her a saw? Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Men, get ready to develop brain envy.

Advance praise for The Female Brain

“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

“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

“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

“A timely, insightful, readable, and altogether magnificent book.”
—Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection

About the Author

Louann Brizendine, M.D., a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the National Board of Medical Examiners, is an endowed clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She is founder and director of the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic. After receiving her degree in neurobiology at University of California, Berkeley, and her medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine, she completed an internship and residency in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has served as faculty at both Harvard and UCSF. She sits on the boards of peer reviewed journals and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

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 children are 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. Voilˆ, 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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Broadway Books; 1st edition (August 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0767920090
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0767920094
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.37 x 1.07 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #186,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #516 in Popular Psychology Personality Study
- #715 in General Women's Health
- #10,875 in Science & Math (Books)

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Louann Brizendine
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LOUANN BRIZENDINE, M.D. Neuropsychiatrist
Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Professor of Psychiatry
University of California at San Francisco, Medical School
Founder/Director, Women's Mood & Hormone Clinic, UCSF
She completed her degree in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, graduated from Yale School of Medicine, did graduate work in London at UCL in Philosophy of Mind and Wellcome Institute in History of Science and Medicine, and completed a residency in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School and UCSF Medical School. At UCSF, she holds the Lynne and Marc Benioff endowed chair in Psychiatry.
At UCSF, Dr. Brizendine pursues active clinical, teaching, writing and research activities. She founded the UCSF Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic. "The Female Brain" and "The Male Brain" are national and international bestsellers. Her new book: "The Upgrade: How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond" is available for pre-order now.
Dr. Brizendine lives with her husband, Sam Barondes, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
For more information about Dr. Louann Brizendine see @louannbrizendine Tiktok, Louann Brizendine M.D. LinkedIn, @drLouann Twitter, @louannbrizendine Instagram, Dr Louann Brizendine Facebook author page or www.louannbrizendine.com
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Courtnay Byars

An Essential Look Inside the Female Brain

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 26, 2009

Verified Purchase

As a female interested in biological forces, this book offered tremendous insight into why I act and think the way I do. The Female Brain explains the female brain in an informative but witty way. In this review, I intend to educate readers on the details of the book to try to encourage everyone to read it. I believe this book will better prepare females for certain events in their lives, and possibly make life a little easier consequently. Dr. Brizendine writes in a humorous and fun fashion that keeps you entertained while learning. She also writes in a language in which the average reader can understand, even without any knowledge of the brain or biology in general.

Style/Structure
The book is broken into seven chapters representing different stages of female development as well as chapters on sex, love and trust, and emotion. The book starts with an introduction describing the history of the study of female brains and Dr. Brizandine's interest in it. The book emphasizes the large role hormones have on the female brain in regulation of emotions and how a female acts. She even includes a chart of the various hormonal changes in each stage of female life and the consequences these hormones have on the female. Each chapter is subsequently broken into different subsections, stressing important points of each topic. She uses stories of various patients of hers to elucidate women's actions and feelings during specific stages of life throughout the book. The book concludes with research on hormone therapy and the author's stance and experience with it.

Synopsis
In the first chapter titled "The Birth of the Female Brain", the author states that the brain of a fetus is the same in each gender until the eighth week of development in which if the fetus is a male, "a huge testosterone surge" kills cells in communication centers of the brain and increases cell growth in the aggression centers. According to the author, this causes one of the primary differences between male and female brains, leading to girls showing more empathy and cooperation with peers. Girls can even "hear a broader range of emotional tones in the human voice than can boys."

"Teen Girl Brain" relates initiation of the cycling of the hormones estrogen and progesterone to the actions of females during these tough years. She explains how the levels of hormones at various stages of the cycle lead from stress at one point to irritability at another. Also, the author explains how the hormones increase memory, the desire to talk, and sexual urges at various point during the cycle. The brain becomes sharper due to "a twenty five percent growth of connections in the hippocampus during weeks one and two [of the menstrual cycle]."

The chapter on love and trust focuses on subjects such as chemical attraction, the intricacies of the brain "in love", and evolutionary forces of mating and women's trust in men. The author emphasizes the effects that dopamine and oxytocin have on the brain, including affecting judgment and trust. The affect of hormones are so strong that " the brain circuits that are activated when we are in love match those of the drug addict."
The author also elaborates on different aspects of sex, delving into both research and evolutionary reasons of the female orgasm. This chapter also explores reasons behind female infidelity, suggesting that heightened detection of male pheromones right before ovulation may be a cause.

The chapter titled "The Mommy Brain" highlights the role of hormones on the female brain both during pregnancy and after the birth of the baby. Topics such as the pleasure of breast feeding, returning to work, and even the "daddy brain" are addressed. She mainly emphasizes the intimate connection between mother and child. For example, the mother can detect the smell of her baby with about ninety percent accuracy.

The chapter on emotion focuses on women's heightened emotional sense and how it affects various aspects. Women unconsciously participate in an act called "mirroring" in which involves imitating the facial expression of someone else in order to assess the other's emotions. She addresses the female's better emotional memory as well as her tendency to avoid conflict. Additionally, possible causes behind female's greater anxiety and depression than men are described.

Finally, "The Mature Female Brain" is all about the struggles women go through during their menopausal years. The author stresses the shock a female's body goes through during the withdrawal of hormones that have been affecting her body her entire life. This leads to increased ambition towards working and decreased responsibility in caring for the family. The author suggests hormone therapy as a way to reverse declining function of the brain such as the loss of memory.

Critique
I really enjoyed the author's use of stories of her patients because it kept the book more entertaining while providing situations that linked in well with the topic that she was covering. At first, I was worried that the book would be all facts and statistics but I was pleasantly surprised at how the author incorporated those stories as well as various other theories in biological science. For example, she links certain female tendencies to evolutionary forces such as the "fight or flight" response.

The book surprisingly contained a fair amount of information on the male as well. Most of these references were comparing the two sexes. At some points, I felt a bit of a feminist vibe in the way she talks about men, as most of her references imply ways in which females are better than males. However, I do not think the way in which she does this would offend the average male reader.

As a female, I found the chapter on love and trust to be particularly enthralling. I found the role of oxytocin and dopamine particularly interesting on the foundations of trust and happiness in relationships. One fact that I find very interesting is that hugging and cuddling cause a release of oxytocin in the brain which leads to the female trusting the man. The book provided me with greater insight into why I feel so in love with my boyfriend, no matter how crazy he drives me sometimes! As a biology major, I also enjoyed the connections the author made using ecology and evolution.

In relation to neuroscience, the book taught me more about the various regions of the brain and their various roles. However, the book most extensively covers the role of hormones on the brain. At first, I thought the author was using too much of a hormonal basis for female actions and emotions, but after reading more of the book I was happy to discover her incorporation of other elements such as ecology, genetics, and evolution. I believe she does a wonderful job in tying all of the information together in a logical way without any awkward transitions.

Recommendation
I encourage everyone to read this book as it has definitely become one of my favorites. Dr. Brizendine does a fantastic job at keeping the audience captivated so that you never want to put the book down. The book gave me significant insight into the large hormonal forces that guide female behavior. I think the book is a great read for both males and females so that each sex can have a greater understanding of the female and the biological forces that drive her.

26 people found this helpful

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Abacus

As interesting a read for women or men.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 12, 2006

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This is an excellent book with many insights about both the female and male brain. The writing makes for easy reading that is equally enjoyable for either women or men. The author approaches this subject at the hormonal and brain function level. She shares how a few hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, oxytocin), neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin) and their regulators within the brain (prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, amygdale) dictate our social behavior. Hormonal levels and their regulators are radically different between men and women. Thus, the genders behave differently. These hormones have a life cycle of their own defining specific passages in a women's life including, puberty, and the various menopause stages (peri-, -, and post-).

The female brain is different on several counts. It has larger resources dedicated to communication, language, emotions, and memory related to such emotions. This is manifested by a larger hippocampus and 11% more neurons dedicated to language capabilities. On the other hand, women's brain resources dedicated to sex is barely more than a third as large as men's. Testosterone level is a key differentiator between male and female as it is so much lower in women. As a result, women are more cooperative, less competitive, less aggressive, more concerned with emotion of others, and more focused on the group than the self alone. Men are 20 times more aggressive. The population of the prison system reflects that. Men think about sex far more often and their sex drive is far higher. That's why men rape women and not the reverse.

The chapter on the teen girl brain is excellent. It explains a great deal about the emotional roller coaster associated with a surge in hormonal levels. The differentiation between the female and male brain at that age is in full swing. Girls speak faster and two to three times as much as boys. Girls need social connection and ongoing communication opportunities. When those are lacking, a girl after puberty is twice as vulnerable as a boy to depression. On the other hand, because of lesser developed communication skills boys are a lot more at risk for autism.

The chapter on motherhood is also fascinating. It describes how a woman's brain is altered forever after motherhood to enhance the survival of her children. The author analyses the related metamorphosis of the women's brain in technical detail at the hormonal level. In plain English, whatever nature wants you to do (reproduce and mother) it does by generating plenty of natural feel good drugs (dopamine and oxytocin).

The author addresses at length love and sex. Her findings based on neuroscience confirm some the clichés we have that women look for economic stability and loyalty in men. While men look for, well the obvious: Scarlett Johansson. Women's focus is nesting. Men's is fertility. However, Brizendine indicates things get more complex. Women do want long-term relationship with loyal and caring providers. However, they occasionally don't mind reproducing with a philanderer that appears to have superior genes. Brizendine states that 10% of children are fathered by such philanderers without the husband knowledge. Superior genes are characteristics of males who have greater symmetry in their body and face. In plain English, this means men who are more handsome. Apparently, this has been confirmed by countless studies. Yet, this statement is perplexing. Is Brad Pitt really more symmetric than Danni de Vito? From a geometric standpoint, this could be a close call. So, what does symmetry really has to do with handsomeness? Also, interestingly enough the loyalty of a male seems incredibly predetermined by the length of a certain gene (vasopressin) the longer the more loyal.

The chapter on menopause and the mature women is also interesting. The changing hormonal balance, including the drop off in estrogen, triggers a marked reduction in nurturing behavior. Nurturing children and husband becomes really tasking. The frustration with this situation engenders a need for self-actualization. This is especially pronounced if the kids are out to college and the husband is retired and expects three meals a day. The terms of the marriage need to be renegotiated if the marriage is to survive. Counter to the public's perception it is women who initiate divorce 65% of the time among couples over 50.

Early in the book Brizendine addresses Lawrence Summers remark that women are underrepresented in mathematics and scientific fields because when comparing men vs women, even though their average ability may be the same, women's variability (or standard deviation) was lower. Thus, few women reached the top echelons of those fields. Brizendine rebuts Summers by indicating that girls and boys' ability and variability are the same through their teen years. Brizendine states that fewer women reach the top echelon in the mentioned fields because their brain wiring makes them more social and they do not seek lonesome (scientific) pursuits. However, a review of the 2006 College Board SAT results contradicts Brizendine as it shows that boys have both a higher average and higher standard deviation on math score vs girls. As a result, twice as many boys than girls score greater than 750 on the SAT math section. Thus, in this one case Brizendine's arguments are not convincing. This does not detract from the overall excellent intellectual quality of this book.

19 people found this helpful

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Joselin

Good book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 10, 2023

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Its a good book! I dont believe everything it has in it. But it does have some good information. Its a good read to makes you question a few things.

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Amazon Customer

Every person—man AND woman—needs to read this book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 29, 2022

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This is a PHENOMENAL book. As an avid reader on the topic of psychology, esp those regarding relationships and sex, I've read many, many books, articles, and papers on the subject. This book takes a very unique, scientific view that is so in-depth and complete, it's mind boggling. I learned so much and it actually completely changed some of my views regarding nature vs nurture. I almost skipped some chapters thinking they were not relevant to me as an adult female who doesn't have or intend to have children but thankfully decided to hold to my completionist nature and read them anyways. Just, amazing. Very very thought-provoking and I feel I have a whole new understanding of myself and women in general (which is amazing because even as a woman, I've always had a hard time understanding other women and mostly connected with men my whole life, so this was incredibly enlightening).

I've also gained much more empathy for others, women (and men) of all ages. That's another thing I so enjoyed about this book is that even though the author does focus on females, she does an excellent job of tying in how and why—based on physiology and psychology—they relate, differ, and interact with males.

I've since begun a relationship with a man who has a young daughter (and complicated relationship with his mother) and am purchasing him a copy. While there are so many books I've read that I'd love for him (and other men) to read, this truly is the number one I've picked to emphasize. It's so incredibly well-written, informative, and just plain fascinating to read.

Give it a go. Be open-minded. And I guarantee you'll take something from it.

9 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Jonathan

I’d suggest this book to anyone of any age and of any sex.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book was interesting from beginning to end. At first, I was dubious to wether or not I’d enjoy the book, as the first few pages make it clear it a book targeted towards women.

But this book hooked me after reading on a little further.

I liked the objective approach to the age old debate on nature vs nurture. And I think this is a great book for men to understand the women in their lives more, and women to understand themselves on a deeper level, as well as some insights into the men in their lives.

I’d suggest this book to anyone of any age and of any sex.

8 people found this helpful

Ms. Erica Wildwood

Popular science at its best

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 2, 2019

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This book is fascinating, accessible and engaging. I found myself nodding in recognition all the time and sometimes laughing out loud. The science explains and confirms the reality of my own experiences (it's always reassuring to find you're not the only one to have thought/felt something). Highly recommended for anyone who has a brain and is interested in how it works!

4 people found this helpful

Ventsislav

Don't waste resources

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 24, 2018

Verified Purchase

Not a scientific book at all, don't waste your resources on this

17 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Excellent read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 16, 2022

Verified Purchase

Absolutely loved this book. Beautifully written, clear and concise, informative and interesting. I would highly recommend to all women, men and couples who want to improve their understanding of what influences female behaviour and relationships. Excellent book! Thank you

Valentina Stoykova

Amazing book, highly recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 3, 2019

Verified Purchase

This is an amazing book which everyone should read, based on life long research, full of examples and comparisons. Written in an easy to read way gives a lot of insides into the female brain and the phases it goes through at each stage. Highly recommended for both men & women

4 people found this helpful

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The Female Brain Hardcover – August 1, 2006

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Louann Brizendine

Louann Brizendine M.D.

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Buy new:

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FREE delivery: Wednesday, May 31 on orders over $25.00 shipped by Amazon.

Ships from: Amazon

Sold by: UBSN

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