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

Blum, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670868884 ISBN 13: 9780670868889

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1997

Synopsis

A Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer presents a provocative, humorous analysis of the biology of gender, handling such topics as why adolescents males and females gossip differently and why relationships break up. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0670868884
• ISBN 13: 9780670868889
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 329