I was surprised at the even-handed tone of this Sunday profile of “psychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of the best-selling new book ‘The Female Brain,’ [which argues that] men and women come equipped with completely different operating systems — not only below the belt but between the ears.”
The article gives what seems to be a fair precis of the book:
“Males and females may perform similar calculations, but they use different ‘circuits.’ Woman is Mac. Man is PC. Blame the brain.
“The female version excels at conflict resolution, deep friendship and mood reading. ‘These are talents women are born with that many men, frankly, are not,’ says Brizendine, who recently spent a morning at the kitchen table in her waterfront home, issuing similar sweeping observations about the neurological underpinnings of wicked-bad PMS, teen girl text-messaging, and the frisky later chapter of life known as ‘post-menopausal zest.’
“First of all, Brizendine says, our floor plans are different. She’s got the bigger ‘worrywart center’ (the anterior cingulated cortex), and so stress tends to wig her out, as ‘conflict registers more deeply in the areas of the female brain.'”
I wonder if this is giving Nancy Hopkins the vapors.