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The Female Brain | 
| Author: Louann Brizendine
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  104 reviews
Sales Rank: 1763
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0767920104
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.8
EAN: 9780767920100
ASIN: 0767920104
Publication Date: August 7, 2007
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Product Description
Why are women more verbal than men? Why do women remember details of fights that men can’t remember at all? Why do women tend to form deeper bonds with their female friends than men do with their male counterparts? These and other questions have stumped both sexes throughout the ages.
Now, pioneering neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., 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 who they love. While doing research as a medical student at Yale and then as a resident and faculty member at Harvard, Louann Brizendine discovered that almost all of the clinical data in existence on neurology, psychology, and neurobiology focused exclusively on males. In response to the overwhelming need for information on the female mind, Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women’s brain function.
In The Female Brain, Dr. Brizendine distills all her findings and the latest information from the scientific community in a highly accessible book that educates women about their unique brain/body/behavior.
The result: 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 99 more reviews...
 Don't listen to the naysayers April 27, 2008
Don't listen to the naysayers.
Brizendine has had the guts to broach a touchy subject in a touchy era. For nearly half a century now the feel good political correctness movement--spearheaded by the feminist movement starting in the 60s--has tried to persuade us to ignore what is obvious to anyone with eyes open, that men and women are different. And they do this under the auspice of all of us just getting along. (Alas, the feminist call for us to just get along, if anything, supports Brizendine's claim that women will say and do just about anything to preserve societal harmony.)
To support this let's-all-get-along movement the idea that men and women are essentially identical at birth and are only "socialized" into gender indentity and gender roles has been carved into the cultural Zeitgeist as if gospel. But now that research is starting to uncover the fact that this nurture rationale for gender differences has been overstated for the past fifty years, the old guard is up in arms. For sure, they are simply in denial that their precious theories are turning out to be hogwash. (I recommend reading "How Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl," which recounts how the original case study meant to support the socialization of gender identity/role turned out to be a load of hooey.)
Brizendine's critics, such as Peterzell, are actually living in some fantasy world, where sexual differences are somehow washed out in statistical apologetics. For example, you may hear that the variation within groups is greater than the variation between groups--meaning that men and women will overlap, statistically, in traits we would associate with "feminine" and "masculine." What you won't hear is why such traits are considered "feminine" or "masculine" to begin with if they do not have some kind of intrinsic connection to womanhood and manhood, respectively. In other words, they tell us that gender differences are not great enough to warrant distinction while at the same time using the very distinctions that are near universal in every human culture on earth to distract us from these distinctions. (Women are tough enough to serve in the military...but, aha, why can't men be more peaceloving like women?)
The academics need to make up their minds. Either men and women are different or they are not. To try to rationalize away a difference is not science. It is politics. Brizendine's book is a bold step in saying enough is enough. Pretending that there is no difference, or that the difference is insignificant is not doing a service to society. It is only making us more confused.
female brain April 23, 2008
Excellent book, written based on research findings, author is witty and writes with flair and knowledge. The information clears up many questions and noticed differences between the thinking patterns and behavior between male and females. This book is very interesting, both men and women should read and will find benefit in this book. The content also supplies hours of content for converations between readers.
I LOVED this book! March 28, 2008
I loved this book. It really helped me undertand a)what mt preteen is going through, b)why for one week (each month) I'm extremely communicative and for another week I can't string a sentance together. I was really surprised by the negative reviews written here. I've recommended this book to all my girlfriends. I'm thrilled with it. It is difficult to find a brain-book that the non-medical community can understand and enjoy. It's a little dramatized with the narrative, but it has a ton of relevent information. I dog-eared about 50 pages.
Aside from the penchant for Male Bashing... March 26, 2008
As a practicing clinical psychologist there is only one major objection I have to this book; the male bashing. "The Female Brain" (Paperback)by Dr. Louann Brizendine is otherwise a useful for tool for the lay person. It is very readable and highlights some of the issues and concerns many of us should be considering in our relationships.
It essentially comes down to this. Brizendine says there are real differences between the sexes and these differences are in some ways connected to the endocrine system (hormones) that operate differently through the lifespan in men and women. By becoming more aware of these differences one is armed to think differently and approach problem solving differently because of a hightened respect for the sexually based differences. While I have no problem with her as a female advocate she fails herself and the reader by allowing male bashing to sneak into what could otherwise be, academic objections withstanding, a useful icebraker for real discussion and understanding. Perhaps an edited version with more discipline is in order but I would still recommend exposure to her work as an awareness enhancement tool.
 A word of warning March 17, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book presents a chapter-by-chapter description of the phases which women go through during the course of their lives. For the most part, it's easy to read, and offers some insights. But there is an issue which should always be considered with books like this, and that is the degree to which the author's own background and culture influences and informs her work. Ideally, professional scientists should completely detach themselves from any cultural or moralistic hues, and be strictly objective. This is not the case here. I have noticed this trend particularly with American writers, who, maybe due to American idealism or political correctness, tend to go the "softly-softly" and squeamish route in describing biology, at the expense of a more frank and objective discussion which would be favored by their counterparts across the pond - the British.
For example, in describing biological facts, she quickly adds that the goal of this knowledge is so people can strive to override them and be more in tune with cultural values (which ones, the Anglo-Saxon ones? which are so special, how?). Even David Buss, the famous American biologist, sometimes falls into this trap. But at least Buss acknowledges other cultures, with different values, besides the Anglo-Saxon one.
Unless and until an American scientist or researcher can produce a frank, objective work on this subject, with no cultural hues but just the facts, no matter how unpalatable, I think it's better to read science/biology books by the less-naive British authors.
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