The Female Brain

Title: The Female Brain

Author: Louann Brizendine

Publisher:  Bantam Books, 2007 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-553-81849-9

Pages: 239

It was quite unexpectedly that I came across this book at the library while searching for the ever elusive The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. It seemed preposterous that anyone should dare to claim a separate niche for the female brain. Firmly suppressing the urge to scribble ‘if any’ in brackets immediately after the title, I decided to have a look at it and it was indeed a decision I would never repent! The author is a recognized neuro-psychiatrist and practices on female mood changes and health. Grabbing freely from the acquired wisdom and experience of a practitioner, Brizendine goes on and on, bringing out the structural and functional differences between male and female brains. She always sweetens the argument with abundant references to case studies involving her own clients. All the developmental phases of the female genre is considered – right from fetal to the post-menopausal – along with comprehensive portrayal of the hormonal and chemical balancing acts occurring in the brain.

The author begins with a confident assertion that more than 99% of male and female genetic coding is exactly the same’. But it doesn’t prove anything when we remember that more than 98% of the genome is the same between humans and chimpanzees. Male brains are 9% larger, even after correcting for body size, but the number of cells are the same in both sexes. In women, the cells are more tightly packed, hence the comparative compactness. Women however lead in some faculties like language and communication, with the brain centre for language is nearly 11% larger in them. This make them better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of emotional events or romantic encounters. Men compensate for this by having a brain area devoted to sexual drive which is 250% larger than women – with all the consequent unnecessary complications! Brizendine acknowledges the fact that there is a dearth of women in top-level science and engineering positions, but argues that it is not due differences in capacity or talent as there is no such difference between pre-puberty boys and girls. As estrogen then floods girls’ brains, their emotional and communication skills get more focused and rising testosterone levels make boys grow less communicative and indulge in less socially demanding fields such as computers and science. It all seems to boil down to the differences in biology.

In childhood, the female brain is wired to promote social groupings and harmony among them. Communication is a very essential prerequisite for becoming part of social groups. Rising estrogen levels with maturity further enhances the already remarkable trait. After puberty, the rising and falling levels of estrogen and progesterone hormones make women irritable at times and off balance until they learn to live with these imbalances in their nature.

Falling in love and finding a mate is much more complicated than we thought. Even with all outward appearances of sophistication, female brain is still the old stone-age relic, suited for solving problems encountered during most of humanity’s incubation in prehistory. Studies conducted around the world and across various races from Germans to Taiwanese to Mbuti Pygmies to Aleut Eskimos show that women are less concerned with a potential husband’s visual appeal and more interested in his material resources and social status. Also, they prefer mates at least 4 inches taller and three and a half years older. So much for love! Once in love, the critical-thinking pathways in brain shut down helping to focus on that single person, irrespective of his shortcomings. “Falling in love is one of the most irrational behaviours or brain states imaginable for both men and women. The brain becomes illogical in the throes of a new romance, literally blind to the shortcomings of the lover. It is an involuntary state” (p.97). The brain states which deal with rejected love also differ between the sexes. Rejected men are 3 to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than rejected women who often sink into depression – they can’t eat, sleep, work or concentrate (p.109).

Brizendine then gives a detailed account about the comparative sexual desires and behaviours of males and females which is simply great, but we need not delve into the details here. The greatest transformation occurs in the female brain when she turns a mother. Motherhood changes the brain structurally, functionally and irreversibly. The continuous rewiring and creation of new pathways even cause the brain to shrink in size during some months of pregnancy. While the body is gaining weight, brain is losing it. Just before giving birth, it again increase in size as it reconstructs large networks of maternal circuits. The author then turns to the most controversial argument – that women have an innate ability to measure the emotional state of another person accurately by reading subtle expressional changes. If the author could be taken at face value, husbands should think several times before lying to their wives’ faces. The most unsettling part is that men don’t possess this facility! This difference in capacity to ‘mind read’ created great hurdles in many families who were the author’s clients.

The last great change comes when they reach menopause at which fluctuating hormone levels subside and keep a steady level. Estrogen and progesterone production is reduced to a very low level and the caring and loving nature of many is turned topsy-turvy. Many women exhibit unusual independence at this stage and quarrel or separate from their husbands. Author claims that with proper precautions, hormone therapy with estrogen will help recreate the old selves to a good extent. The book is also embellished with three appendices which deals with commonly asked questions of pros and cons of hormone therapy and the biological nature of sexual orientation in females.

The book is a very good one which must be read by every man to fully understand the persons they encounter from the other sex. Women also must read this to understand why they think the way they do at present and what might be wrong with them. It also lights up some dark myths of depression among women with neurochemical reasons and explains how it could be effectively remedied. It is an absolutely splendid work.

Some shortcomings also may be pointed out. Author’s assertion that since the average age of women before 20^th century was 49, very few women reached post-menopausal age and hence effective studies of the phenomenon has not been done is not tenable. It may be true that not much studies have been done, but we should look for reasons elsewhere. The average age before 200 years was low because infant mortality rate was very high, not because there was a shortage of aged women. The book also portrays women as somehow superhuman with incredible faculties like extreme emotional intelligence, mind reading and verbal communication skills. This simply is a bit hard to believe and I sincerely wonder whether Brizendine did this partly to sprout a sense of inferiority in men after reading this book!

Though not technically part of the subject matter, I can’t resist quoting a piece of wisdom given in the work by Oprah Winfrey when she turned fifty, regarding aging. Every middle aged guy or gal should engrave these words in their hearts. It runs as, “I marvel that at this age I still feel myself expanding, reaching out and beyond the boundaries of self to become more enlightened. In my twenties, I thought there was some magical adult age I’d reach (thirty-five, maybe) and my ‘adultness’ would be complete. Funny how that number kept changing over the years, how even at forty, labeled by society as middle-aged, I still felt I wasn’t the adult I knew I could be. Now that my life experiences have transcended every dream or expectation I ever imagined, I know for sure that we have to keep transforming ourselves to become who we ought to be” (p.182)

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star