Chapter 3:
There were so many interesting facts in the chapter about teenage girls!! like the fact that girls can hear tone in voice better depending on where they are in their cycle (p. 34)!! that is incredible. also, the fact that estrogen can change the way a girl responds to light (p. 43). i was wondering if that maybe had something to do with SAD?? i don't know if there's a higher risk for girls, but since twice as many girls are depressed on average as boys, it seems plausible.
i thought everything about the hormone cycles was fascinating. I remember learning about it in the Women's Biology class Emily and i took, but they didn't really focus on how the hormones affect mood, just the shifts in hormone throughout the month. it makes me feel better about myself, knowing there are women who are a lot meaner than me when they start their periods ;) but i liked how Brizendine called PMDD being "allergic" to hormone changes (p. 48). that made a lot of sense to me; actually, everything makes more sense to me in this book because the language is so easy to follow and the metaphors are simple but dead-on.
it kind of makes me scared to teach high school girls, reading about all the crazy things their bodies make them do and how they lash out. but i have a feeling that most of the examples in this book are extreme cases. because i certainly don't remember being that much of a terror when i was a teenager, though i should probably ask my mom to make sure!!
at least now when i get into a high school setting, i will know what the girls are going though, and how their transformation in puberty is different from boys and how the sexes differ in their learning/behavioral styles. i might have to keep this book in my classroom for quick reference during a crisis ;)
Chapter 4:
another interesting chapter! i really liked this one because it correlates with what i learned in the first half of my anthropology class last semester, which mostly talked about sex and evolution in humans. so everything that Brizendine says about what men find attractive i could relate with and understand exactly what was going on. yay! a few things she didn't point out (at least, i don't think she did) which are also interesting and helpful:
1. women are more attracted to "handsome" men during ovulation, so they are more likely to cheat or try to "trade-up" their mates. This comes from a woman's biological need to find the mate who will give her offspring the best genes.
2. men like women whose faces show neoteny (which means they have a very narrow jaw and wide forehead, kind of like a heart shaped face) because it means that the woman has higher estrogen levels (AKA is more fertile). it also makes a woman look younger, even juvenile. which is why so many models have this face shape.
3. men always want younger wives because they are more fertile. unless it's a teenage boy, who should want an older woman because she would be more fertile than a girl his own age!
sorry if you guys already knew all that!! it's just some of the stuff i can remember from class that i thought about while reading the chapter.
I really liked the discussions of how the brain chemically reacts to the first few months of a relationship. I like the idea of a crush being like a drug high and that breaking up with or being separated from that person is identical to a drug withdrawal (p. 66-7). it's an easy example to relate to and i think it helps put everything in perspective, especially at the teenage level. I think understanding how hormonally severe the first phase of a relationship is helps provide empathy and patience for whoever is dealing with the person who is suffering from the throes of love :) i just watched Dan in Real Life the other day and one of the daughters is a teenager in love. at one point she screams at her dad (Steve Carell) that he is a "murderer of love!!!!!!" because he won't let her boyfriend (who she fell in love with after 3 days) go on vacation with them.
other interesting things from this chapter: i had no idea that men are more sexually receptive when they're stressed but women have a hard time acting romantic or relationship-friendly unless they're relaxed (p. 72). that's a difficult situation! i certainly don't want to play nice when i'm a stressed out, i want everyone to go the hell away ;)
also, the idea of a monogamy gene in men (p. 73) that they experimented with in rats. that men have vasopressin receptor genes that vary in length and that length variation may determine how prone to monogamy they are!! i particularly liked the tongue-in-cheek comments Brizendine made about gene length being the only length women should be worried about in a partner and that scientists should make a new "pregnancy" test that indicates how long the gene is in men ;) let's get to work on that!
-Laura
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
This book is brilliant! I don't think I have read something that doesn't make sense to me yet, becasue Brizendine uses language that isn't confusing and technical but still gets the point across.
I know what you mean about being afraid to teach teenage girls! But at least we were there once and have a good understanding of what it is like to be one. I think male teachers (and pretty much ever other male that ever comes into contact with women) should read this book. I think it would help them so much. That Mark guy, who is in our Monday night class, is already teaching and had his first big encouter with the female brain last month. He said one of his students came in and she was freaking out, crying so much she couldn't talk. He was really worried about her, so he gave the class something to do for a few minutes and took her out in the hall to calm her down and find out what happened. (He figured someone died or something) Of course, it was a boy thing, because she and her boyfriend had just broken up. This girl might just be over-the-top melodramatic, but she could also have been in a low point in her cycle, which would just intensify things. The next time she came in like that, Mark just told her she could sit in the hall for a few minutes to compose herself and calm down. Which is actually pretty cool, because most teachers would have made her come in and sit there while everyone stared at her.
I liked how chapter 4 kind of talked about love at first sight without using that kind of phrase. It is all so chemical! No wonder we are all screwed up about men, seriously. I also really liked how Brizendine kept that storyline going for the whole chapter, and knew that we (women) would want to know the ending of it.
We totally should develop that test for men! That would be way better than finding a cure for baldness.
Those facts are interesting, Laura! I don't think I really knew them before, and they might be something to bring up in our paper/presentation, because they help give us even more understanding :)
Post a Comment