Brain Sex - review

,,Brain Sex’’- popular science book, published in August 1992 talks and explains about male and female difference.  The book has gained a huge popularity among all western countries and became an international bestseller but in the same time it has met a lot of disapprobation and controversy.

Two of the Authors – Anne Moir who is a neuroscientist and journalist and her husband – David Jessel – a former British TV presenter propose an interesting theory that the secret of men’s women’s and difference is cloaked in the brain and there is much scientific evidence for those differences.

Starting from the beginning, the book hypothesize that there is significant differentiation between man and woman which is lay in our basic biological differences of our brains. Men are usually more aggressive, competitive and better at reading maps or mathematical reasoning while women are more adept at reading people’s emotions and more sensitive to nuances of facial expression and gestures. Authors regard that through this biological or strictly, neuronal difference it is impossible for the sexes to share equal emotional or intellectual qualities. Colorable reader could think that the book presents typical and old-fashioned stereotype about male and female division but in fact the further content gives the logical explanation for broad diversity, not only sex and its characteristic.

Moir and Jessel explain in this book that the inherence or absence of hormones (male hormone - testosterone and female - oestrogen) is as much important as the inherence or absence of XX or XY chromosomes in determining sex of a fetus. At about six weeks human embryonic brain is shaped as a masculine or female, depends on the chromosome and hormones determinate mainly by genetic code. The male’s fetus begins production of those hormones that organize the brain in neutral network into the male pattern of the brain. The absence of those hormones organizes the brain into the female pattern. Nevertheless during this process there can be endless variation in degree of amount of those hormones. Those processes and anomaly can lead even to a male brain in a female body and vice versa.

According to the authors, men’s brain is more specialized and suitable for abstractions. The process of thinking is faster involving less spares of the brain (usually men’s engage the right hemisphere of the brain). Women’s abilities are less specific because female brain is able to communicate two spheres more easily. As a result women’s thinking might be slower than men’s (because it involves more parts of the brain) but more proper for verbal and linguistic skills or social abilities when emotional competencies are highly needed.

The authors try to show and explain that the difference in the structure, organization of the human brain and nervous structure can affect or even determinate personal or behavioral characteristic of each gender at the end.

The book  refer also to the theory of evolution and the evolutionary psychology which say that in general men were the hunters and protectors while women were the gatherers and nurturers so that the structure of our brain is well-suited to those roles and functions in the society.   

This interesting book gives also logical explanation about homosexuality. According to the authors, there is link between embryonic phase and hormonal processes during it and sexual orientation. From this point the process of determination our sexual orientation is similar to the process of determination our gender.

However the theory presented in this bestseller seems very logical and well-ordered and both authors refer to many research, this paper met a lot of criticism, especially among scientific milieu. One of the strongest arguments is that in fact this division and sex abilities could be explained in different way and there is not enough evident for the link between the abilities and sex, for example cultural and environmental explanation as well as cultural process of learning. The researches and study on which the authors based their thesis are simply not enough clarifying.

This bestseller presents interesting and snappy theory with interesting and very straightforward explanation for those ordinary readers who are not experts in psychology, neurons sciences or genetics.  To conclude, it is worth to read this book, full of interesting and valuable information but with distance to presented theory.

This book is one of those books which can change our perspective for the topic about gender’s differences and encourage investigating in this field more deeply and carefully.