“The Female Brain” by Dr. Louann Brizendine

She’s done it again! Our Jen has us rushing down to the bookstore again because her book review choice this week is a must-read. Can there be anything on earth more fascinating than the female brain? We think not, but then we’re obviously biased as we’re an exclusively female business.

I wish I had read this book years ago.

I’m not crazy. Who knew?

What I am – amongst other things – is the proud owner of a female brain. From the Stone Age on, it has had its own way of ticking that has not really been studied before. It was always assumed that the male brain was it. We studied that and just tweaked it ever so slightly to compensate for femaleness.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!It is utterly different.

This explains a great deal about the Mars and Venus thing. I was happy to hear that there are chemical reasons for my innate sense of drama. It isn’t just the wind blowing the wrong way as my husband supposes. It isn’t some poor sap (him) looking at me the wrong way that sets me off – it’s chemical! Sadly this is not a season pass to go mental but it is very interesting.

Brizendine is neuropsychiatrist. She was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. She is a graduate of Yale medicine and Berkeley. We can safely trust her wisdom.

As we knew, women have a greater part of their brain vested in emotional issues. It was critical to our survival that we learn to pick up on hidden nuances in social gatherings. We have a heightened sense of awareness with regard to relationships and this enables us to ‘read’ people in a way that the male can not.None of the book is emotely condeming of the male brain. Its just different. We need to interpret social reaction to survive. Men need to protect physically to survive. Two sides of the same stone.

Brizendine follows the hormonal fluctuations of the female and shows us how varying chemical levels protect and deter us at different stages in our lives. Young girls learn to read faces. Toddler girls learn to express themselves emotionally and verbally. Teen girls are thrown into a maelstrom of fluctuation that makes learning almost impossible. Mothers learn to sacrfice their own brain power to protect their young instinctually. Older women get thrown back into the boiling pot of hormones before leaving the reproductive cycles behind and leveling out.

The stages all have their foibles (ever tried to have a rational conversation before the end of your menstrual cycle? … and failed?) All stages are linked directly to our evolutionary growth. We still manifest Stone Age instinct. Men have “fight or flight” while we have “tend and befriend.” Without it, we wouldn’t have survived. No one would.”The Female Brain” is fascinating. Every bit is an unveiling of hidden questions I sometimes did not know I had.

Wonderful book. You’ll be amazed at what you learn.