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The Female Brain argues that women's brains are wired to nurture.
DIVERGENCES EVIDENT IN MALE, FEMALE BRAINS
We all start out with female brains. It's only when the developing fetus is
"marinated" in testosterone at around eight weeks that male and female
brains diverge. The female brain sprouts connections in areas that govern
communication and emotion, while in the male brain the cells in the
communication centers are pruned and more cells grow in areas that govern
sex and aggression, Brizendine says. In adults:
Women Men
She'll have 11% more neurons in her brain centers for language and hearing
than a man.
She'll use on average 20,000 words a day. He'll use 7,000.
Her space devoted to the sex drive will be two and a half times smaller than
his.
She'll think about sex once a day. He'll think about it every 58 seconds.
Her brain will be 9% smaller than his, but will have the same number of
brain cells, just more tightly packed.
Her principle hub for emotion and memory formation, the hippocampus, will be
larger. His processor at the core of the primitive area of the brain that
registers fear and triggers aggression, the amygdala, will be larger.
Source: The Female Brain
The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D.
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO - Being a woman, says neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, is
like having giant, invisible antennae that reach out into the world,
constantly aware of the emotions and needs of those around you.
Though the antennae are metaphorical, the brain circuitry and hormones that
make women so much more attuned - and some would say beholden to - the
emotions of others are very real.
They're the subject of Brizendine's book, The Female Brain. In it, the
founder of the University of California-San Francisco Women's and Teen
Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic describes the physical and hormonal
differences in the female brain, from fetus to grandmother. Using studies on
hormones, development and psychology by scientists in multiple fields as
well as her own clinical experience, Brizendine sets out to show the ways in
which the female brain is different from the male brain.
This has always been fraught territory in the arena of gender politics.
Since the 19th century, social wars have raged over whether the sexes are
more alike or different, and, if those differences exist, whether they're
innate or a result of societal expectations.
The female brain is a machine built for connection, Brizendine says. It's a
result of eons of evolution that allowed women to tell what their pre-verbal
infants needed and predict what bigger, more aggressive males were going to
do.
As a scientist and physician who came of age in the 1970s when the mere
notion that brains were anything but unisex was anathema, she's convinced of
the truth of her ideas but still worried that acknowledging differences will
lead to women being discriminated against in the workplace. Yet
acknowledging that women are to some extent hard-wired to nurture is a
positive, not a negative, both for the next generation and for the general
well-being of society, she says.
"There's still the feeling among women who are just hovering below the glass
ceiling that the science described in this book is going to highlight
differences which will hurt their chances of breaking through," Brizendine
says.
For example, just last year Harvard's now-former president Larry Summers
created an enormous controversy when he said that one reason women may not
rise as high in the sciences is that they're not as innately gifted in those
areas.
Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, has written extensively on what she calls "the gender
similarities hypothesis." Numerous studies have found that except in a very
few areas - physical strength, physical aggression, incidences of
masturbation and attitudes about casual sex - on the whole men and women are
much more alike than they are different.
"If you make the argument that 'Gosh, our brains are totally different and
we're totally different and yet we want equal access to medical school and
we want equal pay for equal work,' " women will pay a price in advancement,
Hyde says.
But others clearly see differences. Whether those differences are based on
genetics, hormones or some interplay of the two isn't yet known, says Sandra
Witelson, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Michael G. DeGroote School of
Medicine at McMaster University in Canada.
"There are clear differences in the brain between men and women, both in the
structure and anatomy and the chemistry, which includes hormones and
neurotransmitters and what's connected to what," she says.
She cites girls who have a hormone disorder that causes them to have higher
testosterone levels in utero. "In these girls, their play patterns, their
spatial ability and even their sexual orientation are much closer to the
male pattern."
But while sex-based differences are clearly present, David Rubinow, chairman
of the department of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, says those differences don't exclude the effect of
non-sex-related factors involving biology, culture or the environment.
It's discussing the "Mommy brain" that's most controversial in some
quarters. Brizendine catalogs the hormonal cascades triggered by being
pregnant, nursing and simply being constantly physical with children.
Fathers who spend lots of time with their children and adoptive mothers also
get the one-two neurological-hormonal punch, but it's strongest in those who
give birth and nurse, Brizendine says.
And in a country where women are educated at higher rates than men, society
has not done a good job of figuring out how to integrate the child-rearing
portion of their lives into the world of work, she says.
"We need to find a place in our society for working mothers with young
children that acknowledges their life stage." And it is only a stage - five
to eight years - not their entire lives, Brizendine says.
The last thing Brizendine wants to say is that biology is destiny.
"Having a deeper understanding of what those hormones are doing to the
opposite sex should give us a better understanding of male and female
behavior and let men and women both be allowed to maximize all kind of
choices."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-08-21-female-brain_x.
DIVERGENCES EVIDENT IN MALE, FEMALE BRAINS
We all start out with female brains. It's only when the developing fetus is
"marinated" in testosterone at around eight weeks that male and female
brains diverge. The female brain sprouts connections in areas that govern
communication and emotion, while in the male brain the cells in the
communication centers are pruned and more cells grow in areas that govern
sex and aggression, Brizendine says. In adults:
Women Men
She'll have 11% more neurons in her brain centers for language and hearing
than a man.
She'll use on average 20,000 words a day. He'll use 7,000.
Her space devoted to the sex drive will be two and a half times smaller than
his.
She'll think about sex once a day. He'll think about it every 58 seconds.
Her brain will be 9% smaller than his, but will have the same number of
brain cells, just more tightly packed.
Her principle hub for emotion and memory formation, the hippocampus, will be
larger. His processor at the core of the primitive area of the brain that
registers fear and triggers aggression, the amygdala, will be larger.
Source: The Female Brain
The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D.
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO - Being a woman, says neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, is
like having giant, invisible antennae that reach out into the world,
constantly aware of the emotions and needs of those around you.
Though the antennae are metaphorical, the brain circuitry and hormones that
make women so much more attuned - and some would say beholden to - the
emotions of others are very real.
They're the subject of Brizendine's book, The Female Brain. In it, the
founder of the University of California-San Francisco Women's and Teen
Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic describes the physical and hormonal
differences in the female brain, from fetus to grandmother. Using studies on
hormones, development and psychology by scientists in multiple fields as
well as her own clinical experience, Brizendine sets out to show the ways in
which the female brain is different from the male brain.
This has always been fraught territory in the arena of gender politics.
Since the 19th century, social wars have raged over whether the sexes are
more alike or different, and, if those differences exist, whether they're
innate or a result of societal expectations.
The female brain is a machine built for connection, Brizendine says. It's a
result of eons of evolution that allowed women to tell what their pre-verbal
infants needed and predict what bigger, more aggressive males were going to
do.
As a scientist and physician who came of age in the 1970s when the mere
notion that brains were anything but unisex was anathema, she's convinced of
the truth of her ideas but still worried that acknowledging differences will
lead to women being discriminated against in the workplace. Yet
acknowledging that women are to some extent hard-wired to nurture is a
positive, not a negative, both for the next generation and for the general
well-being of society, she says.
"There's still the feeling among women who are just hovering below the glass
ceiling that the science described in this book is going to highlight
differences which will hurt their chances of breaking through," Brizendine
says.
For example, just last year Harvard's now-former president Larry Summers
created an enormous controversy when he said that one reason women may not
rise as high in the sciences is that they're not as innately gifted in those
areas.
Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, has written extensively on what she calls "the gender
similarities hypothesis." Numerous studies have found that except in a very
few areas - physical strength, physical aggression, incidences of
masturbation and attitudes about casual sex - on the whole men and women are
much more alike than they are different.
"If you make the argument that 'Gosh, our brains are totally different and
we're totally different and yet we want equal access to medical school and
we want equal pay for equal work,' " women will pay a price in advancement,
Hyde says.
But others clearly see differences. Whether those differences are based on
genetics, hormones or some interplay of the two isn't yet known, says Sandra
Witelson, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Michael G. DeGroote School of
Medicine at McMaster University in Canada.
"There are clear differences in the brain between men and women, both in the
structure and anatomy and the chemistry, which includes hormones and
neurotransmitters and what's connected to what," she says.
She cites girls who have a hormone disorder that causes them to have higher
testosterone levels in utero. "In these girls, their play patterns, their
spatial ability and even their sexual orientation are much closer to the
male pattern."
But while sex-based differences are clearly present, David Rubinow, chairman
of the department of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, says those differences don't exclude the effect of
non-sex-related factors involving biology, culture or the environment.
It's discussing the "Mommy brain" that's most controversial in some
quarters. Brizendine catalogs the hormonal cascades triggered by being
pregnant, nursing and simply being constantly physical with children.
Fathers who spend lots of time with their children and adoptive mothers also
get the one-two neurological-hormonal punch, but it's strongest in those who
give birth and nurse, Brizendine says.
And in a country where women are educated at higher rates than men, society
has not done a good job of figuring out how to integrate the child-rearing
portion of their lives into the world of work, she says.
"We need to find a place in our society for working mothers with young
children that acknowledges their life stage." And it is only a stage - five
to eight years - not their entire lives, Brizendine says.
The last thing Brizendine wants to say is that biology is destiny.
"Having a deeper understanding of what those hormones are doing to the
opposite sex should give us a better understanding of male and female
behavior and let men and women both be allowed to maximize all kind of
choices."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-08-21-female-brain_x.
