The Female Brain

[Talking Ass]

Has a conversation on this subject taken place on this forum? (I mean more or less specifically).

The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D

[Dan Rowden]

I wonder if she got the idea for that book from geneticist Ann Moir's books (e.g. Brain Sex).

[Animus]

Brizendine is fairly narrow-minded.

It's like the fact that men (and women) playing sports have higher testosterone levels than when they are not playing sports.

So the question is.. is the heightened levels of testosterone a result of playing the sport, or is playing the sport the result of high testosterone levels.

Another example, taxi drivers have denser structures in the hippocampi associated with navigation. Is this structural difference the result of a career driving cab, or is cab driving the result of this structural difference in the hippocampi.

I think the answer is quite obvious, the neurological correlates change as a result of behaviour, however, a person's neurology also dictates their behaviour. Such that, people are drawn to sports because they have significant testosterone, but the behaviour itself serves to further produce more testosterone.


Thus, the neurological correlates of behaviour do not indicate innate differences, but represent socialization in many cases.

Also check out Janet Shnibley Hyde's Sex Similarity Hypothesis, or Amanda Shaffer's article on Slate.com called "Sex Difference Evangelists" which lends a skeptical eye to the work of Pinker, Brizendine and the like.

[Ryan Rudolph]

I read it, and I found many parts very interesting. One observation made by the author is that women naturally become wiser as they age. As their mommy brain shuts down, and their kids move out, many women choose to divorce just for the independence and the realization that their husband is a dependent similar to a child. It is almost as if the hormonal reshuffling in women in later ages causes a sort of awakening. However, that's not to say that these women are ultimately enlightened, but they are much more sane in behavior and action than when they were chasing a sexual mate in their early twenties.

[Talking Ass]

I think the answer is quite obvious, the neurological correlates change as a result of behaviour, however, a person's neurology also dictates their behaviour. Such that, people are drawn to sports because they have significant testosterone, but the behaviour itself serves to further produce more testosterone.

Well, in questions of physiology and evolutionary biology, the time frame of those correlates of behaviors are huge segments of time, hundreds of thousands if not millions of years of genetic adaptation. In her book---I admit it is a little anecdotal in presentation and often seems to explain, in hormonal terms exactly what we already know from observation (that is, that girls when they turn into women are subject to vast emotional and psychological pressures and changes and this carries through to the childbearing years and may only 'lighten up' after menopause)---she does not dismiss that behavior can influence biology, but she does seem to see biological function as being supreme.

Also she quotes someone (Dawkins?) who said that you cannot separate culture from biology or biology fron culture, so it is a bad way to think about sex-differences.

One observation made by the author is that women naturally become wiser as they age.

That implies---quite erroneously I think---that women in those hormone-drenched years of puberty and childbearing are unwise. It is more accurate to say that to the degree that they respond to genetic imprinting, and do what that imprinting tells them to do, the more they are behaving correctly, indeed, can be considered 'good'. What is the force that directs them, Ryan? Do you see it is 'evil'? It is wrong even to call it unconscious since it really seems to know what it is doing.

[Animus]

I know she does Talking Ass. Like most people working on sex-differences in adult behaviour. It's the old Chicken-Egg problem. Brizendine, Pinker and the like seem to want to suggest that biology is a superior component to environment. That's putting the egg before the chicken. Of course, the chicken-egg problem has taught us that these kinds of dichotomies are flawed. The "Chicken" and the "Egg" evolved together.

[Talking Ass]

Then if I understand you correctly, you would say that, on the basis of a realization ('I am overly controlled by hormonal secretions'), and changing of behavior, that people can and will modify their biology? On the basis of a whim? For example, they are able to chart the increase in estrogen in the course of a woman's menstrual cycle which peaks in week two, and (as she asserts) when it is in a declining part of the cycle all the strange female behaviors that are cliches---among men and women---are seen. All of this is related to the fierceness of the natural need for women to reproduce, and nature doesn't really care how it gets to this. Intuitively, it seems to me that this biological platform is there for a reason and nature recognizes no reason why it should change. It is working extraordinarily well, in fact.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Brizendine, Pinker and the like seem to want to suggest that biology is a superior component to environment.

With this statement, I'd guess you stand more on the side of culture/environment as prime factor in shaping biology. Is that right? (I am just trying to understand the different views). (And mine is that 95% of human activity is dominated by biological factors, and we have crafted ways to trick ourselves into perceiving this is not so). (This leaves a marvellous 5% that can be exploited in amazing ways, by select few).

[Animus]

I don't take that view actually. The view that I take is that there exists biological (evolutionary) predispositions towards certain behaviours, which are themselves subject to neuroplastic change. One example of this is in the way that experiences can methylate the gene expressing corticosterone resulting in a dampened stress response from the hypothalamus. This a case where the production of the hormone cortisol and/or receptor sensitivity to the hormone is drastically altered by the environment. This probably occurs in most cases by the processes of acetylation and methylation of DNA. A field of research known as "Epigenetics".

Then if I understand you correctly, you would say that, on the basis of a realization ('I am overly controlled by hormonal secretions'), and changing of behavior, that people can and will modify their biology? On the basis of a whim? For example, they are able to chart the increase in estrogen in the course of a woman's menstrual cycle which peaks in week two, and (as she asserts) when it is in a declining part of the cycle all the strange female behaviors that are cliches---among men and women---are seen. All of this is related to the fierceness of the natural need for women to reproduce, and nature doesn't really care how it gets to this. Intuitively, it seems to me that this biological platform is there for a reason and nature recognizes no reason why it should change. It is working extraordinarily well, in fact.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Brizendine, Pinker and the like seem to want to suggest that biology is a superior component to environment.

With this statement, I'd guess you stand more on the side of culture/environment as prime factor in shaping biology. Is that right? (I am just trying to understand the different views). (And mine is that 95% of human activity is dominated by biological factors, and we have crafted ways to trick ourselves into perceiving this is not so). (This leaves a marvellous 5% that can be exploited in amazing ways, by select few).

[Animus]

Here is a PBS special on epigenetics: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html

[Cory Duchesne]

You guys might find this interesting - Ghost in your Genes (preview)

Part 1

[Animus]

You guys might find this interesting - Ghost in your Genes (preview)

Part 1

Thanks for that Cory

[Talking Ass]

Then, Animus, what I said before is accurate, and is expressed and possibly confirmed by epigenetic discoveries:

I said: "You would say that, on the basis of a realization ('I am overly controlled by hormonal secretions'), and changing of behavior, that people can and will modify their biology?"

The implication of epigenetic discovery is that nature has a way to hasten genetic changes and adaptations. That these changes can take effect far more quickly.

So, by reading and writing on GF for 2 years, and in that period of time fathering 19 children by various women, I may substantially change the behaviors of future generations, and ultimately the world?

[Ryan Rudolph]

Cory,

interesting documentary choice, The idea that a parent or grandparent's experience can shut off or on certain genes, which are then passed on to their children makes quite a bit of sense from an evolutionary point of view. Because it allows the children to be better adapted to sudden short-term changes in the environment that the parents had to modify their habituation cycles to. It is something that at one time I considered the possibility of it because it made sense, but I never really thought about it, and accepted to the contrary position that genes are fixed between the sex genes and the experience genes, so there is no interplay between them. but the contrary view seems right...

It explains the complexity better too, because humans only have around 30,000 genes, and there are more diseases, disorders and variety than the that number can account for, so if you add the factor that some genes can be shut on or off by each parent, then more phenomena can be accounted for.

[Talking Ass]

I see that Esther Vilar has come up in other places on this forum and in QRS webpages. It is a book I first came across in Spanish, El Varon Domado. (Which means 'tamed man' or 'trained man' more than manipulated). 'Domar' is the verb used to speak of training a dog for example. To transform a wild animal into a domesticated one.

Here is a 1975 interview on German TV. (There is a part 2)

(There is also a fake interview with a supposed "Esther Vilar'.)

An interesting link (which mentions Esther Vilar unfavorably) of feminist terminologies. (Why is she not aware, I ask, of the QRS brand of 'male liberation'?)

Some selections of comments by HL Mencken on women:

"It would be an easy matter, indeed, to demonstrate that superior talent in man is practically always accompanied by this feminine flavour--that complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable. Lest I be misunderstood I hasten to add that I do not mean to say that masculinity contributes nothing to the complex of chemico-physiological reactions which produces what we call talent; all I mean to say is that this complex is impossible without the feminine contribution that it is a product of the interplay of the two elements. In women of genius we see the opposite picture. They are commonly distinctly mannish, and shave as well as shine. Think of George Sand, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth of England, Rosa Bonheur, Teresa Carreo or Cosima Wagner. The truth is that neither sex, without some fertilization by the complementary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavour. Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a bank director. And woman, without some trace of that divine innocence which is masculine, is too harshly the realist for those vast projections of the fancy which lie at the heart of what we call genius. Here, as elsewhere in the universe, the best effects are obtained by a mingling of elements. The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all."

---HL Mencken

[Loki]

"It would be an easy matter, indeed, to demonstrate that superior talent in man is practically always accompanied by this feminine flavour--that complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable. Lest I be misunderstood I hasten to add that I do not mean to say that masculinity contributes nothing to the complex of chemico-physiological reactions which produces what we call talent; all I mean to say is that this complex is impossible without the feminine contribution that it is a product of the interplay of the two elements. In women of genius we see the opposite picture. They are commonly distinctly mannish, and shave as well as shine. Think of George Sand, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth of England, Rosa Bonheur, Teresa Carreo or Cosima Wagner. The truth is that neither sex, without some fertilization by the complementary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavour. Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a bank director. And woman, without some trace of that divine innocence which is masculine, is too harshly the realist for those vast projections of the fancy which lie at the heart of what we call genius. Here, as elsewhere in the universe, the best effects are obtained by a mingling of elements. The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all."

---HL Mencken

Interesting. I always thought it was man who was the steely eyed realist. Where woman seemed more of the romantic, witless, starry eyed dreamer.

[Talking Ass]

I am trying to meld two points of view, and see what comes of it. According to Brizendine (The Female Brain), the female of the species needs to be looked at through the lens of biology, as a creature motivated at all moments of life by hormonal impulses. Same brain, same capacities of consciousness as a man, but it is the intense, hormonal washes that she receives that essentially knock her silly, throw her for a loop. It is Nature---cruel Mother Nature---who grabs hold of her and devilishly manipulates her to conform to her role as biological birthing-unit of our species. What I find ironic is the modern tendency to worship nature as this benevolent 'Goddess' but the more you look at the issue Nature is a woman's worst enemy. Who after all set women up for this terrible role they must perform? And, what is interesting again, is that it is male culture, and male rebellion against the dictates of Nature, that allow for other horizons to open for a woman. It is not at all surprising that the masculine mind opened up the road that has led to the doctrines of women's liberation. It is only in a cultural context that women could ever be liberated and that other possibilities open to her. All of that is provided by the context of male culture.

When Mencken speaks of women as 'realistic' I think he is speaking about the core, biological imperative. And in this there is a correspondence to Brizendine, who describes the hormonal eruption in the female body as she enters the childbearing phase, which transforms a girl into a radically different creature in many ways than what she had just been as a relatively free girl. Her biology dictates her priorities, and she seems utterly powerless over this hormonal pressure. She does what nature demands she do.

It is interesting to make a comparison between the perspectives of Brizendine, who examines femininity from a biological and hormonal perspective, to the feminist doctrines of de Beauvoir and others (specifically Radical Feminism which is the main engine that drives feminist discourse), and to then take all this back and examine the stance of Vilar. Mencken, in my estimation, is amusing and poignant at times, but he himself is to excitable and too angry and even hateful and contemptuous to be relied on for much. His contempt for the common man---justified though it might be---would allow him to use woman against him if there was some advantage to be gained by it.

"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness...can be trained to do most things." -- Jilly Cooper, SCUM (Society For Cutting Up Men, started by Valerie Solanas).
_________________________________________________________

It is interesting to examine the position of some Radical Feminists from a strict biological/hormonal perspective. Looked at from a certain angle, Nature has set up a game where men are driven to inseminate females and females are driven, despite any contrary tendency of desire, to seek to be penetrated and inseminated. The radical feminists have misplaced their anger, it seems to me. Ultimately, they seem (justifiably perhaps) enraged at the terrible game Nature perpetrates on them.

"Heterosexuality is a die-hard custom through which male-supremacist institutions insure their own perpetuity and control over us. Women are kept, maintained and contained through terror, violence, and the spray of semen...[Lesbianism is] an ideological, political and philosophical means of liberation of all women from heterosexual tyranny..." -- Cheryl Clarke, "Lesbianism, An Act of Resistance," in This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color.

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." -- Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001

"Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership." -- Andrea Dworkin

[Talking Ass]

Louanne Brizendine reads from The Teen Brain

Mark Liberman, linguist, takes her to task on specific points of her 'pseudo-science'. More criticism by Liberman.

A positive review of The Female Brain.

Brizendine's 'Darwinian Feminism'. "Against this cultural creationism popular with many feminists, Louann Brizendine--in her book The Female Brain--surveys the evidence for the conclusion that there is no unisex brain, because girls are born with female brains, and boys are born with male brains. To be sure, these brains are sensitive to the social environment, and so their development over the human life span will manifest the effects of cultural learning. But because of the natural differences in their brains and in the biological phases of their lives, men and women will on average differ in their natural desires. Consequently, any attempt to create a totally unisex world will fail, because the natural differences between men and women will assert themselves." ---Larry Arnhart

[Animus]

I dunno... what these researchers say, sometimes, and the data they provide are in conflict.

Take this graph for example from "Sex differences with children's toys in nonhuman primates"



The claim in SciAm Mind June/July 2009 is that the boys preferred the stereotypical masculine toys while the females preferred stereotypical feminine toys. However, the graph clearly demonstrates a relatively equal distribution amongst the males. With the exception of the "doll" and "picture book" the male primates took relatively equal interest in all the items. Whereas the female primates were more narrow and directed in their interest.

This kind of thing happens all the time with sex research and people in the field gravitate towards certain beliefs and look to validate those beliefs with the data, even in cases like this where the data clearly does not support their conclusions.

[Talking Ass]

This kind of thing happens all the time with sex research and people in the field gravitate towards certain beliefs and look to validate those beliefs with the data, even in cases like this where the data clearly does not support their conclusions.

Very true, and it is a drag that it is so. But, most contentious issues are burdened with agendas and you just have to do your best to sort through it and come to your own conclusions. Brizendine's book---I thought this when I read it---was a sort of replay of all the prejudices we are familiar with and seemed only to bolster a pretty typical, stereotypical, view of the differences between women and men, boys and girls.

[Animus]

This kind of thing happens all the time with sex research and people in the field gravitate towards certain beliefs and look to validate those beliefs with the data, even in cases like this where the data clearly does not support their conclusions.

Very true, and it is a drag that it is so. But, most contentious issues are burdened with agendas and you just have to do your best to sort through it and come to your own conclusions. Brizendine's book---I thought this when I read it---was a sort of replay of all the prejudices we are familiar with and seemed only to bolster a pretty typical, stereotypical, view of the differences between women and men, boys and girls.

Yea, its a full-time job to check the references on claims like this and sort out the data.

That's why I'm skeptical whenever someone claims to know certain facts. Recently I've been discussing "pedophilia" and "child molestation" with a number of people which claim to know rather conclusive and ubiquitous facts about pedophilia, however, having actually looked at the data myself I find their conclusions to be completely wrong. In fact, I'm not sure where their claims even originate from, perhaps their own experiences or the media or their own fears and desires, but certainly not scientific data. What's worse is that most, if not all, of them have rejected the scientific evidence in place of their conclusions.

[Talking Ass]

"Christian feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand Christianity in light of the equality of women and men. Because this equality has been historically ignored, Christian feminists believe their contributions are necessary for a complete understanding of Christianity. While there is no standard set of beliefs among Christian feminists, most agree that God does not discriminate on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex."

I came across the above in a section of the Wikipedia page on feminism. I was intrigued by the part I underlined, as it indicates a split in thinking, an inability to see clearly certain facts right in front of us. If God is the author of phenomenal reality, and the author of Nature, then God indeed 'discriminates on the basis of biologically-determined characteristics such as sex'.

This God is a wretched, cruel, misogynistic psychopath who cares not a wit for anyone or anything, not really. The only area where rebellion is possible, and where the rebellion is fomented, is in our conceptual-intellectual life and through science in the widest possible sense.

Prometheus

"God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates."

---Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

[Talking Ass]

Who's Afraid of Charles Darwin?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

From Psychology Today: Desire In Women: Does It Lead To Sex? Or Result From It?

So this implies that man's desire can lead to sex but for women sex can lead to eventually experiencing desire! Still, I doubt if both desires are the same thing: one is a highly visual, perhaps idealistic drive, future oriented. The responding, mirroring reactive behavior seems to possess a whole different nature even while purposes briefly coincide.

[jupiviv]

Otto Weininger says that women are wholly sexual all their lives. By "sexual" he doesn't mean that they have orgasms every second; just that they are wholly emotional. Even when they seem to be rational, they are not being truly rational. Emotions are also a kind of sex. The mother-prostitute impulses may come and go in women, but emotions stay all the time.

It makes me sad for women - the existence of women is a tragedy. How can a person possibly live in such a chaotic and evil world as the feminine? Man at least has his reason and ideality as a refuge. It is good that women are unconscious, because even if they had a little consciousness, they would be in great pain. That is why no woman has ever achieved consciousness - a sustained consciousness at least. It is all too painful for even the most masculine women.

I resound Victor's declaration in Kierkegaard's "The Banquet" - Let me collect my soul in gratitude for the one good which was conferred on me also --that I was made a man and not a woman.

[Shahrazad]

Animus,

So the question is.. is the heightened levels of testosterone a result of playing the sport, or is playing the sport the result of high testosterone levels.

Another example, taxi drivers have denser structures in the hippocampi associated with navigation. Is this structural difference the result of a career driving cab, or is cab driving the result of this structural difference in the hippocampi.

I think the answer is quite obvious, the neurological correlates change as a result of behaviour, however, a person's neurology also dictates their behaviour. Such that, people are drawn to sports because they have significant testosterone, but the behaviour itself serves to further produce more testosterone.

I think you are right on. Another example that I find interesting is the different MRIs between uniligual and bilingual persons. The latter have more neurons that light up when they talk.