The Female Brain

In Louann Brizendine's book, The Female Brain, she talks about how women's brains work throughout different phases of a woman's life. There's the teen girl brain, the 20 something girl brain, the mom brain and the post menopause brain. And after reading this, I've concluded that women are superior to men.

She relates everything back to evolution. Women are communicators, meanwhile men to tend to be more physical. This goes back to when cavemen used to get in fights, the women were too small to be able to fight them, so they had to learn to communicate in order to solve social problems. Men in general not only have inferior communication skills, but then are also not as equip as women to read emotional and facial cues. Women analyze facial cues, the tone of voice, and eye movement to be able to read people, and it's all subconsciously. "The typical male brain reaction to emotion is to avoid it at all costs. To get a male brain's emotional attention, a woman needs to do the equivalent of yelling 'Periscope up! Emotion coming!'"

Is this news? Not really.

However, what is even more fascinating is a story she tells about a woman who suspected her husband was cheating on her. One night at dinner she came right out an asked him, and as he started talking, she was replicated his exact facial features, analyzing the tone of his voice, and watching his eyes. Although he said he wasn't, she knew that he was. The idea of "womens intuition" isn't as crazy as some people might think, women's gut feelings are almost always right because of their ability to read people.

The book describes why women feel the way that they do during their teenage years, why they want so badly to fit in, and why break ups are so hard on women most of the time. It gives a rational explanation to things commonly thought of irrational, love and relationships.

It wouldn't hurt for men to read this book. So many men think women get upset "for no reason" or we "overreact," but if they knew why we act the way we do, they'd be able to better understand us. According to Brizendine, women have the same fraction of the brain that's used for communication and emotion that men have for sex. Because of this, if a man hasn't been as communicative with his girlfriend/wife as usual, she thinks that he's upset with her or seeing someone else. But if a woman doesn't want to have sex with her boyfriend/husband for awhile, he thinks she's seeing someone else. This is because those are the things that important to us, and when they're not met, we think something is wrong.

Seriously, just read it. It doesn't read like a textbook at all, and I guarantee when you're reading it you'll have several moments when a light bulb goes off and you'll find yourself saying, "ooohhh," in understanding.