25 June 2008 - 14:48Book Reveiw: Why Men never remember and Women never forget

From Scientific American
A four-year-old could tell you that men and women are not the same, but even adults struggle to explain why. That is where Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget steps in. Citing a plethora of recent research, Marianne J. Legato sets out to describe why men and women vary so widely in their reactions and thoughts. In so doing, she hopes that readers will grasp the science of our biochemically controlled brains and, in light of it, seek to limit discord between men and women in the home and workplace. A tool kit to fix the male-female communication conundrum is an admirable goal, but one that Legato does not quite achieve. Although the science behind our divergent brains provides mini-epiphanies, the focus of the book gets lost in its mix of memoir, guidance and concrete science. The information to help the sexes get along better shows up occasionally, as in a brief reference to a mother who employs what she now knows about the male brain to fi ght less with her teenage son. Still, there are a lot of diversions along the way. One distraction is the decidedly female vantage point taken. Legato, a champion of rectifying medicine’s lapse in female-focused research, is a doctor who founded Columbia University’s Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine, where the word “gender” might as well be “female.” For a book trying to bridge knowledge gaps, Legato represents the male world in strikingly few instances. The skewed view may arise from trying to force the theme of “the sexes are from different planets.” Legato might have better served the reader by explaining how sex-based brain revelations can affect our lives—how doctors could provide better health care when it is geared toward each sex, how teacher could optimize student learning by tailoring their approaches, and, yes, why women in the bedroom need not be offended if their male partners do not necessarily want to cuddle. Despite missing the opportunity to explore the future relevance of gender brain science, the book does offer a fair amount of enlightening information. Although Legato does not provide that much guidance for how to use our new awareness, a thinking person can start to figure it out. And whether you are male or female, isn’t that what our brains are for?

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