The Female Brain
While doing research as a medical student at Yale and then as a resident and faculty member at Harvard, Dr. Brizendine discovered that almost all of the clinical data on neurology, psychology, and neurobiology focused exclusively on males. In response to the need for information on the female mind, Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women's brain function. At the same time, The National Institute of Health began including female subjects in almost all of its studies for the first time. The result has been an explosion of new data. Here, Brizendine distills of this information in order to educate women about their unique brain-body-behavior. This book combines two decades of her own work, stories from her clinical practice, and the latest information from the scientific community at large to provide a comprehensive look at the way women's minds work.--From publisher description
Stats for nerds
6recommend
14mentions
11people
2008–2026years
43% recommend29% neutral29% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Wandering in a Barnes and Noble in 2007, stumbled into The Female Brain and read it cover to cover.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_Brain_(book)
It’s a simple concept but extremely illuminating. Mostly because of natural hormone specifics, females through different stages of development, gravitate toward specific social behaviors that shape their development as people.
She cites the original study (the one this replicated).
Infant girls track their mother’s face and social responses, in a way that boys simply don’t attend to (until many years later)
- Check out The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine. Covers a lot of things you mention.
- - It will be fine. It turns out that evolution prepared your mind for this. You'll step into the role comfortably once you've gotten through the first time experiences with newborns.
- You'll feel things you never felt before. One of the ways evolution prepared you is that you'll feel a new kind of pride when your child accomplishes anything new. I still remember vividly both of my daughter's first steps after 20 years. People who are never fathers will never feel this exact emotion. It can be surprising.
- Another feeling you will likely encounter is the 'rescue response'. It's a kind of flow state your mind will go into if your child is in imminent physical danger. It's happened to me twice in 20 years. No thinking, time freezes, only acting to remove them from the danger.
- An important one is that the mother's personality is going to change. It will be fine, but be prepared to see a new side of her that she likely won't know herself. Evolution has prepared her, too, and in even more impactful ways. I'd suggest reading 'The Female Brain' by Louanne Brizendine. It's research and science based and will help explain a lot of what's coming.
- Fatherhood is the 'meaning of life' for men. Preparing your children to be successful human adults is what you're all about. If you accept that and run with it, you'll have a fulfilling life.
- It will be fine.
- > I think it might be simple as that. Its not about ability. Its about environment.
Which is how I interpreted what Damore was trying to do with his memo: saying that women are capable, but that the environment was not appealing to them. Either/both of (a) what they got to work on, and/or (b) how they were treated.
IMHO, men and women perceive and react to the world differently, and treating them the same is foolish and counter-productive. Damore was simply pointing out those differences.
I found The Female Brain a good book on this topic:
- For those that haven't read it, "The Female Brain" is a fantastic book about human nature and discusses how male and female hormonal levels fluctuate throughout life and how that influences behavior.
A man's and woman's oxytocin levels are elevated after child birth but it's much higher in women. So the PP reference that a man is more clueless when it come to playing and touching their baby is not without scientific basis.
- Yeah, OK, maybe.. But so what? The article, the studies and the supposed solutions seem to ignore the most brutal obstacle. The reason that there are so very few female coders is because working alone is not natural for a woman. Many adult woman who enter the fields mentioned in the article quit high paying jobs later on in life for this reason. And untold millions quit earlier or never start. The irony is that women would be great in these fields if the environment was more conducive. This book will shed some light on it.
http://www.amazon.com/Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767...
A more effective solution would be to create a more nurturing CS/engineering environment to draw young women in. For instance; female only programs so girls can be girls at the same time that they are learning how to code. They could be encouraged to gossip or talk on the phone or whatever young girls do.. Also, these girls should remain clustered together when not in these classes because the streagnth of the group would overcome the conflict of the deeply singular task of coding and the female brain. I'm not really explaining it clearly but if anybody is interested in this it would be helpful for you if you read the book.
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