THE FEMALE BRAIN EXPLAINED
I’m going to kick things off with The Female Brain by Dr. Louann Brizendine,
a book that I would definitely add to the top Game-related reading list I started here
(http://www.neilstrauss.com/neil/a-seducers-library-the-top-ten-game-booksplus-two), along with its sequel, The Male Brain—which, tellingly, is not only 55
pages shorter than her analysis of the female brain, but the print is much larger.
The Female Brain is written better and more clearly than most science and
psychology books. But despite being a quick easy read, it is packed with quality
content. I underlined something on almost every page, and it supports a lot of the
theories and observations we developed while doing our own version of “lab work”
in The Game.
Here are a few of the interesting facts, answers, and takeaways from her
writing on the female brain, which she describes as a machine built for connection:
WHY MEN ARE SMARTER THAN WOMEN
Just kidding. Wanted to get your attention. She does say that the male brain is larger
than the female brain by nine percent (even after correcting for body size), but this
doesn’t mean that men are any smarter. In fact, she says, in the brain centers for
language and hearing, women have eleven percent more neurons than men. And
that a baby girl is born with a more mature brain, which develops one or two years
quicker than a boy’s.
WHY WOMEN ARE SADDER THAN MEN
Another shocking headline, but slightly more true: There’s a two-to-one ratio of
depression in women compared to men.
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE OF THE FRIEND ZONE
A study “scanned the brains of men and women observing neutral scenes of a man
and a woman having a conversation. The male brains’ sexual areas immediately
sparked—they saw it as a potential sexual rendezvous. The female brains did not
have any activation in the sexual areas. The female brains saw the situation as just
two people talking.” Welcome to the life of a guy with oneitis: there’s no sexual
possibility to her, just two people talking. But don’t give up hope…
HOW TO GET OUT OF FRIEND ZONE
Okay, follow this: A girl’s brains primary goals, says Brizendine, are to forge
connections, to create community, and to organize and orchestrate a girl’s world so
that she’s at the center of it. That’s one of the reasons women enjoy keeping guys
with oneitis dancing around them. But at the same time, a woman is careful, she
continues, to walk a fine line between making sure she’s at the center of her
friendships and “risking pushing those relationships away.” The goal is to get what
she wants “without sacrificing the relationship.”
My biggest mistake as an AFC was to build a relationship with a woman I was
attracted to—to give her everything—thinking that somehow I was going to get sex
or romance as a result. She already had what she needed, and wasn’t attracted and
didn’t want anything more. So to get out of friend zone, take it away the
friendship—with no anger, no explanation, no expectation. Just disappear for a
while. When you return, then begin the seduction—and do it right this time. It’s one
of the basic strategies in Robert Greene’s The Art of Seduction.
To quote Brizendine, “Men’s self-esteem derives more from their ability to
maintain independence from others, while women’s self-esteem is maintained in
part by the ability to sustain intimate relationships with others.”
Note: Although I quote Brizendine as a source for the information here, most of this did
not come from her own studies, but studies she cites in the book and in its 130-plus
pages of endnotes.
WHY WOMEN DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT MEN NEED TO LEARN HOW TO
ATTRACT THEM
According to Brizendine, males in the womb, with only one X chromosome and al lot
of extra testosterone, get “more socially handicapped” than women. As a result, men
in later life have to learn social behaviors and nuances that women understand
intuitively and take for granted.
She goes on to say that biologically men are chasers and women are
choosers. She paraphrases Darwin, who said that males of all species were made for
wooing females and females typically chose among their suitors. In fact, there’s
actually an area in the hypothalamus known as “the area for sexual pursuit” that’s
larger in men. It’s called Strauss’s Region (no, actually it’s not).
“Guys often have to talk women into having sex,” she concludes. “It’s usually
not the first thing on women’s minds.”
WHY APPROACH ANXIETY MAKES SENSE
“Rejection,” Brizendine writes, “actually hurts like physical pain because it triggers
the same circuits in the brain.”
SHOULD WOMEN WHO TALK NONSTOP BE PUNISHED?
On average, says Brizendine, girls speak two to three times more words per day
than boys—and at a quicker pace. Biologically, she continues, connecting through
talking activates the pleasure centers in a woman’s brain, especially sharing secrets
about romance and sexuality. The dopamine and oxytocin rush, she goes on to claim,
is the greatest neurological reward a woman can get outside of an orgasm. (And is a
good argument for the effectiveness of certain speed seduction patterns.) She says
that in colonial America, women were put in town stocks with wooden clips on their
tongues or dunked for the crime of “talking too much.” I know what some of you are
thinking: keep it to yourself.
WHY WOMEN HAVE TROUBLE LETTING GO OF BAD RELATIONSHIPS
According to Brizendine, outside of the sexual pursuit area, the hippocampus is
larger and more active in women. And this is the area of the brain where, among
other things, emotional memories are stored—including those of romances and
positive feelings. So it’s hard to forget the hopes and dreams that they once
endowed a relationship with.
In addition, being dumped, she goes on to say, “actually heightens the
pheromone of passionate love in the brain circuits.” This latter point is true of both
men and women. And, yes, women may remember things longer, but men can overreact in the moment. According to Brizendine, men are three to four times more
likely to commit suicide over a breakup.
EVE CAME BEFORE ADAM
Many of you may also already know this, but if not, all you men were once women.
Until we are eight weeks old in the womb, we all have “female” brains and
reproductive organs, until, in male babies, shots of the hormones testosterone and
MIS “defeminize” (as she puts it) the brain and body.
WHY NEGS WORK ON THREE-MONTH OLDS
“Baby girls are born interested in emotional expressions,” she writes. “They take
meaning about themselves from a look, a touch, every reaction from the people they
come into contact with. From these cues, they discover whether they are worthy,
lovable, or annoying.”
Furthermore, she goes on to explain, baby girls interpret an emotionless face
as a negative sign that they’re not doing something right, and will go after the
person until they get an emotional response. In fact, I know women—and some
men—many decades older who do this with their partners in relationships.
Brizendine goes on to say that this instinct is what makes some adult women
fall for narcissistic or emotionally unavailable men.
She adds that key for a young girl as she grows up is being listened to, which
validates and grows her sense of self. It’s interesting, that many negs (like, “Where’s
her off button?”) are based on invalidating her feeling of being heard.
When girls hits puberty, Brizendine continues, they become “almost
exclusively interested in their appearance, specifically whether the boys who
populate their real and fantasy worlds will find them attractive.” Thus, the birth of
another class of negs, based on fashion and appearance.
As her brain continues to marinate in estrogen and progesterone, the femalespecific brain circuits, she writes, become “even more sensitive to emotional
nuances, such as approval and disapproval, acceptance and rejection.” And so comes
another category of negs, the push-pull, punishment-reward, validation-invalidation
games.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO PERVERTS: The above section is by no means intended to
convey that it’s okay to sarge three-month or thirteen year olds. These examples are
provided solely to explain the scientific basis of social interactions with mature women
by examining the development of their minds.
WHY SUBCOMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT WHEN SARGING
Brizendine writes that the female brain has been designed to be much more
observant of subtle facial and vocal cues. This way, women can attend to the
important needs of their children, and also keep both their children and themselves
safe by being able to predict what a larger or more aggressive male is going to do.
They are also designed to bond with other women, in order to protect themselves in
the safety of the group. In fact, in games, studies show that girls take turns twenty
times more than boys, who are usually fighting for status, power, or territory.
WHY LOVE IS BLIND
Brizendine says that when we are in love, the brain becomes involuntarily illogical.
This in-love state shares the same brain circuits with thirst and hunger—and
intoxication. “The brain circuits that are activated when we are in love match those
of the drug addict desperately craving the next fix.”
EITHER THIS IS A TYPO OR I’M GOING TO START HAVING SEX DIFFERENTLY FROM
NOW ON
Brizendine has a great section on the female orgasm, which takes on average three
to ten times longer than that of a man. As we all know, women generally need to be
free of anxiety, stress, and discomfort in the moment in order to have an orgasm;
but she adds that researchers discovered that “women needed to be comfortable
and have their feet kept warm before they felt like engaging in sex.” No longer is it
necessary for AFCs to get a girl drunk; just give her wool socks. Brizendine goes on
to correlate shortened breath, arched back, and warm feet with signs of a woman’s
orgasm.
For the record, however, I disagree with a point she makes shortly afterward:
that there is no difference between a vaginal and a clitoral orgasm. She says they’re
both the same thing. I have no scientific evidence to prove otherwise, but I do have
some experience. And, sure, one can argue that a different area of the clitoris is just
being stimulated vaginally, but most women have two very different types of
orgasm from these two different types of stimulation.
ANOTHER ORGASM FUN FACT
Women who are seeing other men on the side have a tendency to fake orgasms
more with their primary partner, says Brizendine. This is evidently a subconscious
gambit, she says, to make her partner feel she is satisfied by him and faithful.
A FACT THAT’S A BUMMER FOR ME (THOUGH I GET TO COIN A NEW WORD)
Many of you may already know that people find suitors with symmetrical faces
more attractive: evidently, a lack of symmetry is seen as a sign of disease,
malnutrition, or genetic defects. (I wonder if that’s one of the reasons why guys who
leer seem creepy.) Anyway, what I didn’t know is that women supposedly have a
higher frequency of orgasms during sexual intercourse with partners with more
symmetrical facial features and bodies. Finally, she notes that men with symmetrical
features end up in bed with women they’re dating quicker than men who are less
symmetrical (regardless of the rest of their other attractive qualities). These
symmetri-men also invest the least amount of time and money on those they date—
and they cheat more.
WHY LOOKS MATTER MORE TO MEN THAN WOMEN
Some of you may have already read David Buss’s The Evolution of Desire. (Any
volunteers to write a report on his book for The Inner Circle?) She cites his
discovery that in every culture, “Women are less concerned with a potential
husband’s visual appeal and more interested in his material resources and social
status.” So get out of the gym, and get in the field.
We’ve already established this in Rules of the Game, as we have her next
point, which is that the reason men like women who are young and beautiful—with
clear skin, bright eyes, full lips, shiny hair, and Victoria Secret model curves—is
because these are indicators of health and fertility. In fact, one of the subconscious
reasons women have those hideous lip injections is because plumped lips are an
indicator to men of higher estrogen.
As a result of being so visual, however, men, she says, have a greater
tendency to fall in love at first sight than women. “Once a person is in love,” she
continues, “the cautious, critical-thinking pathways in the brain shut down.” Oneitis
anyone?
HOW TO MAKE A WOMAN—OR BUSINESS CONTACT—TRUST YOU
According to Brizendine, a rush of oxytocin and dopamine to the brain will suppress
anxiety and skepticism. And one way to release oxytocin in women is hugging and
cuddling. Oxytocin is naturally released in the brain after a twenty-second hug,
triggering the trust circuits, she says, and increasing the likelihood that a woman
“will believe everything and anything” she is told by the hugger.
Now you may not want to hug a business contact, but a study discovered that
investors who were administered a nasal spray with oxytocin offered twice as much
money to a project as investors who weren’t dosed.
And, sure, if you don’t have the oxytocin spray, you can try hugging your
business partner—but it’s going to have to be an uncomfortably special hug. Men,
she says, have to be touched two to three times more frequently to sustain the same
levels of oxytocin as women.
ANOTHER NOTE: All of the statements in this report are obviously generalizations.
There are many brain and hormonal variation between individual women, and what’s
true for one here may be less true for another. In addition, most of the titles of these
posts are even broader generalizations, meant mostly to catch your eye—because this
is a monster of a post. Hope you’re getting something out of it though.
A SEDUCTION TIP FOR WOMEN
After intense physical challenges, Brizendine writes, men will bond quickly and
sexually with “the first willing female they lay eyes on.” So standing at the summit of
Mt. Everest may be a great place to meet men.
Brizendine goes on to speculate this may be why soldiers sometimes shock
friends and relatives by bringing home brides after a war. (Maybe that’s what
happened when Elvis Presley was stationed in Germany during and met his future
wife Priscilla.)
However, men beware: this will not work for you. She says women will
“rebuff” advances or expressions of affection and desire when under stress.
Evidently, the fairy tales are wrong: saving the life of a damsel in distress is not
going to make her want to marry you.
WHY MEN DON’T LIKE SLUTS
You’d think men, who fantasize about sex constantly, would love easy women. But
Brizendine cites basic evolutionary biology, stating that social reputation is a factor
in male selection. This is because a man wants to make sure a woman mates only
with them to insure his paternity—and he also wants to make sure she sticks
around to properly nurture the child.
THE SURVIVAL OF THE SMOOTHEST PROVEN?
I was originally going to call The Game by the title Survival of the Smoothest.
Brizendine would have agreed. “Some anthropologists,” she writes, “speculate that
natural selection favored men who were good at deceiving women and getting them
to agree to have sex.”
MY NEW FAVORITE ROUTINE
Okay, take this with a grain of salt, because not everyone can do this—or should. But
I’ve been trying, for fun, to guess where women are in their menstrual cycle. Sounds
completely insane, but if you come from a place of curiosity and are NOT
threatening, judgmental, or creepy, it can quickly liven up a conversation.
The key is this: In the first two weeks of a woman’s cycle, estrogen is high
and she is more likely to be socially interested and relaxed with others. In addition,
there is a 25 percent growth of connections in the hippocampus, which makes the
brain a bit sharper, quicker, clearer, and able to remember more. In the second
week, when she is the most fertile, she will be the most flirtatious.
However, on day 14, at ovulation, progesterone increases and estrogen
lessens, and the brain becomes at first more sedated, then gradually more irritable.
Finally, in the last few days of the cycle, we all know what happens to some women
(yet are smart enough not to tell them in the moment): she becomes more liable to
be upset, stressed, negative, hostile, depressed, and have impaired judgment that
tends to lead to uncontrollable, dramatic emotions. So tread lightly if you choose to
make this a conversation piece.
One final fun menstrual fact: Be wary if you’re in a relationship. Evidently
ovulating women with partners prefer the smell of other, more dominant men
(though single women don’t, which, Brizendine says, means they are looking more
for providers, whereas the women who already have providers and are looking for
studs to mate with; in fact, ten percent of children in a study were not actually
conceived by the man who thought he was their father).
WHY WOMEN TEND TO STICK WITH THEIR FRIENDS INSTEAD OF GOING HOME
WITH A GUY
Women tend to avoid overt conflict. Their brains, as we’ve said, work to preserve
relationships. Just the “thought” of a conflict is enough to feel threatening. Thus
there is an evolutionary concern that a real conflict or disagreement or negative
feeling with a friend might end the relationship. So when it comes to either rejecting
a guy or keeping a current friend, many women choose the latter.
YET ANOTHER NOTE: Many of the correlations in this report between the female brain
and attraction, seduction, and pickup are not in the book, but my own conclusions,
based on Brizendine’s findings.
ARE GIRLS WITH ACNE EASY
According to Brizendine, they are. It’s a clue that her androgen levels are high,
making her more likely to have sex. (If only I knew this in high school. She also adds,
in case you haven’t already experienced this, that girls taking oral birth control have
lowered sexual drives.
WHY TAKEAWAYS WORK—AND DRAMATIC RELATIONSHIPS DRAG ON
“If you’re a girl,” she writes, “you’ve been programmed to make sure you keep social
harmony. This is a matter of life and death to the brain.” And furthermore, “the state
of romantic love can be reignited by the threat or fear of losing one’s partner.”
WHY YOUR RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS MAY NOT BE YOUR FAULT
These differences in the brain often lead to marital problems: Some women get
upset that their husbands don’t like being social or having long talks or being
emotionally open. But this, Brizendine says, is not his fault. It’s just his brain
chemistry.
More intensely, if a woman’s partner “stops talking to her or responding
emotionally, she thinks that he disapproves of her, that she’s done something
wrong, or that he doesn’t love her anymore. She’ll panic that she’s losing him
or…think he’s having an affair.“ Sound familiar to anyone?
THE BIOLOGY BEHIND GETTING BLOWN OUT BY A GIRL YOU’RE NOT EVEN
ATTRACTED TO
Ever see a girl in a club who you’re just not into. In fact, you don’t think she’s
attractive at all. Yet she’s strutting around like she’s the hottest girl in the room and
shooting down guys left and right. Brizendine explains: “Women who were the most
outspoken and had the highest self-regard also had the highest levels of estrogen,
testosterone, and androstenedione. They also ranked themselves above how their
peers ranked them.” So although you may be put off by her, when closing time rolls
around, just remember what Brizendine says about women with more testosterone.
As an unmarried man, the section of the book that I’m going to report on now—the
second half—is the part that fills me with terror: The stage of life when the woman
you marry becomes less in love with you and may even lose all interest sexually.
Read on, and would love to hear thoughts on her theories from older, married men.
HOW TO GAME YOUR WIFE INTO WANTING A BABY
According to Brizendine, the “sweet smell of an infant’s head” carries pheromones
that produce oxytocin in a woman, and create a literal “baby lust.” Thus, a woman
will often be overcome by a deep desire to have a child soon after cradling someone
else’s warm, soft newborn. So if, conversely, you’re not ready for children, don’t let
your significant other hold anyone’s babies.
PREGNANCY FUN FACTS
Fun fact number one: Six months into pregnancy, a woman’s brain actually
shrinks—and doesn’t return to its normal size until six months after she gives birth.
(But nature has its revenge: men’s brains in old age shrink quicker than women’s.)
Fun fact number two: Morning sickness comes from a heightened sensitivity to
smell in the brain circuits of a pregnant woman—and it is the intensity of everyday
odors that creates the nausea.
Disclaimer: The information in these book reports comes from the authors themselves.
By publishing them, this blog is neither supporting nor denying their theories—just
sharing them.
WHY MEN SHOULD KEEP WORKING WHEN THEY BECOME FATHERS
According to Brizendine, “maternal aggression” and “increased vigilance” can begin
to alter the personality of a new mother. One symptom: “Reassessment of her
husband’s role as provider is not unusual.”
STRESSED OUT ALL THE TIME? BLAME YOUR MOM
According to Brizendine, adults who received low maternal care as children display
increased anxiety, have hyperactive responses to stress, and are more vigilant and
fearful.
WHY HAVING A BABY IS BAD FOR YOUR SEX LIFE
Besides the obvious—such as new priorities, her biological changes, and both being
exhausted from taking care of the newborn (a new mother loses 700 hours of sleep
in the first year)—Brizendine writes that a man actually has a sympathetic
biological reaction to his partner’s pregnancy. Just before birth, the hormone
cortisol doubles in the man, increasing sensitivity and alertness (thus the cliché of
the over-zealous, over-worried father-to-be). And in the first weeks after the baby is
born, a man’s testosterone drops by a third, decreasing his sex drive, as his estrogen
level increases.
In the meantime, Brizendine writes, “Mother love and breast-feeding replace
or interfere with a mother’s desire for her partner.” All the skin-to-skin contact with
her baby saturates her brain in dopamine and oxytocin, making her feel loved,
deeply bonded, and emotionally and physically satisfied. “It’s no wonder that she
has no need for sexual contact,” Brizendine concludes. “Most of the positive feelings
she usually gets from intercourse are evoked several times daily by meeting the
physical needs of her young children.”
WHY PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT—AND WHY YOU CAN “RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN”
“The more you do something,” Brizendine writes, “the more cells the brain assigns
to that task.” I suppose this makes the converse true as well, and all that not-havingsex after a child is born may cause the brain to reassign those cells elsewhere. (If
any psychologists are reading these book reports, yes, after hearing scores of
married men complain to me that their wives haven’t slept with them in years, I did
develop a slight marriage phobia.)
WHY “REAL MEN” DON’T CRY
At least a quarter of Brizendine’s book comes more from evolutionary psychology
than neurobiology, but obviously the two are inter-related. One of the interesting
theories she mentions is that women evolved to cry four times more than men. This
is because the male brain, as you’ll hear more about when I get around to reviewing
her companion book, becomes less attuned to reading emotion and intepreting faces
in childhood. Consequently, it takes a bigger gesture that’s not open to
interpretation or doubt to get a man’s attention. Without tears, men pick up the
subtle signs of sadness in a female face only 40 percent of the time, while women
can spot the same signs in men 90 percent of the time.
WHY WOMEN ARE MORE FRIGHTENED THAN MEN BY HORROR MOVIES
Before reading this book, I thought women were culturally trained to act overly
frightened in scary movies and situations, and play a “helpless” role to get attention
from men. Turns out, according to Brizendine, this is biological. The extra estrogen
means girls feel gut sensations and physical pain more than boys do. As a result,
according to studies, “from childhood, women startle more easily and react more
fearfully.”
THE ORIGIN OF FEMALE INTUITION
Brizendine says this comes from “mirror neurons.” A woman not only observes
what someone else is experiencing, but will actually imitate or mirror the hand
gestures, body posture, breathing rate, gaze, and facial expressions of someone
else—and as a result not will only understand what the other person is
experiencing, but actually feels it. (Score a victory for NLP here.)
WOMEN ARE FROM MARS, MEN ARE FROM ROCKS
In a study at Stanford, subjects were shown emotionally-moving images: nine
different brain areas lit up in women, while only two brain areas lit up in men.
WHY WOMEN PUNCH PEOPLE (AND THINGS) LESS THAN MEN
The amygdala, says Brizendine, where, among other things, fear, anger, and
aggression occur, is larger in men; meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex, which controls
and checks these emotions, is larger in women. Add to this women’s added aversion
to conflict that could sever a friendship (reality shows notwithstanding), and you
have a world in which guys have more rage issues, especially men with high
testosterone
However, Brizendine concludes, “although a woman is slower to act out of
anger, once her faster verbal circuits get going, they can cause her to unleash a
barrage of angry words that a man can’t match.” Been there?
This often leads to a situation where the man feels frustrated by her verbal
torrent, and reacts with anger, which then frightens her and causes her to shut
down (the normal responses of fighting or fleeing does not occur because it may
cause her to lose her protective mate, Brizendine adds). And thus you have the
formula for some of the world’s worst relationships.
THE ADVANTAGES OF MENOPAUSE FOR WOMEN
Though Brizendine describes the two to nine years before menopause as an
unending case of PMS, menopause also has its advantages. One of them is the end of
the many ups and downs a woman goes through hormonally in a month; instead,
she becomes more constant and steady in her moods and feelings. In addition, she
becomes less concerned with pleasing others and more focused on herself,
something her partner may not relish. This is a result of several hormonal drops in
menopause, which make it so that she no longer gets a dopamine rush when talking
with her friends or nurturing others.
In addition, despite the stereotype of men leaving their wives for younger
women, she says that 65 percent of divorces in couples over the age of 50 are
initiated by women.
WHY OLDER WOMEN ARE LESS LIKELY TO COCKBLOCK
As a result of menopause, the ability to read subtle emotions and then either help
out or work to preserve a friendship lessens. Consequently, Brizendine actually
writes, older women find themselves less obsessed with things like babysitting
drunk friends. Do with this information what you will.
THE BIOLOGY AND MYTH OF COUGARS
Sure, if you’ve been in the field long enough, you’ve probably had the experience of a
much older woman pawing at you like a piece of meat. Evidently, this is more an
exception than the rule of aging. According to Brizendine, 50 percent of women
between the ages of 42 and 52 lose their interest in sex, are harder to arouse, and
have fewer and less intense orgasms. She adds that a woman’s testosterone high
comes at age 19 (a man’s is at 21—and ten times greater than a woman’s).
Other women, however, do get “postmenopausal zest,” as anthropologist
Margaret Mead puts it, and have a new sense of freedom from rules and rejuvenated
sexual desire. (Please hold your jokes about the first story in Rules of the Game.) For
those of you who plan to still be doing it in your seventies, Brizendine recommends
testosterone patches, gels, creams, and other treatments for women who find
themselves with no sexual interest or libido.
A FACT YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T WANT TO KNOW
As for that other fifty percent of women who don’t lose interest in sex, according to
studies, a quarter of women aged seventy to ninety in nursing homes still
masturbate.
WHAT A WOMAN WANTS
According to Brizendine, from her anecdotal evidence as a therapist, almost every
woman she’s treated says she wants joy in her life, a fulfilling relationship, and less
stress with more personal time.
AN IMPORTANT TIP FOR GROWING OLD
According to a study at John Hopkins University, women and men over the age of
sixty-five who have the widest variety of activities have the lowest rates of
dementia.
If you want to read Brizendine’s book, it’s a great, quick read—and unlike in this brief
critical summary, all her facts and studies are cited:
http://www.amazon.com/Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767920104.