UC San Francisco psychiatrist Louann Brizendine has been getting a lot of attention for her book The Female Brain, which argues that women’s behavior is hardwired into their brains and hormones. I applaud Brizendine’s effort to explore how female brains are different from male ones, and she makes an impassioned argument for getting away from the idea that male brains are “the norm.” Unfortunately, however, the book is a hopeless mashup of decent research and naturalized cultural stereotypes. A smart chapter on how women’s monthly hormone fluctuations can influence perception is followed by chapters that claim “women’s intuition” is caused by women’s hyperactive hippocampuses and that it’s natural for women to honor their “mommy brain,” which wants them to cut back on work.

At one point, Brizendine argues that women and men are so different that heterosexuality leads to lifelong disappointment (though she consigns lesbianism to a short appendix):

Girls who expect their boyfriends to chat with them the way their girlfriends do are in for a big surprise. Phone conversations can have painful lulls while she waits for him to say something. The best she can often hope for is that he is an attentive listener. She may not realize he’s just bored and wants to get back to his videogame. This difference may also be at the core of the major disappointment women feel all their lives with their marriage partners.

Later, she claims that another fundamental mismatch between men and women is the way the two sexes have orgasms. After a reasonable discussion about how female orgasm works — it involves more brain activity than male and takes longer — she makes several outrageous and unfounded claims about female sexuality in general. One is that women who have multiple sexual partners are “out of control” or will make bad mating choices because sex releases so much oxytocin that judgement is impaired (despite the fact that oxytocin can be released without sexual contact). She also goes so far as to claim that sexually-active women are doomed to loveless futures because men are wired to assess women based on “social reputation.” She writes approvingly of one of her therapy clients:

If Melissa had immediately gone to bed with Rob . . . his Stone Age brain might have judged that she would be unfaithful or had a bad reputation. That she was affectionate on the dance floor and went home at a proper hour in a taxi showed him she was a high-quality lady with whom to mate long-term.

I’m not sure a “Stone Age brain” would be impressed with sexually-withholding behavior, let alone getting into a taxi “at a proper hour.”

The worst part, though, is when Brizendine tries to argue that vibrators interfere with bonding between sexual partners. After she’s made the case that female orgasms require a delicate balance of hormones and brain chemistry, Brizendine follows up by claiming that “women like vibrators” because they “provide a faster, easier orgasms.” She describes how one of her clients had trouble coming with her partner, so she “buried her vibrator in the backyard in order to force herself to get used to a real penis.” So women should force themselves to have difficulty coming with partners instead of bringing vibrators into bed, or teaching their partners to be more skillful?

It’s really quite astonishing how Brizendine can plead with us to understand the uniqueness of the female brain one minute, and endorse the idea that women should “get used to a real penis” the next. Maybe men should get used to female sexuality, which includes enjoying vibrators. Just a thought.

Given the conservative tenor of the book, it’s not surprising that Brizendine’s been endorsed by right-wing wanker David Brooks. It makes me sad to think that Brizendine is using her professional position as a highly-respected psychiatrist to advise other women to worry about their “reputations” and neglect their sexual desires. It’s also sad to see her telling women that men are such non-emotional beings that we should expect to be disapointed by them for our whole lives. Shouldn’t we be trying to change our relationships, rather than just learning to live with disappointment?