Pink Brain, Blue Brain

Title: Pink Brain, Blue Brain – How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do About It

Author: Lise Eliot

Publisher: Oneworld, 2012 (First published 2010)

ISBN: 978-1-85168-799-2

Pages: 315

Gender identity is the primal factor that differentiates a human being from another. When a baby is born, a large portion of the parents’ hope for the child’s future is shaped immediately upon knowing its gender. No wonder it had led to many stereotypes and oppression of one from the other. But, is there any difference among the two genders hidden in the genetic code and if it does how it will affect the development of the body, both physically and socially? This is a fundamental question which finds itself interesting to any reader, whatever may be his background. Lise Eliot is Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School and lectures widely on children’s brain and gender development. Being a first-rate scholar and neurobiologist, she is amply suited to dig deep into the issue and suggest practical propositions that would enable society to help develop each person to his or her fullest potential, without referring to how that person looks like, or what is preconceived about him/her. The book is gifted with an exhaustive notes section, impressive bibliography and a thorough index. Anyone oriented towards a deeper investigation would find this book an excellent starting point. After an exhaustive narration of the differences among the two genders, Eliot goes on to downplay the dissimilarities and argues that object-oriented training is enough to get over any supposed handicap, opening up vast and new vistas for the budding minds to conquer. A must-read book for all readers.

Eliot presents an exciting picture of the events unfolding in the pre-natal period when the brain casts itself into one or the other gender. A surge of the hormone ‘testosterone’ through the fetus’ brain transforms selective areas of the brain in order to make a person of the pre-programmed gender. The author argues with the evidence from research that this initial washing with testosterone differentiate boys who have skills like gross motor ability, visuo-spatial techniques and physical activeness. Though many of the skills can be acquired by a girl with enough training and attitude, the genetic proclivities can’t be denied. However, this surge of the male hormones is suspected to slow down the maturation of young boys when compared to girls of the same age. It is very critical that the hormone switches on at the right time before birth, as otherwise the changes are irreversible. Girls who are exposed to a stronger dose of the hormone act more boyish-like and boys who have a blocking chemical in brain that inhibits testosterone receptors end up being reared as females. They would be sterile, but exhibit many male attributes like height and presence of the Y-chromosome in their genome. It may also be noted that immediately after birth, testosterone levels are the same in both genders. The chapter on pre-natal transformations and the immense chemical manipulations happening on the newly conceived embryo is the most readable and interesting part of the book.

Eliot breaks down the stereotypes associated with both genders like females excel in interpersonal communications, verbal and reading skills, services which demand empathy and males are suitable for athletic skills, math, science and engineering. With a slew of research papers she argues that there is no valid reason to assert that biological reasons like genes or brain difference causes the dissimilarities between men and women. Nurture, rather than nature is said to be behind variance. The argument carries some weight too, as we know that there is a strong surge of females in those fields which are traditionally hailed as male bastions. The author is unwilling to concede even an iota of genetic supremacy to males in any of the areas. In fact, the narration goes to such an extreme that we readers wonder whether the author will stop at ‘proving’ that the differences perceived clearly ‘under the hood’ is really a product of nurture rather than genes.

The book addresses another grave issue that has current relevance. The academic standards of girls have increased much during the last few decades, putting boys at a disadvantage. With their verbal and reading skills, submissiveness, system-friendly work and generally being more mature than the same-age boys under puberty, girls replace them in many academic theatres. Exclusive schools, so far reserved only for girls, have now become essential to boys. The stereotyping now adversely affects them more. Parents and teachers adopt a condoning attitude to boy’s inferior skills under the pretext that they are immature as compared to girls.

It may be shocking to some readers like me, who had read a similar work by Louanne Brizendine, titled ‘The Female Brain’, even though it concentrated only on the pink side of the question. It was reviewed earlier in this blog and given a 4-star rating because of the valued information it provided. That makes me horrified to learn that Lise Eliot rubbishes many assertions of Brizendine as totally unfounded! In this dilemma that only one of the authors could be correct, we would be left wondering whom to believe. Eliot’s style of approach to the question is more balanced; more research-oriented and comparatively more matured than Brizendine’s, who often astonishes the reader with bold conclusions drawn from flimsy or equivocal results. I had remarked in that book’s review that men may find it impossible to lie to their wife’s faces if the book’s postulates are borne out in fact. Probably that explains the lucidity of the earlier work as some part of it may be compared to fiction.

The saddest part of the biological research appears to be that you can get hold of studies that validate both sides of the arguments so that your task become easy to choose one among them which suits your purpose. Eliot’s rubbishes many concepts which allow boys some advantage over girls with evidence supported by some studies, while still acknowledging that there are other studies which argue contrary to the hypothesis. Such dichotomy proves nothing but the fact that the natural sciences still has to travel a lot to get even near to the precision of physical sciences. The author’s rebuttal of the postulate that boys do math better than girls is, however defended by an unfortunate example for her argument. It is said that “It may surprise you to learn that babies can do math, but it’s true. Young infants can tell the difference between a picture of two frogs and a picture of three identical frogs…” (p.215). But frankly, this is not math but simply a sense of counting and there is research which suggests that even birds show some sense of numerical awareness, perhaps reaching up to the number 4. Mathematics is an abstract concept; which imparts the symbol ‘4’ with ‘fourness’ and which uses it further to calculate several complex operations. Eliot’s example is downright false here, babies show some evidence of counting, but that is definitely not math.

After the first chapter which thrillingly explains the subtle chemical changes made in the prenatal brain by gender-specific hormones, the later chapters fall into a predictable rhythm of extolling the virtues of individual attention and good parenting. The author could not overcome the pitfall of pulling anecdotes from her own family as a point of general argument. This is a common drawback seen in scribes of social sciences. The example might be convincing for them, but may seem selective and cherry picking in character for the others.             

        

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star