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

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Table of Contents

PENGUIN BOOKS

SEX ON THE BRAIN

Deborah Blum is the author of The Monkey Wars and a coeditor of A Field Guide for Science Writers. She is a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Previously, she covered science for The Sacramento Bee and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for a series exploring the ethical dilemmas of using primates in research. Her work has also been published in Psychology Today, Discover, and Time-Life books. She serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Science Writers.

Praise for Sex on the Brain

A riveting investigation into the biological differences between men and women.... Blums incisive exploration cannot fail to amaze, confound, and delight readers.

Rosemary Mahoney, Elle

Blum manages the tricky art of good science reporting: she has a friendly, conversational tone that is relaxing without being chirpy, she writes clearly and accessibly, and the science is all there.

The New York Times Book Review

An extraordinary roller coaster ride over the bumpy intellectual territoryendocrinology, neurology, genetics, anthropology, sociologybetween sociobiology and psychiatry.

New York Observer

Blum surveys the field of current [gender] research with mastery ... even the title is provocative.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

Deborah Blum uses tact, intelligence, and humor to enliven her journey through the political and scientific minefield of sex differences. Matt Ridley, author of The Origins of Virtue

Blum is a superb science reporter who presents just the right amount of complexity, tries to explain findings rather than just report them, and writes in a consistently clear and pleasant style.

Steven Pinker, Slate

For Lucas and Marcus

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have happened without a great deal of help and support, and it gives me real pleasure to say thank you.

I am indebted to many scientists for taking the time to share their ideas and research with me. In particular, Kim Wallen, of Emory University; Marc Breedlove, of the University of California, Berkeley; and Judy Stamps and Sally Mendoza, of the University of California, Davis, not only provided information, references, and sources, but allowed me to bounce my ideas off them, kept me from traveling astray, and responded always with great thoughtfulness.

Others took much extra time and trouble in providing research papers and answering my questions, my follow-up questions, and then more questions, and I would like to especially thank Ruben and Raquel Gur, of the University of Pennsylvania; Thomas Insel, director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta; Donald Grayson, of the University of Washington at Seattle; David Gubernick of the University of California, Davis; Paul Lombardo, of the University of Virginia; Adrienne Zihlman, of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Alan Booth, of the Pennsylvania State University; Bobbi Low, of the University of Michigan; and Daryl Bern, of Cornell University. I also appreciated the thoughtful discussions of their work by David Amaral, Randell Alexander, Jay Belsky, James Dabbs Jr., Frans de Waal, Marian Diamond, Anne Fernald, Ellen Frank, Dean Hamer, and John Wingfield.

I also am grateful to the researchers who read and improved the manuscript: Michael Bailey, Jay Belsky, Marc Breedlove, Jane Brockmann, James Dabbs Jr., Frans de Waal, Christine Drea, Donald Grayson, David Gubernick, Dean Hamer, Paul Lombardo, Bobbi Low, Sally Mendoza, Ron Nadler, and Kim Wallen. My husband, Peter Haugen, a literature major and theater critic, read and polished the whole manuscript, argued with me, encouraged me, and transformed some of my most convoluted thoughts into clarity. And Vikings talented production staffespecially copy editor Cathy Dexter and production editor Barbara Campowere enormously helpful.

I am fortunate to work at a regional newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, that has an unwavering commitment to science writing. When I became interested in behavioral biology, the editors encouraged me to explore the subject through an in-depth series, Only Human, which appeared in late 1995. Some of the interviews in the bookfor instance, the discussions with Richard Lynn, Steven Petersen, Bruce Perry, Jerome Kagan, and Tom Gordonare drawn directly from that series. For all their support and encouragement, I would like to thank my editorsJanet Vitt, Bill Enfield, Marjie Lundstrom, Rick Rodriguezand especially executive editor Gregory Favre, who has always challenged me to do even better.

My friends put up with me while I became obsessed with the subject of sex differences, tried out my theories on them, and asked them all kinds of personal questionswhich they answered with good humor and only the occasional roll of the eyes. My special gratitude on this count to Jim Richardson, Chris Bowman, Daryl Metz, Janet Fullwood, and Maria LaPiana.

My agent, Suzanne Gluck, convinced me that I should write a book on gender biology and, as always, stayed through the process as adviser and friend. And I felt blessed in my editor, Dawn Drzal, who made me work harder than I wanted to but made the book a great deal better as well.

Deborah Blum
Sacramento, California
December 1996

INTRODUCTION

There comes a moment in everyones life when the opposite sex suddenly appears to be an alien species. Totally and mind-bogglingly different. The world cleaves apart, with us on one side and them on the other.

I came to this epiphany late because I was raised in one of those university-based, liberal-elite families that politicians like to make fun of. In my childhood, every human beingregardless of genderwas exactly alike, and I mean exactly, barring his or her different opportunities. Even Santa Claus felt strongly about this, apparently. One Christmas, I received a Barbie doll and a baseball glove. Another brought a green enamel stove, which baked tiny cakes by the heat of a lightbulb, and also a set of steel-tipped darts and a competition-quality dartboard.

It wasnt until I became a parentI should say, a parent of two boysthat I realized I had been fed a line and swallowed it like a sucker (barring the part about opportunities, which I still believe). This dawned on me during my older sons dinosaur phase, which began when he was about two and a half. Oh, he loved dinosaurs, all right, but only the blood-swilling carnivores. Plant-eaters were wimps and losers, and he refused even to wear a T-shirt if it was marred by a picture of a stegosaur. I looked down at him one day as he was snarling around my feet and doing his toddler best to gnaw off my right leg, and I thought, This is not a girl thingthis goes deeper than culture.

Raising children tends to bring on this kind of politically incorrect reaction; another friend came to the same conclusion watching a son determinedly bite his breakfast toast into a pistol that he hoped would eliminate his younger brother. Once you get past the guilt partDid I do this? Should I have bought him that plastic allosaurus with the oversized teeth?you end up asking the far more interesting questions that lead into gender biology, where the issues take a different shape: does a love of carnage begin in culture or genetics, and which drives which? Do the gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology and, in turn, does the way we behave influence that biology? Can one redirect the other?

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