Assignment 4 (Nonfiction Book Review): The Female Brain Book

By: Siti Maharani Salsabilla 

(A1B218074)

Book details:

·      Book title: The Female Brain

·      Genre: psychology

·      The author: Louann Brizendine, M.D

·      Translator: Meda Satrio

·      Publisher: Ufuk Press

·      Publication Year: 2007

·      Number of pages: 352 pages

·      Language: Indonesia

·      Price: Rp. 45.000

·      Published edition number: ISBN 979-1238-27-8

“You work on logic, she works on emotion”

People say, especially men, it is difficult to get to know women well because women are complicated and difficult to understand creatures. For some men, understanding women is a difficult thing, even more difficult than doing math exam. In addition, if we hear a book that discusses about the brain, especially the female brain, the first thing that comes to our mind is something that is very complicated, complex, and maybe boring for some people, but not with the explanation inside this book.

The Female Brain is a book released in 2006 written by American neurologist Louann Brizendine, M.D, a pioneer of neuropsychiatry and director of the Women's and Teen Girls' Mood and Hormone Clinic (the first clinic in the United States to specifically research and think  female brain function).  In words that don’t use rigid scientific language, which are easy to understand, and with examples drawn from everyday experience, she reveals the latest findings that show how unique the structure of the female brain is that determines how women think, the things that women think is important, how they communicate, and who they will love.

 Louann Brinzendine

This book explains the life cycle of women from fetus to the elderly by taking a medical approach.  Brinzendine writes that every time a woman enters a phase of her life, each time there are changes in hormonal levels that can affect physical development, and what is more emphasized in this book is the emotional changes of women that greatly affect the way they socialize, communicate, make decisions,  negotiations, facing conflicts, to matters of love.

This book is very clear in explaining these emotional changes and how women deal with them, as well as some advice on how we should respond to them. From this book we can also find out some of the reasons why women talk more than men, why women remember details of quarrels that men cannot remember at all, why young girls are so obsessed with their appearance, why women are more sensitive than men, etc. All of this we can find the answer in this book. Louann Brizendine has conducted this research for 20 years, so that she is able to convey all of these things in a language style that is easy to understand and accompanied by examples of real events in everyday life making it easier for us to understand every information presented in this book.

As someone who really likes things related to psychology, this book has become one of my favorite book lists after Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. This is because I think by reading psychology books I can understand what is going on in me, besides that I can also better understand how a person's character is. The interesting part in this book is the explanation of how the female brain in the phase of sexual maturity experiences changes from puberty where it occurs in increased sensitivity, growth of stress circuits, verbal, emotions that make women in this phase experience changes in the circuit of making decision and control emotions ripen early. It is not surprising that women are able to control their emotions earlier than men.

Not only understanding hormones in women, this book is also highly recommended for women who are still single and for couples who are getting married. Because this book is equipped with real cases in a family, the problems after marriage are very real and are fully explained with their hormonal causes and how to overcome them. For women who often experience stress, especially myself who feel it, emotional problems with a partner and so on, will also get a clear explanation regarding what happens to the real female brain.

Even after reading this book as a woman we will know how to react in case of disturbances that can make bad changes to our brain circuits. What I can conclude from this book is that hormones are very influential on changes in the female brain region. This book is perfect for young people to adults who are eager to know why a woman can behave unexpectedly and act differently at each stage. Especially for men, you must read this book so that you don't get caught up in dealing with women. 😄

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louann_Brizendine