Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women - Softcover

Blum, Deborah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140263489 ISBN 13: 9780140263480

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 1998

Synopsis

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."

About this title

Review

For centuries, links between biology and behavior have been mined for ammunition in the gender wars. Western science has often tainted the discussion by skewing the norm toward men so that the biological underpinnings of their weaknesses and strengths are applauded while those of women are denigrated. Sex on the Brain is a chatty, fairly evenhanded report on a broad range of animal and human studies intended to provide insight into hot-button issues such as aggression, nurturing behavior, infidelity, homosexuality, hormonal drives, and sexual signals. According to one researcher, "We inherit the behavior essentially of our past." Morning sickness, for example, which steers some women away from strong tastes and smells, may once have protected babes in utero from toxic items. Infidelity is a way for men to ensure genetic immortality. Interestingly, when we deliberately change sex-role behavior--say men become more nurturing or women more aggressive--our hormones and even our brains respond by changing, too.

About the Author

Pulitzer Prize winner Deborah Blum is a professor of science journalism at the University of Wisconsin. She worked as a newspaper science writer for twenty years, winning the Pulitzer in 1992 for her writing about primate research, which she turned into a book, The Monkey Wars (Oxford, 1994). Her other books include Sex on the Brain (Viking, 1997) and Love at Goon Park (Perseus, 2002). She has written about scientific research for The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Discover, Health, Psychology Today, and Mother Jones. She is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers and now serves on an advisory board to the World Federation of Science Journalists and the National Academy of Sciences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0140263489
• ISBN 13: 9780140263480
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352