Louann Brizendine’s The Female Brain
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Well, That explains a lot!
In the brain centers for language and hearing, for example, women have 11 percent more neurons than men. the principal hub of both emotion and memory formation—the hippocampus—is also larger in the female brain, as is the brain circuitry for language and observing emotions in others. This means that women are, on average, better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of emotional events. Men, by contrast, have two and a half times the brain space devoted to sexual drive as well as larger brain centers for action and agression. Sexual thoughts float through a man’s brain every fifty-two seconds on average, and through a woman’s only once a day. Perhaps three to four times on her hottest days.
—Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain, “Introduction”
Every fifty-two seconds! Compared to once per day. Does that strike anyone else as hilarious? I guess we had to evolve to that…um…high level of focus to maximize our chances. And that’s an “average” score, which means that some of us are even more highly focused. I used to work for a guy like that. He was a restaurant manager and could make a sex joke about any food item. “BLT, extra mayo,” he’d say with that tone. He was a pig.
A practical guide
The last sentence in the excerpt above is the attention grabber, but every sentence is packed with potential insight. The book really does explain a lot about my girls (Mothered Five, Girl 15, and Girl 20 months) and my life with them. The quote teaches me that my girls are better communicators than my boys, more likely to show emotion, and are probably more sophisticated in their emotional lives than me. It helps to explain why Boy 12 retreats to his room while Girl 15 spends hours talking on the phone, and why Boy 3 yells random noises while his younger sister (20 months) prefers real words, even though we don’t always understand them.
Brizendine’s book is full of such quotable, “A-ha!” paragraphs. Like this one:
The rising tide of estrogen and progesterone starts to fuel many circuits in the teen girl’s brain that were laid down in fetal life. These new hormonal surges assure that all of her female-specific brain circuits will become even more sensitive to emotional nuance, such as approval and disapproval, acceptance and rejection.
Ok, but so what?
You might think to yourself, “This is merely academic. As interesting, nay, bloody fascinating as these factoids are, they’re worth little unless they tell me how to be a better Dad to girls and a better husband. I’m not a psychiatrist, after all, so what good does knowledge of brain structures do me? What else do you have for me, Joe?”
You’ve come to the right place. Fathered Five is nothing if not practical. And though my first assertion is always, “Hell if I know,” my second is “But I’m a quick study.” There’s a great deal of practical value in The Female Brain. For example:
- It’s the relationship, stupid.
Your girl’s brain’s top priority is the relationship— whichever one you’re concerned in at the moment. Losing it is her top fear and her behavior is designed to preserve it. Understand that and align your behavior with her priorities, and everyone will be happier. - You’ll get awesome mileage out of a few words.
Talk to her, fool! We’re hard-wired to undercommunicate because, for the bulk of our evolutionary history, we solved problems with rocks and sticks, so what use did our brains have for word neurons? Communication centers of our brains are literally smaller and slower than hers. She solved problems by bonding with other females and later, by talking, which men only recently discovered as a problem-solving strategy. (Just ask the U.S. State Department; Neanderthals, all.) - She experiences an emotional reality you can only imagine, and that’s if you have a vivid imagination.
You didn’t just hurt her feelings; you changed herperception ofreality by restructuring neurons and synapses in her brain! That’s why an approving smile and encouragement from Daddy at the right age does not just feel good to your little girl—it literally builds her brain and teaches her that she is valuable and that men are kind creatures who can enrich her life and sense of self.
Wow. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready for that kind of responsibility! I thought maybe I could change diapers (and in fact I can), but this? Rewiring brain circuitry is more than I signed up for.
August 30th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
[…] and wide, with little regard to consequences. Our brains are built to help us do that, serving up thoughts about sex every 52 seconds on average, compared to once per day for […]
September 10th, 2007 at 9:09 am
[…] yourself from your children.According to Dr. Louann Brizendine, your wife’s brain changes drastically when she becomes pregnant, and continues to change while […]
September 20th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Just read this post (again!). After reading your “I Get It Now Dad” post about the urge to withdraw, this one helps me see afresh that in conflict with my wife, her goal is not to “defeat me” (that’s a male competitive response that women don’t have), her goal may be things like “Is Pete going to talk this through with me?”, “Is he going to support me or defy my needs?”, “How can I reassure myself that Pete is as committed to this home as I am?” etc.
Good advice here, Joe, appreciate having it “on tap” like this.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Great points, Pete. And these quotes and insights come from early in the book. Later chapters deal specifically with the mommy-with-children brain and has even more specific applicability.
I’m glad you found it useful.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
This book is filled with a lot of half-truths, and she’s been blasted in the scientific circles for relying so heavily on her own half-baked prejudices rather than peer reviewed research on both language use and sexual thoughts. There are differences that tend to be expressed between men and women, but they are not nearly as stable or as pronounced as this lady would have you believe:
Here’s a start for some outside reading:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=9D97CA85-E7F2-99DF-374622AAD8C33548
https://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=1465