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ksoles
Aug 04, 2013ksoles rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Men and women have different brains. Not exactly rocket science but Louann Brizendine makes the former statement interesting by chronicling each stage of female life from birth to puberty to post-menopause and explaining how the female brain develops compared to its male counterpart. As the founder of the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic, Dr. Brizendine draws on experience and case studies to present fun facts on two major theses: that inherent structural differences between male and female brains affect behavior, and that hormones directly influence the brain. In utero, the brain starts out as female and remains so unless it experiences a surge of testosterone that changes its structure. The different sizes of different structures determine basic gender generalizations: women rely on communication, they give more weight to relationships and display more fear of abandonment. The focus on such generalizations becomes "The Female Brain"'s downfall. Brizendine gives enough background to justify her statements but it often feels like she cherry-picks her information and she doesn't account for the huge personality variations that exist within each gender. A cross between enlightening and aggravating, this book may explain how hormone therapy helps hot flashes but fails to prove that brain structure sets gender identification in stone.