The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine M.D.
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.53 You Save: $17.42 (70%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.31 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Female Brain
Book Review: A Gift of Liberation
Summary: 5 Stars
This book has gotten lots of knocks---some deserved, like her constant use of the unfortunate phrase about the brain being "marinated" in hormones or praising orgasm like a bad Whitman, "O! Climax!". But at its core it is valuable.Its Big Idea: our actions are often dictacted---even compelled---by hormones that get released because of basic human wiring developed over tens of thousands of years. Hard to control teen age daughter? Her brain is flooded with hormones that get released as she bonds with other teen age girls---she gets a high like a drug rush---and when cut off from them by being grounded, she goes into withdrawal and acts sullen and is difficult to control.Can't explain why a female friend goes for the good looking guys and not the nice ones? She is hard wired to pick the handsome man(handsome being a function of symmetry) which her wiring tells her will give her better orgasms and the best orgams are the ones most likely to draw the sperm inside and impregnate her. There is more---discussion of smells in attraction, a possible gene to explain why some males are more faithful than others, how birth actually changes a woman's brain. In short, we are animals. And knowing that is not an excuse for conduct but an explanation for conduct. Sure, some of the ideas are still being developed, some bound for confirmation, others the dust bin. But the book, at its best, is a gift of liberation.
Book Review: The Female Brain
Summary: 5 Stars
I became interested in this book when I read a passage in a review by Newsweek that seemed to describe my wife's recent behavior. I had been reading several other relationship books and I have a friend deeply interested in neurobiology, so this seemed to be a useful extension of what I had learned.
Brizendine writes in a breezy style that's not too ambiguous and is easy to read. I was able to zip through the book but it was packed with information. As a man, I found her explanations of how women think enlightening (and glad that I'm NOT a women with all of those thoughts and feelings coursing and changing all the time--I like my stability!) I was much better able to understand my wife, and other women.
I was also struck by how women go through quite distinct life phases, while men experience them much more gradually, even puberty. Certainly at my age, I haven't, and don't expect, to experience a sharp demarcation in how I feel with middle age, but I'm fairly sure that my wife has had that experience. I suspect these shifts in women are why men see women as erratic, and women see men as immature because even middle aged men can relate to being teenagers.
Another book I found insightful was "For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women" [...]. It's within the "Christian" literature, but does not have a heavy dose of "follow God."
Book Review: Engaging and fascinating
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. Brizendine manages to make a book with fifty-eight pages of references a delight to read. This is a book about the female human brain, but it's also a guide to the male brain. I've insisted that my fifteen-year-old son read this book, because it will help him to make sense of the alien mental landscape of his female peers.
Lazy reviewers are going to accuse the author of biological reductionism, i.e., of making women slaves to their biology. She explains over and over again that understanding one's neurobiology and hormonal climate allows one to make better-informed choices about life.
Some people may not like the way that she tackles the subject of love, but the evidence is clearly on her side. Oxytocin and vasopressin have a whole lot more to do with love than naked winged babies with archery gear.
My one criticism of the book lies in the author's clinical focus. She has spent a lot of time dealing with dysfunctional women, and her book sometimes focuses too much on pathology rather than on the broad normal range of experience. Still, it's a solid book.
Book Review: On the way to becoming a classic
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a reason this book was on Washington Post's Best Non-Fiction list in 2006.
After reading The Female Brain, I was suddenly the woman with the answer. I was recommending the book to co-workers, frustrated parents of tweens and teens, cab drivers, and all in my social circle. What Brizendine has done is to explain female behavior in such a way that anyone who is willing to spend the time can understand and appreciate the influence of biochemical changes in the body and brain.
The book is divided into 7 chapters. With the introduction, epilogue, and Appendix added the book is under 200 pages of reading. For me, this is the perfect commuter length for city travel.
Brizendine begins with a basic chart showing the relationship of age to hormonal and behavioral changes. I found this helpful in separating the various hormones. All those hormone names ending in gen, rone, or ocin.
I believe this book will become a classic, I certainly hope it does.
Book Review: Enlightening
Summary: 5 Stars
While not everything listed as a 'fact' here was true (I am a woman and some of it simply did not ring true for me), there is a lot that is true. The important thing about this book is that it makes people understand that there are reasons for certain behaviors that arent' always obvious. It explains how the female brain is different than the male brain and how this triggers different ways of handling things. I would like to seem much more on this topic because I really think there is something very enlightening here that men and women can benefit from. Women do think differently than men and it is high time that books and television and magazines accept this. I am seeing it more and more in books like "Enchanted" by Nancy Madore and "I Feel Bad About my Neck" by Nora Ephron (both very good books). It is very refreshing to have our thoughts and behaviors as women accepted as normal.