Book Review: The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine
Perhaps it is contradictory that as a scientist I don’t generally enjoy reading non-fiction. I know many scientists who only read non-fiction, especially that of a scientific nature. I prefer to read for an escape, and as my career requires I spend a lot of time reading primary literature, I tend to use my spare time to read things of a less serious nature. That being said, I am willing to read almost anything, I just generally choose fiction. This month’s book club selection falls into the non-fiction category, The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine is an interesting look into the neuroanatomy of a woman’s brain beginning with her time in her mother’s womb and exploring the changes that occur through advanced age.
The author, a neurotherapist and founder of a clinic dealing with the special aspects of female neurobiology, presents the information in this book in unabashedly pro-woman fashion. Sometimes this comes at the expense of the value of the male brain and there is quite a bit of minimizing the positive aspects of male neurodevelopment, generally to highlight the strengths of the female mind. I’m not claiming that the author isn’t justified in this perspective, with most neuroscience research conducted in males and most text-books centering on male development, this book may be the only chance the female brain gets in the spot-light. It’s just that as a scientist, reading such an unbalanced presentation felt a little grating and heavy-handed at times. Feminism is the belief that men and women are created equal, that neither is superior, some women forget this point.
It is the belief that the male and female brains are essentially the same that the author soundly repudiates in this book. I think a great deal of this is common sense, we can look around us, examine our relationships, and see that there are fundamental differences between men and women. The author allows us to understand these differences on a biological level, describing how hormones influence brain function and how the changes in hormones over a woman’s lifetime impact her and the way she views the world. Dr. Brizendine contends that if we understand the way hormones and development influence our brain function then we are in control of how we react to our biology.
There are a couple scientific errors in the text that jumped out at me (especially since she restates one fallicy multiple times). Still I found this book an interesting and informative read. Preparing to introduce a new girl into my family, the first part of the book describing how the brains of infants and young girls develop was very helpful and has made me realize that its OK to give a girl dolls if she wants them and not worry that you are predetermining her destiny by forcing gender roles upon her. It also gave me some insight into my own behavior (there’s a section on the mommy/pregnancy brain) and a bit about my mother. I’ve encouraged Matthew to read it because I feel that men could gain some perspective on the women in their lives by reading this book. I also came to appreciate that some of the differences between men and women are fundamental enough that we need to stop blaming one another for our inability to understand the opposite sex. The book is not too technical in my opinion, though some members of the book club found it to be text-book like at times. I think anyone who wants to understand women better will find this book to be an excellent resource; its really quite engaging and uses stories of individuals to illustrate the science. It’s an easy read and worth the effort.