The Female Brain

“This book is a user’s guide to new research about the female brain and the neurobehavioral systems that make us women.”

The book’s intended purpose is to help female readers better understand the connection between their neurology and their behavior. The author uses relational language—“us”—to generate a connection between the reader and herself, which creates a sense of comradery and which encourages the reader to trust Brizendine’s information.

“This isn’t socialization. This little girl didn’t cuddle her ‘truckie’ because her environment molded her unisex brain.”

The idea that gendered behavior results from socialization is now accepted as correct. Rather than supporting the incorrect argument that socialization does not cause gendered behavior with scientific information, the author makes a condescending remark that implies that bio-essentialism is common sense. Brizendine’s confident condescension discourages skepticism and primes readers to accept her assumption as fact.

“What if the communication center is bigger in one brain than in the other? What if the emotional memory center is bigger in one than in the other? What if one brain develops a greater ability to read cues in people than does the other? In this case, you would have a person whose reality dictated that communication, connection, emotional sensitivity, and responsiveness were the primary values. This person would prize these qualities above all others and be baffled by a person with a brain that didn’t grasp the importance of these qualities. In essence, you would have someone with a female brain.”

This is an example of hypophora, in which the author asks questions and then answers them. By asking these repeated questions and answering them, the author implies that this knowledge is common sense rather than assumptive and generalizing. Both the questions and the answer present a limited and biased perspective of neurology, and they completely disregard socialization as a factor. 

“The ‘nervous system environment’ a girl absorbs during her first two years becomes a view of reality that will affect her for the rest of her life.”

Brizendine asserts that a person’s perception of reality is controlled by the emotional state of the primary caretaker they were exposed to in infancy and early childhood. This is a limited presentation of the development of a person’s perception of reality. The argument is also unintentionally ironic, as Brizendine’s main message is that female and male brains are inherently different, yet her anecdote emphasizes the universal role of early socialization on later behavior.

“So if you’re a girl about to enter the womb, plan to be born to an unstressed mom who has a calm, loving partner and family to support her.”

The author’s use of sarcasm emphasizes the concept of fate. Children are not able to select their parents and thus cannot control the early environments that play a large role in shaping their later perceptions of reality and their behaviors.

“Aggression means survival for both sexes, and both sexes have brain circuits for it. It’s just more subtle in girls, perhaps reflecting their unique brain circuitry.”

The use of the words “subtle” and “unique” reinforces the idea of the female as “other” and the male as “normal.” Brizendine states that female aggression is more subtle, but what she actually means is that it’s simply less violent, which does not mean less powerful or obvious. The term “unique” is synonymous with special or exceptional, which emphasizes female humans as different, and, depending on individual interpretation, it implies the idea that they are superior to male humans.

“Hormones would be driving their brains to develop these impulses even if they didn’t see skinny actresses and models on the cover of every magazine. They would be obsessing over whether or not boys thought they looked good because their hormones create the reality in their brains that being attractive to boys is the most important thing.”

Brizendine uses social stereotypes to supply speculative evidence that female teenagers are obsessed with attracting male peers. Her argument devalues the impact of the media—which has been shown to have severe psychological effects on its consumers—and it ignores the experiences of female teens who do not fit this social stereotype, including gay, asexual, or transgender individuals. It also reinforces the stereotype of female teenagers as self-absorbed and uninvolved in serious pursuits, such as education and career-planning.

“In Colonial America, women were put in the town stocks with wooden clips on their tongues or tortured by the ‘dunking stool,’ held underwater and almost drowned—punishments that were never imposed on men—for the crime of ‘talking too much.’”

Western culture has a long tradition of punishing women for speaking. Brizendine includes this fact to demonstrate the misogyny in Western culture and to support her assertions that gendered behavior is inherent and, thus, degrading females for their gendered behavior is immoral.

“While a man can impregnate a woman with one act of intercourse and walk away, a woman is left with nine months of pregnancy, the perils of childbirth, months of breastfeeding, and the daunting task of trying to ensure that child’s survival.”

Male and female reproductive functions are used to support Brizendine’s claims regarding gendered sexual behavior: men as chasers and women as choosers. The concept is presented as common sense, which can make it difficult for readers to question its accuracy, despite the fact that this sweeping generalization is almost certainly inaccurate across the human population.

“The act of hugging or cuddling releases oxytocin in the brain, especially in females, and likely produces a tendency to trust the hugger. It also increases the likelihood that you will believe everything and anything he tells you.”

Brizendine attributes oxytocin as the cause of irrational trust in traditional female-male relationships. The word “likely” signals that her information is speculation rather than scientific fact. It also implies that it is irrational for female humans to trust male partners by insinuating that men are unreliable and that female feelings of trust stem from hormones rather than the male trustworthiness.

“Pain captures our attention, disrupts our behavior, and motivates us to ensure our safety and end our suffering.”

The author suggests that emotional pain serves a similar purpose to physical pain—to protect the individual from external dangers. Where physical pain directly helps people to avoid injury or death, emotional pain, such as that experienced during loss or perceived loss of an intimate relationship, helps the individual avoid dangerous social isolation.

“Medical doctors still feel that if a man can’t get an erection, it is a medical emergency, but no one seems to feel the same urgency about sexual satisfaction for women.”

Brizendine addresses both the sexist biases historically seen in medical science and the cultural stereotype that male identity is strongly tied to sexual function. In doing so, she implies that female sexual satisfaction should be taken as seriously as male sexual experience.

“Just as women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion while men have a small country road, men have O’Hare Airport as a hub for processing thoughts about sex whereas women have the airfield nearby that lands small and private planes.”

The difference in stereotypical male and female perspectives on sex is supported through metaphors relating brain areas correlated with sexual thoughts to transportation systems. The metaphors help readers form a mental image of brain processes and structures, and they are intended to enhance text by creating a creative and immersive reading experience.

“For many of us, the thought of being just like our mothers may be downright alarming, but already researchers are finding corresponding ties in humans between levels of mother-daughter bonding and the quality of care and strength of maternal bonds in the succeeding generation.”

This is one of many examples of vague references to external sources. Brizendine supplies no specific source information, making it exceptionally difficult to verify her claim.

“Whatever the expression in his face, her eyes and facial muscles will automatically mimic it. The rate and depth of her breathing start to match his. Her posture and muscle tension conform to his. Her body and brain receive his emotional signals.”

Presenting the concept of mirroring by using parallel grammatical structures—sentences in this passage follow the same linguistic pattern—allows readers to get a better sense of what the process entails. Readers can relate to the description and reflect on their own experiences, which allows them to form a personal connection with the text.

“Perhaps in response to this extreme discomfort, the female brain developed an additional step in processing and avoiding conflict and anger, a series of circuits that hijack the emotion and chew on it, the same way a cow has an extra stomach that rechews its food before it is digested.”

The metaphor between a cow’s digestive system and the way a woman processes anger is intended to help readers better understand Brizendine’s hypothesis. Brizendine’s language—“Perhaps”—also demonstrates that her statement is hypothetical and not backed by evidence. The text has been highly criticized for Brizendine’s heavy use of speculation presented in language meant to encourage readers to accept the information as true.

“Cautiously holding her anger back may also have saved a female and her offspring from retaliation from men—if she didn’t sly off the handle, she was less likely to evoke an extreme response from a trigger-tempered male.”

Brizendine supports the common stereotype that prehistoric male hominids were exceptionally aggressive and violent toward female hominids. However, modern science posits that prehistoric civilizations were likely egalitarian, and many suggest that the prominence of male violence against women emerged after the agricultural revolution.

“Since her early twenties, she felt she had spent most of her time taking care of needy, self-absorbed people.”

Sylvia’s perspective demonstrates the societal expectation that adult women are supposed to be caretakers. While the female caretaker is a social stereotype, Brizendine asserts that female humans inherently enjoy caretaking roles because of their particular neurology, which changes, she argues, as a result of menopause. Modern gender theory holds that the caretaker role of females is a social construct.

“One of the great mysteries to women at this age—and to the men around them—is how the changes in their hormones affect their thoughts, feelings, and the functioning of their brains.”

The linguistic choice to separate female and male understanding of menopause reinforces the stereotypical view that men do not understand women and reinforces a gender divide. Critics assert that this focus on male and female differences leads to scientific support of stereotypical gendered behavior differences. This concept suggests that science is not objective, but is subjective and reflects cultural values.

“When the umbilical cord is cut as the children leave home, the mommy brain circuits are finally free to be applied to new ambitions, new thoughts, new ideas.”

This assertation implies that mothers who have children at home are less capable of experiencing a sense of individuality. Additionally, the use of the demeaning term “mommy brain,” which appears in multiple instances within the text, is a linguistic choice that infantilizes mothers. By othering the “mommy brain” and suggesting someone who has given birth is not as interested in personal pursuits while tending children, Brizendine reinforces social stereotypes that women are inherent, selfless caretakers.

“If Robert forgot their anniversary, she would bite her tongue. If he was verbally abusive after a long day at work, she started straight into the stew she was stirring and didn’t respond.”

Brizendine’s portrayal of Robert and Sylvia’s marriage appears to normalize verbal abuse. It implies scientific validation of female tolerance of abuse—a damaging message to present in a seemingly scientific self-help book.

“My suspicion is that much of this female-initiated divorce is rooted in the drastically altered reality of post-menopausal women. (But as I have seen in my practice, it could also be because they are tired of putting up with difficult or cheating husbands and have just been waiting for the day when the children leave home.).”

While Brizendine structures her text around neurological causes of gendered behavior, she does note the impacts of socialization on behavior in a few instances. Her presentation of both potential causes of female-initiated divorce over 50 supports the idea that each divorce stems from unique causes.

“If a woman hasn’t come to see me in her mid-thirties to talk about the challenges of her fertility and career, then she will come in her mid-forties, saying that she just doesn’t have time for perimenopause.”

Brizendine predicts that female humans will struggle with overlapping phases in life, such as experiencing difficulties balancing childcare and a career while undergoing perimenopause. Her concerns reflect the modern pressure placed on women to “have it all”—a concept which expects mothers to raise families and develop their careers at the same time without external assistance.