The differences between the male/female brain
California Poppy
FEMME MENTALE
San Francisco neuropsychiatrist says differences between women's and
men's brains are very real, and the sooner we all understand it, the
better
- Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Louann Brizendine's feminist ideals were forged in the 1970s, so the
UCSF neuropsychiatrist is aware that some parts of her new book, "The
Female Brain," sound politically incorrect.
Such as the part about how a financially independent woman may talk
about finding a soul mate, but when she meets a prospective mate her
brain is subconsciously sizing up his portfolio. Or the part describing
the withdrawal pains moms feel when they return to work and can no
longer cop a hormonal high from breast-feeding their babies.
Women have come a long way toward equality over the past 50 years, but
the Yale-trained Brizendine, 53, says her research indicates that human
brains are still wired for Stone Age necessities.
Male and female brains are different in architecture and chemical
composition, asserts Brizendine. The sooner women -- and those who love
them -- accept and appreciate how those neurological differences shape
female behavior, the better we can all get along.
Start with why women prefer to talk about their feelings, while men
prefer to meditate on sex.
"Women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion, while
men have a small country road," she writes. Men, however, "have O'Hare
Airport as a hub for processing thoughts about sex, where women have
the airfield nearby that lands small and private planes."
Untangling the brain's biological instincts from the influences of
everyday life has been the driving passion of Brizendine's life -- and
forms the core of her book. "The Female Brain" weaves together more
than 1,000 scientific studies from the fields of genetics, molecular
neuroscience, fetal and pediatric endocrinology, and neurohormonal
development. It is also significantly based on her own clinical work at
the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic, which she founded
at UCSF 12 years ago. It is the only psychiatric facility in the
country with such a comprehensive focus.
A man's brain may be bigger overall, she writes, but the main hub for
emotion and memory formation is larger in a woman's brain, as is the
wiring for language and "observing emotion in others." Also, a woman's
"neurological reality" is much more deeply affected by hormonal surges
that fluctuate throughout her life.
Brizendine uses those differences to explain everything from why
teenage girls feverishly swap text messages during class, to why women
fake orgasms to why menopausal women leave their husbands.
So the next time parents scold their daughters for excessive text
messaging, consider Brizendine's neurological explanation:
"Connecting through talking activates the pleasure centers in a girl's
brain. We're not talking about a small amount of pleasure. This is
huge. It's a major dopamine and oxytocin rush, which is the biggest,
fattest neurological reward you can get outside of an orgasm."
Part road map for women looking for scientific explanations for their
behavior, part geeky manual for relationship woes, "The Female Brain"
already has become fodder for the morning chat shows. On the "Today"
show this week, one critic downplayed the book's explanation of gender
differences, saying men and women are "more like North Dakota and South
Dakota."
Brizendine's goal isn't man-bashing (despite snippets like "the typical
male brain reaction to an emotion is to avoid it at all costs").
Instead, she celebrates the differences.
"There is no unisex brain," Brizendine writes. "Girls arrive already
wired as girls, and boys arrive already wired as boys. Their brains are
different by the time they're born, and their brains are what drive
their impulses, values and their very reality."
Brizendine's book offers a 2 1/2-page appendix on the female brain and
sexual orientation, but she doesn't mention transgender folks. Sexual
orientation, she writes, "does not appear to be a matter of conscious
self-labeling but a matter of brain wiring." All women are wired for a
sexual orientation during fetal development, and "the behavioral
expression of her brain wiring will then be influenced and shaped by
environment and culture."
That's not to say either sex is more intelligent. Just different,
Brizendine said. Nor do she or other scientists who study the brain,
like Bruce S. McEwen, a Rockefeller (N.Y.) University brain researcher,
dismiss the role that parenting and environment and experience play in
shaping a person.
"The basic idea is that men and women approach the same problems in
somewhat different ways, at least in part because of the biological
differences in the brain, which in turn interact with experience -- the
nature-nurture story," said McEwen.
"This does not imply whether either sex is superior ... but it does
provide the basis for such cultural sayings as 'Men are from Mars, and
women are from Venus.' "
Indeed, "The Female Brain" covers ground that has been tilled, to
various degrees, in books from 1993's "Men are From Mars, Women are
>From Venus" to 1999's "The First Sex," to last year's "The Mommy Brain:
How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter." Brizendine takes the research a step
further and stretches it to cover a female's life from womb through
menopause.
Katherine Ellison, author of "The Mommy Brain," said Brizendine
represents a trend among neuroscientists who have been inspired by
their experiences as parents to investigate what scientists have
recently dubbed "the maternal brain."
"It has become more OK to talk about brain differences between genders
over the past few years, whereas before, if you said men and women were
'different,' it seemed to imply women were at a disadvantage," said
Ellison, who lives in San Anselmo. "Now scientists are pointing out
some clear advantages of the female brain, and in particular the 'mommy
brain.' "
Among the more controversial subjects addressed in Brizendine's book
is: Can new mothers successfully juggle career and family life?
Perhaps not, writes the onetime single mother. And that's OK,
Brizendine said, if the workplace can be reshaped to better accommodate
new mothers.
"This book is a call-to-arms for women and society to rework the social
contract that women have with employers throughout their childbearing
years," said Brizendine, while sitting in the Sausalito home she shares
with her second husband of 10 years and teenage son. "We cannot afford
to lose half the brainpower in this country. Our intelligent women are
getting completely out of the loop for five to 10 years, and they
cannot get back in.
"The message is that women can't stay at home 100 percent of the time
and cut themselves off from their careers. The workplace should realize
that women are wired to take care of children, and they want that time
and need that time."
It is a sentiment that wasn't around when she was born in Hazard, Ky.,
a poor Appalachian mining town, where her parents, Protestant
missionaries, were stationed. Her father, a minister, was active in the
civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, often
appearing as a guest preacher in African American churches throughout
the South. Despite Brizendine's mother being the valedictorian of her
high school class, Brizendine's maternal immigrant grandparents
believed that women should not be educated and refused to give their
daughter any money for college.
"One of the things that has been passionate in my life is to have a
profession that would allow me to support myself," Brizendine said.
"Watching my mother, an intelligent woman, have limited choices because
of the culture -- and because she was married to the typical male of
that time in the 1950s in this country -- it was clear to me that I had
to find a different way myself."
She attended UC Berkeley on an academic scholarship, initially in the
nearly all-male world of architecture majors. But in her junior year,
she switched to neurobiology, fascinated by experiments where
manipulating the hormones of an animal produced different behaviors.
"To me, that hit pay dirt," Brizendine said. "To have that kind of
explanation for behavior that wasn't based on how your family raised
you -- or how the stereotypes of society were set on you."
>From there she went to Yale Medical School, less than a decade after
the undergraduate campus went coed. One day in class, Brizendine asked
the professor why females weren't used in the study they were
reviewing. She recalled him saying, "We don't use females in the study
because their menstrual cycles would mess up the data."
"To be honest with you, the reason that this astounds me to this day,"
said Brizendine, "is because I didn't argue with him." But back then it
was unthinkable to say, "Well, how can you then make medications, and
how can you make assessments that you'll apply to female patients when
you don't really know?"
Next, Brizendine hopes to expand her clinical work.
In the next month, she will open a satellite branch of the Women's and
Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic at San Francisco General Hospital,
which will focus on issues of most concern to African American women,
Latinas and lesbians -- a further attempt to see how cultural issues
affect the female brain.
For all women -- and those who love them -- she offers a tip.
Research shows that the female brain naturally releases oxytocin after
a 20-second hug. The embrace bonds the huggers and triggers the brain's
trust circuits. So Brizendine advises, don't let a guy hug you unless
you plan to trust him.
"And if you do," she said, "make sure it lasts 20 seconds."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Head cases
A few neurological differences between women and men from Louann
Brizendine's "The Female Brain":
Thoughts about sex enter women's brains once every couple of days; for
men, thoughts about sex occur every minute.
Women use 20,000 words per day; men use 7,000 per day.
Women excel at knowing what people are feeling; men have difficulty
spotting an emotion unless someone cries or threatens bodily harm.
Women remember fights that a man insists never happened.
Women over 50 are more likely to initiate divorce.
E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgar...@sfchronicle.com.
AndyS
A very lengthy post, but uses too many words.
I go with Jeff Foxworthy's philosophy :
All men want out of life is a beer and something
nekkid to look at....
Andy in Eureka, Texa .
Fred Ghadry
> A very lengthy post, but uses too many words.
Is a puzzlement. If the post used fewer words, would it still be lengthy?
Rumpelstiltskin
<GoldenSt...@aol.com> wrote:
One thing surprisingly not mentioned in this article, is that
there's reported preliminary indication of male-style factors in
lesbian brains and female-style factors in gay male brains,
suggesting those areas have something to do with the
sexual orientation. Whether the differences are genetic, or
developmental inside or outside the womb, would be a
question for the future.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves" -- Wm. Pitt the Younger
Rumpelstiltskin
wrote:
>AndyS wrote:
>
>> A very lengthy post, but uses too many words.
>
>
>Is a puzzlement. If the post used fewer words, would it still be lengthy?
Antidisestablismentarianistically speaking, unimplausibly.
cram...@yahoo.com
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 11:23:30 -0500, Fred Ghadry <falk...@juno.com>
> wrote:
>
> >AndyS wrote:
> >
> >> A very lengthy post, but uses too many words.
> >
> >
> >Is a puzzlement. If the post used fewer words, would it still be lengthy?
>
> Antidisestablismentarianistically speaking, unimplausibly.
>
>
>
>