Selected Product:
| Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women
Paperback
Author: Deborah Blum
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release Date: 1998-07-01
ISBN-10: 0140263489
ISBN-13: 9780140263480
List Price: $16.00
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Go beyond the headlines and the hype to get the newest findings in the burgeoning field of gender studies. Drawing on disciplines that include evolutionary science, anthropology, animal behavior, neuroscience, psychology, and endocrinology, Deborah Blum explores matters ranging from the link between immunology and sex to male/female gossip styles. The results are intriguing, startling, and often very amusing. For instance, did you know that. . .
*Male testosterone levels drop in happy marriages; scientists speculate that women may use monogamy to control male behavior
*Young female children who are in day-care are apt to be more secure than those kept at home; young male children less so
*Anthropologists classify Western societies as "mildly polygamous" The Los Angeles Times has called Sex on the Brain "superbly crafted science writing, graced by unusual compassion, wit, and intelligence, that forms an important addition to the literature of gender studies."
Well, I enjoyed it!
| Customer Rating: | I found this book very enjoyable with plenty of interesting information on brains, hormones, primates and other species. Though most of it wasn't new to me it is written in a very readable style and is sometimes very amusing too. Some things were new to me - such as the fact that even plants discriminate between mates (pollen) and even broccoli has 50 different kinds of genes for avoiding mating with too similar broccoli.
Of course, when these subjects are applied to humans many humans do not like it.
And perhaps she does present a more positve perspective on female hormones, female brains and female behavior than has been presented to date, but that's not a bad thing in the arena of evolution and evolutionary biology and psychology.
There are references to all the research findings and though things are not gone into in any great depth it is enough for a book of this kind, and subjects can be followed up by those interested in them.
Of course there is much ongoing research and much controversy regarding what any of it can really tell us about humans but Blum makes the point a couple of times that development is two-way between biology and environment.
Overall I found this an enjoyable overview of a fascinating subject and far superior to other 'Mars/Venus'-type popular books. |
Good enough for an senior thesis,but not quite book level
| Customer Rating: | | The theory of evolution with its emphasis on survival of the fittest and elimination of the unfit would imply that sexual activities ought to be optimized. That's a common line of thought among biologists, and Deborah Blum's book attempts to make that point to the public at large. Now, Blum is not a professional biologist, which would normally not, I repeat not, be a problem - after all, non-scientists tend to explain science better. But in Blum's case, that seems to be an obstacle to a clear explanation, as she spends too much time belaboring the obvious. Many exciting details were not explored further, and the big picture was lost as well. |
Definitely not a tight plot
| Customer Rating: | Deborah Blum was "raised in one of those university-based, liberal-elite families" and as such, was raised to believe that there were no differences between men and women. It wasn't until she had her own career, a husband, and two boys that she actually realized there were basic biological differences between male and female behaviour. Her son was playing dinosaur and "I looked down at him one day as he was snarling around my feet and doing his toddler best to gnaw off my right leg, and I thought, This is not a girl thing-- this goes deeper than culture."
So begins her book. Much of the evidence that is presented is done as studies of sex in other animals (the birds and the monkeys- yes, literally) and her lines of reasoning as to "how this happened" are based along lines of possible biological evolutional forces- things that she admits are really little more than educated guesses dressed up as theories.
The chapter on the differences between male and female brains was interesting in that she spent about 90% of the time either denying the validity of the studies or minimizing the verified physical results. (Sure, that spot is bigger, but we don't know that it does anything.)
Occasionally, you come across a gem of the absurd. This one is a good example:
"One leading French scientist of the nineteenth century sought to prove the existence and potency of this magical male stuff [testosterone] by injecting himself with pureed dog testes. He insisted that the extract boosted his energy and sex drive and enabled him to pee in a higher arc, a major issue for men, obviously, in contrast to women." (pg. 158, beginning of chapter six)
She is quite open and forthright about her own left of center feminist viewpoint on the whole subject, and freely gives her opinion on what she WANTS to be true (and making it clear that it IS her opinion).
One basic concept to follow underneath it all is that if evolution has made us "this way" (biologically), there is no reason to conclude that it has stopped now... and since we have the ability to change our culture, we may tap into evolutionary pressures to change the biology of our race in regards to the basic makeup of our sexes. At the end of the book, she admits she has no idea if this is really possible, but it's obvious that she feels it certainly ought to be. Given her basic premises, it is a logical conclusion. If you look at the past as having created this current biology from something else, why should the process stop now?
But to sum it up, I have to agree with the comments about tediousness, in particular towards the end. The last third or so of the book was read simply so I could be satisfied that I had read it, not because it still had my riveted and interested attention. It would have benefited either from a better organization of the material into a coherent overall development (aka a plot, if this were fiction) or of simply dropping the last third of the book. |
dont let this one be your first read
| Customer Rating: | Having read six books on this exact subject in the past week, I feel information is poorly presented in this one. Sometimes misleading, and sometimes even contradictory.
I highly suggest that you read other books and/or papers on the subject before braving this one. Even then, take this read with a grain of agenda-salt. |
Journalistic not scientific
| Customer Rating: | Blum's style is horrendous. She traipses from one anecdote about her son to the findings of scientists she has interviewed without the blink of an eye. She does not so much advance arguments or conclusions as much as merely advance dumbed-down versions of scientific studies. Matters such as which questions underlie the research and what the research reveals are interspersed with bad puns and Blum's own opinion as to whether something is insulting or disgusting. Her attempts to lighten the fare are patronizing and distracting.
She wrote way too much about non-humans. This or that primate species is simply not the human species. The differences between them are so great that their relevance for the human species does not seem to be established.
Most of the research she chose was physiological, behavioral, and anthropological. Evolutionary biology (a.k.a. sociobiology) gets only occasional treatment, despite its recent progress in explaining male and female differences.
Note also that the book was published in 1997. I write in 2005, so the book is eight years old. Try to find something more up to date on the subject.
Overall, the book's faults can most easily be attributed to the fact that the author is a journalist and not a scientist. She sarificed too much to appealing to the general readership and is not well-schooled in the science of human sex differences herself. |
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