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Patti Stanger, a third-generation yenta who can be found on Bravo TV's The Millionaire Matchmaker, makes it a point to tell her clients "The penis does the picking!" when looking for love and romance. However, Dr. Louann Brizendine's latest book, "The Male Brain", takes Stanger's theory and bangs it ... straight into the ground.
At Salon.com, Mary Elizabeth Williams writes:
Brizendine explains guys can't help themselves: "Men have a sexual pursuit area that is 2.5 times larger than the one in the female brain." I had never realized there was a sexual pursuit area of the brain, so I Googled it to learn more about this plush lair of gray matter, stockpiled with R. Kelly CDs and Courvoisier. And what do you know? Almost all the references out there are from Dr. Louann Brizendine!
This isn't the first time Brizendine has popped up, with dubious science according to Williams, presenting a medical model to explain a social behavior. Brizendine is -- I know, shocker -- the author of The Female Brain, and in that book, she brought forth her theory that women speakmorequicklyandusemorewordsthenmen. Um.Yeah.Okay. What.ev.er.
Having not read either of Brizendine's books, it would be completely unfair for me to argue that Brizendine's research is bullshit. Maybe it is maybe it's not. But I admit I am having a hard time wrapping my own brain around the concept human behavior and brains should be treated as separate entities. Call me crazy, but I think how we think determines a hell of a lot about how we behave, regardless of gender. I've met men who "think like women" and women who "think like men." I am not a fan of sweeping generalizations, or in this case maybe it's a sweeping genderization. I guess this is why I am less likely to consider Brizendine's hypothesis reality, but I do agree with one assertion she has about men and women:
We are the same species, after all.
I believe there are quite a few in our species, male or female, who ask, "What the hell was he thinking?" and "Has she gone completely nuts?" when we turn on the TV and see folks like Tiger Woods admitting he did it or Jesse
James all but admitting he did. And there are millions of couples dealing with a deceptive mate and questioning their own sanity too. So maybe there is something to this, that it is the brain all out of whack. However, does this mean, as Brizendine suggests in her CNN piece, we should just accept our brains for what they are and don't mess with Mother Nature and thus the male brain gets a "pass"?
The human brain is the best learning machine on the planet and human beings are capable of making major changes in our lives. But there are some things that the male brain and female brain are not likely to change anytime soon. And it makes more sense to deal with these brain realities, than to argue with them or ignoring them.
The best advice I have for women is make peace with the male brain. Let men be men.
Really? Why do we women need to "let" men be anything? Men aren't our pets or our house plants. I find this tone of Brizendine's, that women are somehow responsible for restricting the men in our life from being manly, patently ridiculous. Usually there are two brains in a relationship, so why should one be permitted to check out and do whatever it is supposedly designed to do, while the other brain in the relationship should "make peace?"
It's no big secret men and women are wired differently, or we have different chemistry coursing through our bodies (hello estrogen, hello testosterone), so it makes sense we may have some gender-specific behaviors, but philandering being one of them is a hard one for me to accept. I am uncomfortable with Brizendine blaming the tissue. Because if it were a matter of fact, and there is no gray area including human behavior and choice, then why is it that some men cheat and others don't? Each has the same male brain.
Or do they? Could it be argued that men who don't cheat have superior brains and men who are sleeping with Abby Normal in their head are the ones who are going astray and are powerless over their own thought process? Is cheating a malfunction of the brain? Can we even go there?
