New book "The Male Brain" explores the physical bases for sex differences

02/23/2010 20:25

In her new best-selling book, "The Male Brain" published by Broadway Books, neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, MD, provides a scientific excuse for guys for womanizing, being commitmentphobic and avoiding emotionality in general.

According to the very serious sounding description of the book:

"Dr. Louann Brizendine, the founder of the first clinic in the country to study gender differences in brain, behavior, and hormones, turns her attention to the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the "male reality" is fundamentally different from the female one. Exploring the latest breakthroughs in male psychology and neurology with her trademark accessibility and candor, she reveals that the male brain:

     *is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.

     *thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.

     *has an area for sexual pursuit that is 2.5 times larger than the female brain, consuming him with sexual fantasies about female body parts.

     *experiences such a massive increase in testosterone at puberty that he perceive others' faces to be more aggressive.

The Male Brain finally overturns the stereotypes. Impeccably researched and at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, this is a book that every man, and especially every woman bedeviled by a man, will need to own."

Do you remember this silly illustration circulating on the web for ages?

New book "The Male Brain" explores the physical bases for sex differences - USA - Arizona - Tucson - AMARG - aircraft - US Army

It turns out to be quite realistic after all...

Diana Kapp provides a tongue-in-cheek review of the book in an article for Elle:

"Yes, it seems that Brizendine set The Female Brain, her 2006 best-seller, to “marinate in testosterone”—her fave phrase for describing how gestating brains, which all begin as female in the womb, become masculinized about half the time—in order to produce the male bookend to that work, a “brain’s-eye view” into men’s psyches that gives them, well, a big, fat 262-page excuse."

"Brizendine believes that our innate impulses offer only the beginning of self-understanding—but they are also where wise acceptance and a deeper apprehension of the human condition necessarily lie. Her declared intention is to “create more realistic expectations for boys and men”—not least among their mothers, sisters, and daughters. She also firmly believes that women should stop denying the possibility of innate gender differences (despite the way such notions have historically led to the exploitation and control of women)—and indeed should point to biological differences as realities that public policy should acknowledge and accommodate in the workplace and family life."

New book "The Male Brain" explores the physical bases for sex differences - USA - Arizona - Tucson - AMARG - aircraft - US Army

Here is a practical example of how much members of opposite sexes think in a different way:

"Brizendine hopes to shed light on the “deep misunderstanding” between the sexes, to which she traces this primal scene in her couples-therapy practice: “I’ll ask her, ‘How do you know he loves you?’ and she’ll say, ‘Because he wants to talk to me.’ But when I ask him, he’ll say, ‘Because she wants to have sex with me.’ Women don’t understand that men feel loved when you want to have sex with them—and if you reject them, it means you don’t love them. And if a man can’t verbally empathize with a woman when she feels unloved—they’re like ships passing in the night.”

Read more of the review, or click to buy the book from Amazon.

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