The female brain

by Louann Brizendine

Paper Book, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

612.8

Collection

Publication

New York : Morgan Road Books, c2006.

Description

While doing research as a medical student at Yale and then as a resident and faculty member at Harvard, Dr. Brizendine discovered that almost all of the clinical data on neurology, psychology, and neurobiology focused exclusively on males. In response to the need for information on the female mind, Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women's brain function. At the same time, The National Institutes of Health began including female subjects in almost all of its studies for the first time. The result has been an explosion of new data. Here, Brizendine distills of this information in order to educate women about their unique brain-body-behavior. This book combines two decades of her own work, stories from her clinical practice, and the latest information from the scientific community at large to provide a comprehensive look at the way women's minds work.--From publisher description.… (more)

Media reviews

[D]espite the author's extensive academic credentials, The Female Brain disappointingly fails to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance. The book is riddled with scientific errors and is misleading about the processes of brain development, the neuroendocrine system,
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and the nature of sex differences in general.
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1 more
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.

User reviews

LibraryThing member rashtastic
Ehh... I would recommend looking into a thorough review of this book. There is a brief one a reader submitted on amazon. This seems like a great book, aha! A neurological basis for women's empowerment! Yes! ......no :(

One of those unfortunate titles that takes the attitude that modern, liberated
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women can and will take pride in the aprons they wear. And backed by an MD. I must defer to the experts because it feels weird challenging a doctor's knowledge of neurology, but from what I understand her explanations are simply wrong. There are two old-school views the doctor seems to rely on- 1) the brain is compartmentalized by function, and 2) size determines capacity. So this shrinks in the man's brain and expands in the female's brain and voila, gender differences. Both views on the brain have been improved by neurology. Radically improved. Remember the days when we knew men were smarter than women because their brains were larger on average?

Moreover her citations are shoddy. More than one scientist has come out asking what the connection was between their study and her claims. e.g. inferences drawn about humans from a study on mice, and a citation of Allan Pease, the body language 'expert'? She has, for example, been called out on the figures about speech in the inside cover that she reportedly will be keeping out of future editions. I believe her views on gender differences came first and her supporting evidence came second.

Read Nature's critique of it.

I guess my final word would be PLEASE DO NOT define yourself by your gender. Be wary of kiddy oversimplifications in explaining away human behavior. Women, girls, you are not a hopeless byproduct of hormones and an enlarged communication lobe. Men, likewise.
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LibraryThing member lxydis
I heard her on the radio, and judging from that as well as the reviews by reputable linguists and behavioral psychologists, this sounds like a whole lot of unsubstantiated, stereotypical, feel-good, self-helpy rubbish.
LibraryThing member nevusmom
I dunno. This just didn't grab me like I thought it would. So much of what the author writes about is really self-evident, although I suppose she backs up her "findings" with a certain amount of science. I suppose this book could be used as a resource when attempting to explain to a new dad why the
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mother of his child suddenly seems way more interested in the child than HIM. Whatever works. Still, I found this book more than slightly condescending, and frankly irritating.

Must be my hormones.
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LibraryThing member wyvernfriend
This book left me unsatisfied and feeling less feminine than before I started (the book cover doesn't help either with it's stereotyped images overlaying a brain shape). It read to me like a "women good, men bad" 1970's/80's feminist diatribe with a softer overlay. Instead of informing it confused
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and instead of enlightening it obscured. I really wanted to like this book but one of us failed and I'm not convinced that it was me. The emphasis on "take this pill and you'll feel better" I think undermined the whole thing. Yes there are differences between men and women, I'm just not convinced that they're that great.
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LibraryThing member jjmachshev
I picked up this book after perusing the reviews and was definately not disappointed. If you are a woman, know a woman, or want to know a woman, then pick up this book and read it...cover to cover. For women, it will be a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment. For those who know women, it
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will shed some light on our daily struggles and "mood swings". For those who want to know a woman, this book will reveal us in all our complexity, simplicity, strength, and weakness. I can't give it enough stars!!!
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LibraryThing member folini
This is an interesting book, but it suffers from a few serious issues:

* It’s definitively a sexist book. Some section are clearly offensive of the male sensitivity (yes dear Louann, males have some sensitivity!). The author describes male sexuality as a “simple hydraulic device”. I guess
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she’s not very lucky in her sexual life and adventures.

* She promotes a mechanistic and simplistic approach to the human brain. She doesn’t really believe in neuroplasticity, preferring to be an old school localizationist. Whatever is your problem, a few hormones and the usual antidepressant can fix it (I believe humans are not a simple chemical device, we are slightly more complex...)

* The author use of evolution and human history to sustain her theories is very poor. She describes all sort of silly theories based on the evolution of the human and female brain assuming that human life has always been the same. Sorry Louann, our ancestors didn’t go shopping, didn’t live in suburbia, neither they became grandparents at 50 (the average life was 30-35!).

* Despite the ridiculously long appendix with over 60 pages of bibliographical references, many of her statements are unsubstantiated. She offers her opinions as facts, with an excessive self-confident attitude. A more soft approach and more open mind would have made this book much more enjoyable.

Despite those limitations the book is a very rich source of information, ideas.
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LibraryThing member lindasorg77
If you are looking for a scientific treatise, move on. This author offers a popular overview, strictly for the general reader, informed as much by personal anecdotal experience as by her background as a psychiatrist and scientist. If you are that general reader and you are not terribly troubled by
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circular logic and astounding leaps of conclusion, you will enjoy this readable introduction to the influence of hormones on behavior and brain structure.
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LibraryThing member keely_chace
This is a quick, entertaining read that sheds significant light on a woman's unique brain make-up, as well as the hormone-fueled brain changes that affect her thinking and relationships from month to month, and from lifestage to lifestage. I'm glad I read this. Being aware of those female brain
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differences and changes should be valuable in raising my two young daughters, relating to my husband, and coping with aging.
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LibraryThing member rolandksmith
An interesting book ... but uses extreme cases as examples to validate the author's position. Definitely gives a better understanding of the female psyche, but should not be taken as the only explanation.
LibraryThing member ruinedbyreading
You know how men are always complaining that they don't understand women? Or that they wish someone would write a book about how to understand them?

The Female Brain sets out to explain why women do what they do from infancy to menopause. It explains the hormonal changes behind and biological
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reasons for some of the great mysteries of women, like why women like to go to the bathroom together. The female brain is also compared to the male brain, so hormonal changes in men and their behavior is also discussed.

This is one book I'd recommend to everyone. It's useful if you have kids, or ever plan on having kids, or if you are in a relationship, or ever plan on being in one. I've learned a lot about myself and people around me, thanks to The Female Brain.

It's incredibly readable. It's put into language everyone can understand with plenty of relatable real life examples to keep the text flowing.

Just keep in mind one important point the author things up - while The Female Brain makes sense and explains much, no one is controlled completely by hormones. They influence us but they don't control us.
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LibraryThing member jcelrod
Very interesting book that helps to explain a lot about why women are biologically (hormonally) the way we are.
LibraryThing member dianemb
I wish I'd read this book before I raised two teenage girls. It explains the effects of hormones from conception onward in an easy to understand manner.
LibraryThing member christineplouvier
There's a bit too much overlap between the companion books "The Female Brain" and "The Male Brain." But bearing in mind that correlation is not causation, that there's almost infinite individual variability between human beings that the generalizations in this book tend to obscure, and that as a
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Registered Nurse I have some of my own pet theories based on more than 20 years' experience...this is a decent little review of basic applied and theoretical neuropsychology. Should be useful as a springboard for more detailed research by non-specialists such as novelists, who would be well-advised to ensure that their efforts at character development don't remain in the "cardboard" range.
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LibraryThing member jyothisays
A must read for all females.
LibraryThing member aubreyfs
A fabulously informative book that really shows how hormones play into our major life changes. A few tidbits: In some societies, anthropologists have found that the presence of a grandmother improves a child's prospect for survival much more than the presence of a father. After menopause, a woman's
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drive to tend and care, as well as her urge to avoid conflict at all costs is significantly lessened. The female's brain is only half as likely to be wired for same-sex attraction as is the male brain. Young girls are better at mirroring than boys and are thus able to understand others' emotions more easily.
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LibraryThing member tjsjohanna
Ms. Brizendine's book explaining the role hormones play in female brain development and functioning was interesting. Written primarily towards a female audience, she helps make explicable some of the most contradictory behaviors women exhibit. Her examples definitely illustrated her points, but
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felt exaggerated at times. Overall, this books adds valuable information to the understanding we have of how the brain functions and specifically how it functions in women over the course of their lives.
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LibraryThing member jillrhudy
Very informative book, especially the chapter "Teen Girl Brain." My gripe with it is that I have a deep-seated mistrust of doctors with their pills, patches, creams, gels, etc., for people who are not sick, but merely undergoing completely natural processes. Maybe we could fix our health care
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system if we could stop doctors from making healthy people into patients. The author is a neuropsychologist who advocates giving women various hormones to try to make their hormone balance like it used to be, and coupling the hormones with anti-depressants if the women aren't happy about the changes that their bodies and brains are undergoing. My ideal doctor would, when I show up in his office griping that I'm 50 and don't feel as high-octane as I did at 30, say "of course you don't. It's called AGING. Take a long walk and call me in the morning."
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LibraryThing member Salsabrarian
A layman's discussion of the differences between the female and male brains, with focus on the female. The author discusses the aspects of the woman's brain as a baby, teenager, mother and mature woman, as well as the emotional and sexual aspects.
LibraryThing member startwithgivens
While this book provides a great deal of insight into the innate female brain, it does take a strictly nature (as opposed to nurture) point of view on the topic. Only in the appendix does Brizendine acknowledge that environmental affects influence the wiring of the brain. Her accounts are based on
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her patients, research, and hormonal effects. While I found this book to be very informative and a good way to quantify effects that are commonly seen, I do not believe it should be used as a Bible for women's emotions and actions. It's important to remember that every person is different, even though women go through very similar experiences in their lives, each woman is going to handle the situation differently. Brizendine does not do a very good job of exemplifying this and that's one of the reasons I found this book difficult to get through.

The other challenge I faced with getting through this book was the presentation of material. It's very chatty and whenever something "more complicated" is mentioned, she throws it in numerous times within a page or two. While that's a very nice way to get a point to stick, it makes unimportant points seem more important if you knew what she meant the first time.

Warning: It is a difficult book to get through regardless of who you are (male or female) and what your personal experiences are. At some point, something you read is going to have no relevance to your life and you're going to question it's validity.
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LibraryThing member bridgetZsweet
disputable and poor references.
LibraryThing member kwskultety
This got repetitive after a while, but it made a lot of sense to me. Now if I had only known about some of these hormones and their effect on me when I was younger....
There was one thing I took umbrage at. The author writes that girls are born to nurture and told a story of a child who was given a
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truck as a gift. She played with it, and one day her mother saw her cradling it in her arms like a baby and cooing to it. Now, I personally think that if you don't have that desire to have kids, no amount of hormones are going to make you want to cradle a truck and sing to it like a baby. What about transgender people, etc? I was disappointed that the author would paint women with such a broad brush.
Needless to say, I skipped right over the chapter entitled "The Mommy Brain".
That being said, this was a quick read that didn't tax my brain at all, and I did learn a few things.
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Language

Original publication date

2006-08-01

Physical description

xix, 279 p.; 25 cm

ISBN

9780767920100

Local notes

annotated by Gus di Zerega
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