Mark Liberman of Language Log hasn’t yet read Louann’s Brizendine’s The Male Brain, but he’s already skeptical. With, evidently, good reason. After reading a review by Vaughn Bell at Mindhacks Liberman says it looks like…

...Dr. Brizendine’s new book is cut from the same cloth as her earlier one, The Female Brain. (See here, here and here for links to previous LL discussion.) Vaughan quotes this passage from [Brizendine’s] CNN piece

Our brains are mostly alike. We are the same species, after all. But the differences can sometimes make it seem like we are worlds apart.

The “defend your turf” area — dorsal premammillary nucleus — is larger in the male brain and contains special circuits to detect territorial challenges by other males. And his amygdala, the alarm system for threats, fear and danger is also larger in men. These brain differences make men more alert than women to potential turf threats.

and notes that

Male and female humans are indeed the same species, but we are not a species which has a dorsal premammillary nucleus because it’s only been identified in the rat.

Furthermore, there is no reliable evidence that amygdala size differs between the sexes in humans and a recent study that looked specifically at this issue found no difference.

Liberman said it here.

In other words it’s approximately as disingenuous for Brizendine to bring up rats’ dorsal premammillary nuclei while discussing men’s and women’s brains as it would be for her to bring the venomous spurs of the male Australian platypus while discussing men’s and women’s ankles, or male moose antler placement in the context of human skulls.

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You might want to follow the links back to Liberman’s post to see how various gay and lesbian commenters responded to Brizendine’s claim that testosterone forces men to stare at women’s breasts.

All that testosterone drives the “Man Trance“– that glazed-eye look a man gets when he sees breasts. As a woman who was among the ranks of the early feminists, I wish I could say that men can stop themselves from entering this trance. But the truth is, they can’t. Their visual brain circuits are always on the lookout for fertile mates. Whether or not they intend to pursue a visual enticement, they have to check out the goods.

Actually, here’s one comment that refers to another

“Dierk’s reaction echoes mine. As I gay man, I can confidently say I’ve never been entranced by a woman’s breasts. “

Yeah, me neither. Brizedine flatters herself. Testosterone makes me look at her husband’s stubbly jawline, not her breasts.

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Finally, though, Liberman repeats an excellent point he first raised in discussion of Brizendine’s earlier book, The Female Brain.

As I’ve watched the reaction to Louann Brizendine’s book over the past few months, I’ve concluded that “scientific studies” like these have taken over the place that bible stories used to occupy. It’s only fundamentalists like me who worry about whether they’re true. For most people, it’s only important that they’re morally instructive.

Actually while I completely agree with Liberman’s general premise — “scientific” studies like this really are the new bible stories — I think he’s got it almost exactly backwards on the whole “innate gender difference” genre. Because whereas bible stories generally really are meant to be morally instructive and uplifting, virtually all gender-difference stories are meant (and sought!) to justify or excuse the often highly-immoral status quo. It might not be the intent of authors either to uplift (bible) or downtrod (sociobiologists) but it certainly seems to be the intent of those who most-often pass them on.

And with that in mind The Male Brain is bound to be another best-seller.

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Final question: Does Brizendine really imagine that human women are less territorial than men? Or less aware of territorial challenges? Has she never been in a school lunchroom? An office cubicle farm? A theater dressing room? A restaurant kitchen? Hello? Neither men nor women have a monopoly, or even a charter, in that department.