What would feminist theorists say to the neurological research which shows that it takes the male brain only 0.2 sec to classify a woman as ‘hot’? No doubt a recapitulation of the never-ending Nature versus Nurture debate. But the 2008 study entitled ‘The Chronoarchitecture of Human Sexual Desire: A High-Density Electrical Mapping Study’ reveals that the ‘hot-or-not’ decision is made before the brain is anywhere close to consciously processing sexual desirability.
Scientific studies like this, and the questions they prompt about gender, neuroscience and society,are the driving force behind Louann Brizendine’s most recent book ‘The Male Brain’, the timely sequel to her 2006 international bestseller ‘The Female Brain’. Both books map the neurological, chemical and developmental changes that accompany the phases of life in men and women, and gives the scientific evidence behind such well-known phenomena as the ‘biological clock’ in women, and the lesser-known and ‘sympathetic pregnancy’ or Couvade syndrome in men.
Brizendine is undeniably qualified to produce popular reading on the scientific basis behind sex and gender; her resume includes a degree in neurobiology from UC Berkeley, a doctorate in medicine from Yale University and a residency in psychiatry at Harvard. Her book deftly and accessibly blends research in neurology, biochemistry and psychology to explain some of the most puzzling aspects of masculinity, ranging from the adolescent’s bizarre obsession with computer games to the ‘sugar-daddy’ phenomenon of older men marrying much younger women. According to Brizendine, there is a neurochemical basis to these and other male stereotypes and she has Nature papers cited to prove it.
While any self-respecting scientist will balk at some of Brizendine’s conclusions based on research that does not presume to attribute causation to its findings, her books fill a literary niche in applying science to gendered relationships in easily digestible prose. Brizendine leaves the question of how much of this gendered behavior is innate and how much is learned unanswered but ultimately suggests that with a deeper understanding of the male brain, ‘we can create more realistic expectations for boys and men’.
While few quick reads are as informative for one’s daily life as Brizendine’s books, it would be most interesting to see how contemporary feminist theorists negotiate the scientific research underpinning her claims. For example, gender theorist Judith Butler has been asserting the performative nature of gender since the 1980s, to the extent that her undergraduate lecture students at UC Berkeley, could not tell whether she was a man or a woman), suggesting that every day one must choose whether to be a man or a woman. How can the fact that the area of the brain which governs sexual pursuit is 2.5 times larger in men than in women, be reconciled with Butler’s championing of androgyny? Perhaps this disjuncture in scholarship is symptomatic of some larger impasse between the sciences and the humanities. However, Brizendine has placed the ball in the feminists’ court. It is now time for them to look into some neuroscience themselves before lobbing it back.
