The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine M.D. Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Female Brain
Book Review: Nice Book, but based on generalizations.
Summary: 3 Stars
Before I start, I should say that the easy 'layman' way that it is written is good making it accessible to the general public. It also has very good scientific research behind the book, and Brizendine's credentials are superb. Other than a couple of scientific oversights (like having two X chromosomes creates 'more feminine' brain pattern as opposed to a single X chromosome, which it does not), she does a relatively good job at keeping her facts straight.
The problems I find with this book is that it is based on generalizations, mainly stemming from the levels of hormones, and the fact that it discounts the effects of nurture/environmental factors on the individual. Brizendine portrays the brain as having two switches: male and female, where the truth is much more complex. Although we may be coded genetically for a surge of natal testosterone (male) or varying estrogen levels overtime (female), the fact is that these hormone levels are volatile and often erratic. One male is not necessarily going to be exposed to as much natal testosterone as another, making one more 'male' than the other. Again, Brizendine addresses how some women express too many hormones in extreme PMS, yet she fails to recognize the women who express too little, or even what this expression variation means for different people's brains. In summary, she makes brain gender seem like a toggle when it is really a slider. Enviormental factors, in the womb for example, also play a large role. Many females who grow up to be 'tomboyish' or more 'male' may have been immersed in residual testosterone in the mother's womb from previous births. As a director of a Hormone clinic, I hope she would have picked some of this up.
She also fails to acknowledge the great significance of nurture, which if I tried to elaborate in this book review, it would take pages. I will leave it simply that her neurological knowledge must be addled in some way to discount the value of nurture on the way the brain works.
In addition, many of her 'facts' in her chapter are not represented by statistical data, but anecdotes of her personal cases. It adds a nice touch of 'pathos' but does nothing on the scientific level. Interestingly, as another reviewer pointed out is that very few reputable scientists have come out and supported her work, and the few who have come out have done so in a reserved fashion. This could be due to the informal nature of her book, the lack of conclusive experimental data, blatant generalizations or a combination of the three.
Overall, Brizendine makes a nice read, which is backed up by seemingly pure scientific knowledge, yet it is severely lacking in the foundation on which the book is built upon. If she addressed the facts like 17% of people are of the opposite brain gender, maybe I would have rated her book higher.
Book Review: Not a Scientist
Summary: 3 Stars
I am not a scientist, researcher , or doctor and therefore can't comment on the extensive reviews done by those in the clinical fields; however, I can comment on the use of "cutesy" language and the "dumbing" down approach to the female brain. How much research is being done on the ethereal energy that separates male and female? Maybe I'm too "new age" or alternative-minded, but I've learned alot more about gender differences, male and female energy, female brains and reactions from Deepak Chopra, Rayna Gangi and Andrew Weil than I did from this fairly bad attempt.Book Review: Not only does the author make up facts, she fails to account for huge areas of research
Summary: 1 Stars
I am a psychiatrist and I don't understand why this author wrote this book. How much did someone pay her to write a book that is a professional embarrassment to her?
Cognitive therapy was developed in the 1960's. It showed that we could teach people (that is to say, we could change their brains), so that they were protected from future depression.
Psychiatrists also learn, at least I did, that many factors influence the developing brain after birth. Role models, what behavior is encouraged, nutrition,exercise, and many other things.
So, for any study to say that there are unlearned biological differences between men and women, that study has to control for all those learned factors, and the unlearned factors (i.e. diet and exercise, to name just two factors that influence brain development but are not learned). Almost none of the studies used to cite differences between men and women can meet these criteria.
But even given the problems with basing conclusions on the studies that DO exist, this author has gone further. She is basing her conclusions on studies that DO NOT exist!
She is doing her reputation, and a whole lot of people, a huge disservice. Doesn't she remember the Hippocratic oath--the oath she had to take to become a doctor?
First, do no harm.
Book Review: Not the way we might like it to be but the way it is
Summary: 5 Stars
I have the sense that Louann Brizendine would perhaps like to have discovered a somewhat different picture of the 'female brain' than the one she reveals in this book. A strong feminist her researches, and above all the cumulative scientific evidence she brings here point to strong differences between the 'female' and the 'male ' brain.
The first is, that the female brain is an 'eight- lane superhighway' when it comes to the emotional life, while the 'male brain'is a narrow path in the forest. Women are a lot better at empathizing and understanding others than men are. Men on the other hand are more preoccupied with specific, external tasks. Women care about intimacy.Women think about sex every couple of days or so, and men every hour of the day. Women talk a lot more than men, and receive a great 'high' in doing so.
In one of the interviews for the book she explains the basic Learning differences between the sexes.
"Girls, develop language skills earlier than boys do; boys develop visual and spatial skills earlier than girls. By 2 1/2, many girls are actively choosing not to play with boys, not for any cultural or sociological reason but because boys have not yet grasped the concept of verbal give-and-take. Boys, with their faster-developing spatial skills, are more likely to gravitate to building blocks and train sets and physical activities that require minimal verbal interaction. "
She says that the skills tend to level out in high- school age and strongly recommmends that girls be given at this age intensive scientific training as a way of catching up with what boys have been accumulating previously.
Perhaps however the most important aspect of the book relates to Brizendine's work as psychiatrist. Her understanding of the hormonal and physiological forces at play in various stages of the woman's life enable her to find answers in specfic cases which have in the past been overlooked.
It is this therapeutic rather than polemical approach to the female brain, and its special qualities which makes this such a highly recommended work.
Book Review: Now You Know
Summary: 5 Stars
An excellent book; witty and informative. It explains what you always suspected but never knew why. Now you know that you are not alone in the ways you feel and the ways you change and best of all you will learn the reason your brain works as it does. Well written and easily understandable.