Mom and I were just screaming at each other about the Brooks column from Sunday. Thought I would share with the blogosphere.

Brooks writes about the conclusions of Loann Brizendine’s book, The Female Brain

ll human beings, she writes, start out with a brain that looks female. But around the eighth week in the womb, testosterone surges through male brains, killing cells in some regions (communications) and growing cells in others (sex and aggression).

By the time they are three months old, girls are, on average, much better at making eye contact with other people and picking up information from faces. During play, girls look back at their mothers, on average, 10 to 20 times more than boys, to check for emotional signals. Girls can also, on average, hear a broader range of sounds in the human voice, and can better discern changes in tone.

The impact of estrogen on the female brain results in major differences between men and women during childhood and adolescence. Later, after menopause, women lose estrogen and undergo a personality shift. Brooks says that scientists no longer point to environmental differences between the genders. It’s all genes and chemicals.

After I read this article, I thought “and?” And what’s the point, Davie? So, boys and girls are different*, But what does that mean. I mean this isn’t a science column; it’s a political and social column on an opinion page, but he never spits it out. Mom and I were fighting over the Brooks’ unstated point.

Mom: Brooks is just saying, “ha” to the feminists who kept telling me over and over in the 70s that you kids were different, because we were messing with them. If only we were more nurturing to Chris, he would like dolls. And I told them they were crazy.

Me: Brooks is also saying something else, Mom. If we’re all just slaves to genetics as Brooks says, then women have to be the moms and dad have to go to the office or war or the soccer field. I think that’s what he’s really saying there, but he’s too chickenshit to get it out.

* I grudgingly agree that boys and girls are different now that I have kids of my own. However, I think they grow more alike as they get older. There is also wide range of behavior, with lots of outliers. And environment can do a great job in softening differences, playing to strengths, and reducing the social and political inequities that grow out of personality differences.