The Female Brain, Part II

This book is so full of information. Here are a few more things I found interesting. It looks like a lot, but I'm hardly scratching the surface.

- Girls understand tone of voice right away, boys don't. This is why boys don’t respond when you tell them no sternly, and why girls realize when you’re sad and show empathy at such young ages (this is due to the high levels of estrogen that flow throughout girls for 24 months during infancy, while boys only have that for nine months).
- Baby girls need eye contact right away, while boys like to look at everything else. This stays with girls throughout life, so if parents/boyfriends/spouses don’t look us in the eye or don’t 'hear' us, we feel we’re doing something wrong and we try everything we can to make them see us.
- Baby girls in the womb and those just born can feel their mom’s stress and this affects the kind of child they become. If one daughter is born when mom is happy and carefree and another is born during a period of stress and depression, the two girls will take on those corresponding demeanors.
- The author also talks about why females tend to shy away from confrontation (we’re lovers, not fighters – seriously, hormones in our brains make us this way). She doesn’t leave out our bad traits either - how we can be bossy and manipulate others to get what we want. This starts at a very young age for girls, and whether we learn to curb it or not probably depends on our parents and ourselves.

- The next chapter dives in to the teenage years. Whoa. I now understand why I was the way I was when I was a teenager – and I wasn’t even as bad as some other girls. Our estrogen surges take a back seat between ages 3 and 13, and then it goes out of control again. These monthly fluctuations of estrogen are what makes us desire to be liked by the opposite sex and feel the need to have a close circle of girlfriends.
- I thought it was very interesting when the author talked about how teenage girls NEED to gossip and talk with their friends for hours each day because it gives off a major happiness in our brain. If our friends are taken away from us (either by moving, grounding, fighting, etc.) we’ll become impossible to deal with – moody, depressed and angry. She stresses that this doesn’t mean teenage daughters should have the run of the house, but that it’ll take a little understanding and compromise to keep them healthy and happy.
- She also talked about cliques. In the days of cavemen and women (and currently with primates as well), females banded together to protect their young from any sort of predators. Because we’re lacking in the confrontation department (we don’t want to risk ruining our relationships), these cliques are our way of protecting ourselves. We know our girlfriends will stand up with us against any bullies.

This all makes perfect sense to me. I’m so glad I’m learning this now because when my niece reaches this age (or if I were ever to have a daughter myself), I feel I’d be better prepared for the nightmare that can be teenage girls. But at the same time it also gives insight into boys, and I feel I understand my little nephews better, too.

The Female Brain

I've switched gears now, and I'm reading The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. I was walking around B&N yesterday and there was a table of books just about the human brain. This one caught my eye; I've always been interested in the differences between the female and male brain. In this book, Brizendine talks about the physical differences between our brains, as well as the hormonal differences. I've only just begun, but here are a few things I've learned so far:

- Some parts of the female brain change up to 25 percent every month. This is why sometimes we can feel jerked around easily - near tears one moment, happy the next.

- The hormones in our brain are so strong, they can dictate what we find important and hold value to.

- Men and women use different brain circuits to solve problems, process language and store emotion.

- In the brains centers for language and hearing, women have 11 percent more neurons than men. We also have a larger hippocampus - the part of the brain that helps with memory (why you remember more details than he does) and observing emotion in others. Men, on the other hand, have larger processors in the amygdala, which triggers aggression.

- While boys and girls are equally intelligent, throughout life females may choose more social careers over those in the maths and sciences because their brain/hormones want them to find a career where they can interact with others and one that will allow them to raise a family and take care of others.