The Female Brain (book)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Notepad
 To comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may need to be rewritten.
Please help improve this article. The discussion page may contain suggestions.
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.(December 2007)
Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
The Female Brain
Author Louann Brizendine, M.D.
Publisher Morgan Road Books
Publication date 2006
Media type Hardcover
Pages 187, 210 including notes.
ISBN ISBN 0-7679-2009-0

The Female Brain is a book by Louann Brizendine, M.D., whose main thesis is that women’s behavior is radically different from that of men due to hormonal differences. Brizendine says that the human female brain is affected by the following hormones: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, (oxytocin), neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin), and difference in architecture of the brain (prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, amygdale) that regulates such hormones and neurotransmitters. The life cycle of these hormones define specific passages in a women's life including, puberty, and menopause, acoording to Brizendine.

Brizendine's book includes seven chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to either a specific part of a woman’s life such as puberty, motherhood, and menopause or a specific dimension of a women’s emotional life such as feelings, love & trust, and sex. The book also includes three appendices on hormone therapy, postpartum depression, and sexual orientation

The book was not fact checked, and the author took some of her supportive statistics from self-help gurus (see Fact-checking the Female Brain).


Contents

[edit] Main differences between the female and male brains

The author sees neurological differences between men and women as significant enough that it makes sense to speak of a "female brain" and a "male brain". She believes that the former has larger resources dedicated to communication and emotion, which she deduces from the fact that the female hippocampus is larger than the male, and that the "female brain" has 11% more neurons dedicated to language.[unreliable source?] Testosterone level is a differentiator between male and female as it is so much lower in women. As a result, the author sees women as being cooperative, less competitive, less aggressive, more concerned with emotion of others, and more focused on the group than the self alone. She sees men as being 20 times more aggressive.

According to Brizendine, during their teens the differentiation between the female and male brain is significant. Girls, according to the author, speak faster and two to three times as much as boys. She says that 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, according to Brizendine. On the other hand, because of lesser developed communication skills[unreliable source?] boys are a lot more at risk for autism.

[edit] Phases of a woman's life

At the beginning of the book, the author created a table that depicts her views on human female neuropsychological development. A summary of this table is depicted below.

Phases of a Woman's Life
Phase Hormone Change What females have that males don't Specific brain changes Reality change
Fetal Brain growth unperturbed by high testosterone of a male brain Brain cells are XX, more genes for fast brain development Brain circuits for communication and emotional memory grow unabated by high testosterone level of males More brains circuits for communications and reading emotions; able to use both sides of brain
Girlhood Estrogen is secreted in massive amounts from 6 to 24 months old High estrogen for up to 2 years after birth Verbal and emotional circuits are enhanced Major interest in playing with other girls
Puberty Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone increase and begin monthly cycle More estrogen and less testosterone; girls' brains develop 2 years earlier than boys' Increased sensitivity and growth of emotion and sex circuits Major focus on sexual attractiveness and love interests, avoidance of parents
Sexual maturity Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone change daily More focus on finding a lifelong mate, and choosing a career compatible with raising a family Earlier maturation of decision making and emotional control circuits Major interests in finding a mate, love, career development
Pregnancy Huge increase in progesterone, estrogen Focus on nesting and less on career and competition Brain calmed by progesterone Major interest in own physical well being, coping with fatigue, nausea, and hunger; surviving in the workplace; and planning maternity leave
Child rearing Oxytocin; cycling estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone Less interest in sex, more worry about child rearing Increased function of worry and emotional bonding circuits Major interest in well being, education, and safety of kids; coping with work stress
Perimenopause Erratically cycling estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone Fluctuating libido and sleep, fatigue, moods, hot flashes, and irritability Decreasing sensitivity to estrogen in certain brain circuits Major interest is coping with physical and emotional ups and downs
Menopause Low estrogen and no progesterone The last precipitous brain change caused by hormones Circuits fueled by estrogen, oxytocin, and progesterone decline Major interest in staying healthy, and embracing new challenges
Postmenopause Low and steady estrogen and testosterone; lower oxytocin More calmness Circuits less reactive to stress, less emotional Major interest in doing what self wants to do; less interest in taking care of others

[edit] The impact of motherhood on the female brain

Per the author, a woman's brain is altered forever after motherhood to enhance the survival of her children. The author analyzes the related metamorphosis of the women's brain in technical detail at the hormonal level.

[edit] Love and Sex

The author also addresses at length love and sex. Her findings, based on neuroscience, say that women look for economic stability and loyalty in men. Women's focus is nesting, whilst men's is fertility. However, Brizendine indicates things get more complex. Women do want long-term relationships with loyal and caring providers. However, some may reproduce outside of a long-term realtionship with someone who appears to have superior genes. Brizendine states that 10% of children are fathered in such a way without the male's knowledge. Superior genes are characteristics of males who have greater symmetry in their body and face. Also, the loyalty of a male seems incredibly predetermined by the length of a certain gene (which influences the manufacture of vasopressin receptors)--the longer, the more loyal[who?].

[edit] Menopause

The chapter on menopause and the mature women suggests that marriages go through a rebalancing of the roles if they are to survive. The changing hormonal balance, including the drop off in estrogen, triggers a marked reduction in nurturing behavior. Nurturing children and husband becomes really tasking. Postmenopausal women substitute nurturing with self-actualization. This is especially pronounced if the kids are out of 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. It is women who initiate 65% of the divorces among couples over 50.

[edit] The Lawrence Summers issue

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.

[edit] Supportive authors

[edit] Criticism of the book

Nature's review of the book was quite critical, calling The Female Brain a "melodrama" "riddled with scientific errors" and "fail[ing] to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance"[1] Furthermore, the authors state that:

Human sex differences are elevated almost to the point of creating different species, yet virtually all differences in brain structure, and most differences in behaviour, are characterized by small average differences and a great deal of male–female overlap at the individual level.[1]

David H. Peterzell [2], a Cognitive and Clinical psychologist, expressed numerous reservations about the book. One of his main objections is that Brizendine conveys certainty about differences in brain structure, including differences in hormonal levels and behavior. Peterzell argues that this is weak science and that the author should have instead studied the relationship between brain structure and behavior from a statistical standpoint, in order to uncover correlations between the two. But, as he argues, correlations are not certainties. Peterzell was also uncomfortable with Brizendine's frequent references to the antidepressant Zoloft. Peterzell felt that amounted to not so subtle product placement throughout the book. Peterzell also disagrees with Brizendine about the extent that inherent inborn brain differences affect men and women. Furthermore, Peterzell argues that Brizendine either understated or ignored entirely the significant influences of environment and socialization on brain development, as opposed to differences at birth.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Psychoneuroindoctrinology". Young and Balaban. (Nature 443(7112), p. 634, October 2006
  2. ^ Peterzell's web site.