The Female Brain | 
 enlarge | Author: Louann Brizendine
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.75
You Save: $7.20 (48%)
New (46) Used (26) from $7.36
Avg. Customer Rating:  107 reviews
Sales Rank: 2274
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Never read...brand new!
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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 102 more reviews...
 File in Fiction, not Science. July 3, 2008
The problem with this book is that Brizendine actively misrepresents research and uses numbers that are basically made-up. Her "science" doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
For instance, on differences between male and female speech patterns she claims that women speak three times more words than men in a day, and speak almost twice as fast. In fact, no reliable studies had been done when the book came out. Prompted by the book, somebody actually bothered to measure, and it turned out that men and women speak about the same number of words, and men speak (very slightly) faster. You can get details about the studies from the excellent blog LanguageLog, which reports on real linguistic science. Google for the post titled "Gabby guys: the effect size".
In sum: This book should be filed in the Fiction section, not the Science section.
 Speed Reading June 14, 2008
I loved this book - finished it in an hour. At first I was put off by her approach, but then realized there was a meth od in the madness. Dr. Benzedrine is a rush!
Should be required reading for every married couple! June 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book was very readable and highly informative. I have recommended it to many of my friends and colleagues. It should be required reading for every couple! I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the author's scientific approach, knowledge of hormonal influences on the brain, and life cycle approach. I felt acknowledged and so much more "normal" after reading this book. My mother (an active 78) read it and plans to share it with her other 2 daughters, 3 other grandaughters and newest grandaughter-in-law. My husband is reading it now, and my daughter is next on the list. Don't miss it!
If you REALLY want to understand women June 4, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is the highlight of my reading year. The most insightful exploration of the female mind, I have ever enjoyed. A MUST read for young girls, young lovers, new and old Moms and if they dare, men who want to understand.
Don't listen to the naysayers April 27, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
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