The Female Brain (book)
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| Author(s) | Louann Brizendine |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Morgan Road Books |
| Publication date | 2006 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 187, 210 including notes. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7679-2009-0 |
| OCLC Number | 63660885 |
| Dewey Decimal | 612.8 22 |
| LC Classification | QP376 .B755 2006 |
The Female Brain is a book by Louann Brizendine, whose main thesis is that women’s behavior is different from that of men due to hormonal differences. Brizendine says that the human female brain is affected by the following hormones: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, (oxytocin), neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin), and difference in architecture of the brain (prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, amygdala) that regulates such hormones and neurotransmitters.
Brizendine's book includes seven chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific part of a woman’s life such as puberty, motherhood, and menopause or a specific dimension of a women’s emotional life such as feelings, love & trust, and sex. The book also includes three appendices on hormone therapy, postpartum depression, and sexual orientation.
Contents |
[edit] Reception
Some of the authors that supported the content of the book include:
- Deborah Tannen, in Washington Post.[1]
- Sarah Hrdy, author of Mother Nature.
- Daniel Goleman author of Emotional Intelligence.
- Christiane Northrup, author of The Wisdom of Menopause.
- Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Breast.
Some of the authors that criticized the content of the book include:
- Evan Balaban and Rebecca M. Young, in a review in Nature[2]
- Cordelia Fine, in her book Delusions of Gender[3]
Academic feminists have given mixed reviews to The Female Brain. Brizendine was given the tongue-in-cheek 2006 Becky Award, which is given to "people or organizations who have made outstanding contributions to linguistic misinformation."[4] The award cited errors in The Female Brain, including one sentence (removed in future printings) which contrasted the number of words used by men and women in one day. The numbers had been taken from a book by a self-help guru and were incorrect.[5] The phonetician Mark Liberman has formulated an extensive criticism of Brizendine's approach in a series of blog comments, starting with,[6] and continuing with a long series of blog articles listed here.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ 'A Brain of One's Own'. Washington Post August 20, 2006.
- ^ They called The Female Brain a "melodrama" "riddled with scientific errors" and "fail[ing] to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance" and that "Human sex differences are elevated almost to the point of creating different species, yet virtually all differences in brain structure, and most differences in behaviour, are characterized by small average differences and a great deal of male–female overlap at the individual level." "Psychoneuroindoctrinology". Young and Balaban. (Nature 443(7112), p. 634, October 2006
- ^ Fine, Cordelia. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.
- ^ 2006 BECKY AWARD
- ^ The Language of Eve by Geoffrey Nunberg "Fresh Air" commentary, January 3, 2007
- ^ Neuroscience in the service of sexual stereotypes
- ^ David Brooks, neuroendocrinologist
[edit] External links
- "How women think." Review in New York Times.
