Brizendine, Louann. (2006) The female brain New York: Broadway Books

This bestseller has been translated into 21 languages and is about research into the unisex brain. Thus it is very one sided. Steven Pinker has done a wonderful job in this area by giving a nuanced approach to the subject. He often presents both sides and indicates how two humans with 99% shared DNA are similar, but not the same. Biologically females are coy and males are rutish from biology. This comes into play, but is moderated by social forces. Perhaps, you recall in The Sopranos, that the son of the Soprano family was going to be involved in a fight after school. However, the other boy who wanted to fight showed up with about $50.00. His dad told him that you don’t mess with the mob. He gave the Soprano son the money. No fight occurred.

This author is helpful in introducing biochemicals to general readers and those in the social methodologies. She has 3000 references but little is included from about half the behavioral sciences. There is but a few pages devoted to gender education. She talks as if females are wired to avoid physical fights, but does not mention that this is very common in low income areas for women to beat each other up.  Further, numerous beta males do the same thing in avoiding physical conflicts. Both passive females and males know that they are in for a good beating and that avoidance means survival. She also maintains that women are less likely to go into physics, chemistry, and engineering because they work in isolation. That just does not hold up. Many work in labs together. There is more here. What is it? Can it be changed?

Brizendine over generalizes. She describes middle income cases and overlooks numerous exterior variables. She may want to do this to emphasize the female brain, but much is lost in the process. It is as if she saw the sales of John Gray’s popularity because he made the sexes come from different planets and did so without any references, that she could do the same thing. However, her credentials are impressive and her references and experience is much more credible.

She also claims to have the scientific truth. Science is not written that way. She could claim to have the latest findings and indicate that it appears to be so. Why science writing is this way is the past knowledge can be dramatically changed by a few micro variables. That’s called Chaos theory. Paradigm shifts then happen.

However, if what she has written is mainly valid, don’t give this to a young man that is thinking about marriage. One of the things that he wants in marriage is sex. Briefly, it is not going to happen.  He starts with a sexual friend with some natural mood swings, but they marry. After the first child is born, the male is the outsider and is secondary in the relationship. Then the mommy track sets in and the male is part of the chorus. By the time menopause has passed, she becomes  independent and wants to dump her husband. Her loss of interest in sex is hormonal and physical, it is the best she can do with what she is dealing with.

Sexual statistics are notoriously inaccurate, but the last one that the reviewer saw was sexual contact every 11 days to two weeks is the median in the USA. The reviewer’s urologist contends that it is much longer between times than that.

Unlike Gray’s book, this is not one that ministers and priests want to give to a couple about to be married. The straight male  the author states constantly thinks of sex and masturbates often is left with the traditional outlets distancing himself from the wife who works at avoidance of sex to keep her sanity. He buries himself in work, looks at pornography, goes to strip clubs, or prostitution. He may be involved in sex chat lines or commits adultery with some one at work. Or, he may masturbate at home frequently regardless of what she says.

From a male perspective, one can see why males in growing numbers are avoiding marriage. That serial monogamy has grown and in the good old days, some couples lived in different parts of the house to keep the marriage together and avoid eternal torture after death.

And yet, some marriages really work in spite of the biology of women and men. For the sake of the children and the adults is there  a synthetic biochemical that can help? Can social institutions make changes that are still within the realm of moral values of many religious institutions?

Can women really stand living with men? The usual parameters stopping divorce or insisting on marriage have been lessened. The sexes appear to be growing together at the societal level, but putting two humans (one of each sex) appears to another story. The jury is out. It is an age old dilemma that greatly surfaced with the independence of women.

They want out. They were mislead by their mothers and the culture that prince charming has much greater sexual needs than she has. This problem won’t go away and perhaps increased testosterone would help women and in some instances romance chemicals of dopamine, estrogen, oxytocin. At any rate, on average, those chemicals and others last about 6 months and then the honey moon is over.

Last, conservatives will not like and progressives will that homosexuality and bi-sexuality are generally biological and impact on the unborn before birth. Biology is destiny for both straights and gays.

It is a best seller because it is very readable. Although, this reviewer has reservations about the balance of nature and nurture here, the book is worth reading. It may spur other work on both sexes. Further, we may find that some humans are not made for marriage or that some are not made for having children. *

Prof. Joel Snell

Kirkwood College

• A NEW STRATEGY IS THAT TECHNOLOGY IS INVOLVED. LET’S INDICATE THAT TECHNOLOGY IS USED. The male seeks sex. He is followed by his wife into the bedroom. As she watches, a vibrator surrounds the penis and he ejaculates. She then hugs him and then goes and washes her hands. She then goes and does watch she wants.