The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine

The Female Brain

by Louann Brizendine

Since Dr. Brizendine wrote The Female Brain ten years ago, the response has been overwhelming. This New York Times bestseller has been translated into more than thirty languages, has sold nearly a million copies between editions, and has most recently inspired a romantic comedy starring Whitney Cummings and Sofia Vergara. And its profound scientific understanding of the nature and experience of the female brain continues to guide women as they pass through life stages, to help men better understand the girls and women in their lives, and to illuminate the delicate emotional machinery of a love relationship.

Why are women more verbal than men? Why do women remember details of fights that men can’t remember at all? Why do women tend to form deeper bonds with their female friends than men do with their male counterparts? These and other questions have stumped both sexes throughout the ages.

Now, pioneering neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., brings together the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how they communicate, and who they love. While doing research as a medical student at Yale and then as a resident and faculty member at Harvard, Louann Brizendine discovered that almost all of the clinical data in existence on neurology, psychology, and neurobiology focused exclusively on males. In response to the overwhelming need for information on the female mind, Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women’s brain function.

In The Female Brain, Dr. Brizendine distills all her findings and the latest information from the scientific community in a highly accessible book that educates women about their unique brain/body/behavior.

The result: women will come away from this book knowing that they have a lean, mean, communicating machine. Men will develop a serious case of brain envy.

Reviewed by wyvernfriend on

2 of 5 stars

Share
This book left me unsatisfied and feeling less feminine than before I started (the book cover doesn't help either with it's stereotyped images overlaying a brain shape). It read to me like a "women good, men bad" 1970's/80's feminist diatribe with a softer overlay. Instead of informing it confused and instead of enlightening it obscured. I really wanted to like this book but one of us failed and I'm not convinced that it was me. The emphasis on "take this pill and you'll feel better" I think undermined the whole thing. Yes there are differences between men and women, I'm just not convinced that they're that great.

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 19 December, 2007: Finished reading
  • 19 December, 2007: Reviewed