Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps—And What We Can Do About It

by Lise Eliot

An important scientific exploration of the differences between boys and girls that breaks down damaging gender stereotypes and offers practical guidance for parents and educators.In the past decade, we've heard a lot about the innate differences between males and females. As a result, we've come to accept that boys can't focus in a classroom and girls are obsessed with relationships. That's just the way they're built. In Pink Brain, Blue Brain, neuroscientist Lise Eliot turns that thinking on its head. Based on years of exhaustive research and her own work in the new field of plasticity, Eliot argues that infant brains are so malleable that a few small differences at birth become amplified over time, as parents and teachers—and the culture at large—unwittingly reinforce gender stereotypes. Perhaps surprisingly, children themselves exacerbate the differences, by playing to their modest strengths. They constantly exercise those “ball-throwing” or “doll-cuddling” circuits, rarely straying from their comfort zones. But this, says Eliot, is just what they need to do. And parents can help, if they know how and when to intervene. Presenting the latest science at every developmental stage, from birth to puberty, she zeroes in on the precise differences between boys and girls, erasing harmful stereotypes. Boys are not, in fact, “better at math” but at certain kinds of spatial reasoning. Girls are not naturally more empathetic, they’re just encouraged to express their feelings. By appreciating how sex differences emerge—rather than assuming them to be fixed biological facts—we can help all children reach their fullest potential, close the troubling gaps between boys and girls, and ultimately end the gender wars that currently divide us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Parenting, Science, Psychology, Feminism, Gender, Sociology

434 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Lise Eliot is a mother of three, and the Associate Professor of Neuroscience at The Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University. She is the author of What’s Going On In There? How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life.

Reviews

[Grey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was deeply disappointed by this book. Repeatedly, the author tells us that some difference between girls and boys is insignificant compared to variation within each group -- then goes on to discuss at length how parents and teachers should accommodate these important differences. WTF? If the differences are that small, then parents of boys do not, in fact, need to talk to them more in order to make up for their naturally poorer language skills (for example). I fail to see how encouraging this kind of stereotyping is supposed to be helpful.

Let alone the other crap the author puts forth without examining her own stereotypes: Boys like science fiction! Girls would buy more Legos if only they were pink!

Oh, and the author makes repeated statements that gender differences (at least in adults) are actually a Good Thing. Because... I don't know, something about romance being more exciting. I guess opposite-gender romance is more exciting?

Other things that bothered me: Misgendering trans people (except in one example late in the book). Typical ableist language about autistic people. Support for school uniforms because they "keep teen girls from turning themselves into sex objects every morning".

I'll end this review with one gem of a quotation from the book:

"But this display was a refreshing reminder of males' wonderful strength, ambition, and keen ability to build things."

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of several books I picked up after I decided that I was just getting too uncomfortable with the discussion about boys and girls innate differences. Discovering feminism in the 80s, for me feminism was in large part defined by the idea that girls could do everything that boys could. Over the last 30 years, it felt insidiously as if the nature vs nuture debate pendulum had swung back in the opposite direction.

Of the books I picked up, this was easily, easily my favourite. I wish I could get every parent I know to read it (but I'm respectful enough I don't suggest it). Eliot goes in with an evidence centered approach - she's genuinely trying to work out what we know, not trying to prove a theory or justify a social program. Unsurprisingly, the book leaves lots of unknowns. But it largely strengthens the idea that little of the gender differences we see are hormonal or genetic, but are rather the result of small differences, combined with various social and developmental pressures (including the desire from children to define gender and identity clearly in binary terms), turning into more noticeable tendencies. The book is an encouragement to see children as individuals, not avatars of a gender. It's also packed with research about strategies to increase core skills. As such, I found it more useful in the end just a good book explaining childhood development than anything else.

It's not alight read, but for a scholarly book it is very engagingly written. I suspect it suffers from being too practical for the serious research crowd, and too factual for the parenting crowd, but for me was a perfect mix.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book:

PRO:
*The author knows her science and presents facts in a very levelheaded way. Sources are fastidiously documented in a nearly 100 page appendix.
*The author discusses both boys and girls, the sexist views our society holds and how those views effects their development
*The author offers suggestions for helping children nurture talents that may not be their preferred way of behaving

CONS:
*The author rarely shows any engagement with the subject and the brief moments that appear and quickly smothered.
*It seemed that the author was much more concerned about boys. I had no idea there was such a HUGE movement telling people that boys can't read. On the other hand, society's blatant discounting of girl's abilities in science and math got far fewer mentions. Being a female engineer I can tell you which I'm personally more acquainted with... ; )
*Many of the suggestions are bland and sweeping ex: (to get boys to read more: read to them more) though that may be due to the fact that society often overlooks the obvious
*The author's language was often sexist--referring to dolls and makeup as "feminine" or talking about how much girls just LOVE gossiping. Similarly, aggression was "masculine" and boys just can't sit still. She tended to use absolute terms (I'm sure because adding qualifiers in every senteance would soon get tiring.) Her lazy use of language was jarring because I kept getting pulled out of the book indignantly thinking "But I didn't do that!".

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started to read this, but decided to quit early on. The writer's lazy conflation of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and phenotype was bad enough, but claiming that babies with ambiguous genitalia should, by default, be given surgery to create male genitals and raised as male was the last straw. That is a terrible idea. The author is very clear about being a fan of traditional gender roles and treating boys and girls completely differently even though, as she admits, the scientific evidence in favor of this is pretty much nonexistent. The hell with that.

[A.R. McKenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really excited about this one, but I cannot go further. The book (or I should say the writer) is extremely gender essentialist and it just rubs me the wrong way. A lot of swooping generalizations and no conversation about gender that is significant. I love science but I don't like science meddling with gender. Why? Because gender is socially constructed. This is my opinion, though. As a feminist who believes that gender doesn't just include FEMALE or MALE, I just had to put it down.

What really bothered me? Quote from page 16:

"While we can't erase-nor would we want to-all the differences between boys and girls, it's clear that the size of the gaps depends on what parents emphasize and how teachers teach."

Yeah, because we all want the gender binary to never end. Sarcasm.

[Nicoleta]

Descrise tot felul de anomalii genetice, explicatii despre genele si hormonii tipice masculine sau feminine, sindrom Turner, CAH la femei, etc. Regiunea SRY a genei Y.
Nu se stie de ce se fecundeaza mult mai multe ovule cu spermatozoizi Y, dar la nastere diferentele de baieti si fete nascuti sanatosi sunt mult mai mici. Marimea mai mica a genei Y nu determina o viteza mai mare a spermatozoidului Y, dar poate gaseste drumul mai usor prin zone inguste.
Vulnerabilitatea crescuta a baietilor in perioada intrauterina, nasterile premature mai dese si problemele mai mari si dupa nastere. Nici aici nu se stie inca de ce.
Cat de mare e avansul fetelor de fapt in diversele domenii senzoriale si cognitive. Auz mai bun la fete, miros mai bun la nou nascute. Preferinta pentru chipuri feminine a ambelor sexe. Reactii diferite la durere.
Otite mai multe la baieti.
Mituri legate de sexul copilului ce urmeaza sa se nasca. Metode moderne (prea des folosite?) de a naste copii de un anumit gen.
Impactul copiilor de sex masculin asupra imbunatatirii de orientare a mamelor.
Stereotipurile copiilor foarte mici, cum aleg ei jucariile diferit daca un copil de sex opus e in aceeasi zona sau daca au vazut mai devreme un copil de acelasi sex jucandu-se cu o anumita jucarie, chiar cand copilul acela nu mai e in zona sa il vada. Alegerea baietilor a grupurilor mai mari cu structuri ierarhice si alegerea fetelor a grupurilor mai mici, care le dau posibilitatea sa vorbeasca mai mult.
Separarea copiilor pe genuri si explicatia legata de frati si atractie sexuala.
Testul apei al lui Piaget si performante mai bune la chinezi datorita scrierii cu caractere in care e mai importanta geografia?
Simtul de orientare nediferentiat la femei si barbati la eschimosi. Repere versus harta.
Deschiderea baietilor spre riscuri. Pentru ca nu conta atat pentru reproducere daca un barbat isi pierdea un picior sau o mana?
Agresivitatea diferita si incorectitudinea explicarii ei prin caracterul de vanatori al barbatilor preistorici. Depresia mai ridicata la femei si legatura cu reprimarea furiei.
Competivitatea la barbati si lipsa ei in concursuri la femei, dar facuta aiurea in domenii ce tin de frumusete? Ce sens are sa vrei sa fii cat mai slaba cand pentru reproducere era utila de fapt o femeie mai putin slaba, iar in triburi ca cele din Mauritania femeile erau ingrasate ca sa aiba mai multe sanse sa fie alese de barbati.
Reclamele la produse de infrumusetare si shopping care determina rezultate mai slabe la un test cognitiv apoi.
Inversarea raportului de absolventi de un anumit sex in domenii ca medicina veterinara si contabilitatea.
Cat de avantajoasa ar fi educatia unisex? Atat de putini barbati in invatamant si din cauza temerilor de hartuire sexuala.

[BookChampions · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever since I've been in college, I've been studying, reading about and challenging others about gender stereotypes, perceived and biological gender differences, and alternatives to traditional gender roles. Now that I am going to embark on the awesome journey of raising a child, I'm happy to have come across Lise Eliot's thoughtful and well-argued book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain. It gave me an opportunity, now three months before my baby's birth, to review and potentially revise some of my stances on gender development.

What I found was refreshing, particularly because it proved what I had come to on my own: that while biology may endow girls and boys with a particular inclination toward a certain characteristic (such as aggression, empathy, creativity or physical activity), we are malleable selves and we are not slaves to biology. Eliot is thorough, though, in proving that biology does, in fact, determine certain differences in gender, but they are much more slim than most people think.

In a sense, the Nature/Nurture debate is essentially dead. It's no longer a question of whether gender is determined by biology or the world around us. Instead, the new question is to what extent Nurture can make a difference. Eliot, I believe, would say that Nurture is capable of making a tremendous difference in a young person's life and in eliminating harmful gender division. Parents and teachers have the ability to free children from the straightjacket of gender, and one doesn't have to keep the gender of one's child hidden from the world for five years, as a recent set of parents did, in order to do so.

The best parts of the book were the Parenting Tips that close each chapter. I have them dog-eared for easy reference. I admit that the book isn't always the most exciting read. I don't typically like to read nonfiction texts heavy on facts and scientific data (and I did begin to skim some of the data after I began to trust that Eliot knows her stuff and let's just leave it at that), but for the most part it was a thoroughly engaging read that I believe will be helpful once the pink or the blue outfits and the gendered toys start pouring in from my well-meaning family and friends. I can make sure my daughter or son is not exactly "free" from gender, but not pinned down by it either.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why deny innate gender differences? Why not admit that it's all biological?

Because such thinking is socially lazy, bordering on the irresponsible. History and geography prove that societies vary and change greatly - constantly - throughout time and space, yet a mainstream narrative finds it much more important and interesting to examine our biologies for the reasons for gender differences. The pop science journalists of Newsweek and The New York Times regularly tout the experiments that provide chauvinist headlines, essentially demanding, "Why not try to make biology prove sexism, racism and lookism, rather than try to teach ourselves how to kick these nasty habits?"

In discussing this book, one of my parents echoed another quoted by Eliot: "We were the generation that said, 'There are no natural gender differences. It's all nurture and not nature.' And then our kids proved us wrong. The girls wanted dolls and the boys wanted guns, no matter how hard we tried, and we had to admit it." My parents did a wonderful job of raising my brother and me, trying to discourage whatever sexism they could detect. But we, the children of the Baby Boomers, hardly grew up in a gender neutral society. We were absolutely bombarded with advertisements and advertisements masquerading as children's television that screamed, "Girls need BARBIES, DISNEY PRINCESSES, LITTLE MISS MAKE-UP, JEM JEWELERAGOUS, STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE, RAINBOW BRITE, CAREBEARS, AND MY LITTLE PONIES!" and "Real boys like HE-MAN, GHOSTBUSTERS, BATTLE BEASTS, THUNDER CATS, TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE, AND NINJA TURTLES!" ad nauseam. No sooner did my parents swear we would never own one of these plastic idols of patriarchy than a babysitter or a playmate or a neighbor would give it to us as a birthday present. If we didn't have one, our playmates invariably owned the entire set. My mother encouraged me to wear jeans, play baseball and watch "Star Wars" with my brother, reminding me that she wasn't allowed to wear pants to school until 1969. But my brother was never encouraged to wear dresses, play tea party, or watch "Sleeping Beauty." Any fellow American reading this knows that if he had been encouraged in such a way, the Gender Rules would have been read to him by playmates and the parents of playmates alike.

And yet, step out of your own society and the rules are NOT universal. Boys play with dolls at nursery school in France. Men in Russia greet each other with kisses. Traditional male garb in North Africa, Saudi Arabia and South Asia resembles Western dresses more than trousers. And boy did the 18th century European man love makeup, tights and heels. Anyone taking ALL cultures at ALL points in history into account has to concede that few gender behaviors are constant. Even the strongest patterns have proven transient. Writing this while wearing slacks, I'm doing something Western women have been doing for less than a century. The shock and hesitance at such freedom demonstrated in "A League of Their Own" now seems laughably outdated and oppressive, yet our society perpetuates such oppression of men with the ban on dresses, pumps and makeup. My parents' was not the generation that tried and were proven wrong. They were members of a small faction of their generation that didn't consider all the variables and, unfortunately, gave up.

I don't want to. Like Eliot, we should check ourselves for sexist ticks after every venture into society. Prejudice survives by virtue of being insidious, though never as microscopic as our genes.

Of course, there are sex differences. These biological differences do influence gender identity significantly, but not nearly as significantly as the mainstream narrative suggests. Lise Eliot says it best in her foreword: "Fundamentally, men and women are more similar than different. Or, as some have more succinctly put it: 'Men are from North Dakota, women are from South Dakota.' "

Her book is geared primarily at parents, offering highly detailed tips for battling social pressure at various stages of development. I plan to read it again when the advice is more immediately relevant to my experience.

[Frrobins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the first half of this book a lot more than the second half. I loved her explanation of how the differences between sexes are small and there is more overlap than difference, and I also thought the research about the influence of siblings of the opposite sex was interesting as I have one of each and both of my children have the same interest in playing with the same toys. So reading that my son being the older sibling was likely responsible made sense.

After awhile it was as if she got too overwhelmed in the details of the research, and the message that the differences start small and the environment impacts them got lost. Overall I was glad to finish it.

I also took offense to two things, first, as a parent of an autistic child, I was upset about how autism is portrayed in the book. My son is not a tragedy, autism is not a devastating disorder, autistic people and children have many strengths that are overlooked, and he was born autistic, he didn't become that way because we didn't play with him enough. The ableism was appalling.

I was also horrified by her section on mental health among teens. I am a mental health counselor who has worked in a mental hospital with adolescent boys and girls, and the statement that boys are less likely to suffer from depression than girls because they are emotionally resilient was frankly irresponsible. Depression in boys is overlooked because culturally, boys are not allowed to express any emotion other than happiness or anger, so when boys feel sad or depressed, they act out in anger. Thus we have this horrible cycle of boys behaving aggressively at school, teachers and other adults not seeing this as a cry for help and punishing them rather than getting them treatment, which makes the depression worse. Adolescent boys are more likely to successfully commit suicide than girls because they don't ask for help and because their cries for help (aggression) are misread. Just because someone doesn't express emotions doesn't mean that they are emotionally resilient, and this bordered on irresponsibility.

So basically I would only recommend with caveats.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the mother of three sons, I've always been interested in learning more about what is hardwired into males and females, and what is influenced by environment. So when I heard about this book, I immediately put it on hold at the library.

Eliot is a neuroscientist, a graduate from Harvard and Columbia, an associate professor of neuroscience, and mother of two sons and a daughter. The basic premise of the book is that although yes, males and females have biologically based differences, many of our differences are due to environment and childrearing (or in other words, nurture).

She painstakingly analyzes the studies about male-female differences and helps the reader decipher what's been proven and what's been simply extrapolated (and exaggerated).

Here's what's been proven:

*Boys are as much as four times more likely to experience learning and developmental disorders, including autism, ADD, and dyslexia. They are 73% more likely to die in accidents and more than twice as likely to be the victims of voilent crimes.

*Girls are at least twice as likely to experience depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. They are twice as likely as boys to attempt suicide (but boys are three times more likely to succeed at it).

*Girls get better grades, but boys get higher SAT scores.

*Males have bigger brains, but they are also less likely to survive at birth and through the first year of life. They are also more likely to be miscarried.

*Girls develop more quickly in the womb and in the first few years of life. Yes, there's proof that females mature more quickly than boys.

Along with these, Eliot refutes a lot of gender-related myths out there as well. Many scientific studies showing differences between males and females were later refuted, but those findings were not published in the popular press.

Contrary to the 1970s, "Free to Be You and Me" era, now with the proliferation of boy and girl experts and John Gray types, parents seem to jump all over supposed gender differences, using them to excuse behavior and indulge in stereotypes. (Don't get me started on the pink/princess craze...or conversely, the fact that nearly all boy clothing features sports or action figures!)

Eliot tackles several phases in a person's life (including gestation) and describes the scientific data and environmental influences on shaping a person's personality. She gives excellent recommendations for fighting against stereotypes and helping children achieve their full potential, no matter their gender.

I strongly recommend this book for parents of boys and girls, teachers, and anyone who deals regularly with children.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abbreviated review - full review appears on Amazon.Com

Lise Eliot's book focuses primarily on the slight differences between male and female brains in prenatal fetuses and in infants, and how those differences may grow over time through cultural influences. She distinguishes between the effects of hormones, developmental differences, and cultural expectations and impacts. What is particularly notable is that she never makes a statement without listing an associated study. In fact, she takes apart common myths that arrived from pseudoscience, showing how certain studies held no water, or were later disproved. The book has extensive notes at the back for anyone who wishes to follow up on the research. Certainly I had collected a great number of theories from the news and pop psych books that I am gladly now disabused of.

This book is very scientific, but it's still eminently readable. It is well-organized into sections on: the womb, infants, preschool, and elementary school, and then goes into greater depth on reading, science, sexual and emotional development in teens. Although it focuses on neuroscience and psychology, the information is suitable for those interested in child-rearing and childhood education.

The main message of this book is that while there are minute differences between the average male and female, each person must be considered as an individual - and in fact we should make more of an effort to build up our boys and girls in those areas where either nurture or nature weakens them.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the main points of this book is that much of the research on gender characteristics in young children is inconclusive or just plain wrong and that the media likes covering the studies with extreme results. Considering how many agendas exist for raising children, religious, conservative, etc., it's hard to figure out who's right without using well designed, large studies based on evidence and not philosophy or opinion. A good portion of the book is devoted to this.

In addition, the author covers methods that help children learn including some of the rough spots where there are some gender differences. Many of these I would hope are covered in parenting classes and include what should be noncontroversial topics like breastfeeding, reading to children, etc. I recommend this as a good read for those who are dealing with small children.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eliot takes a much debated issue - are girls and boys fundamentally different? - and sets out with a well restrained heart. Eliot painstakingly goes thru all available scientific research and popular culture books to sort out the truth. Are men from Mars and women from Venus? In a nutshell, no.

What Eliot does is walk us thru the research, data and the facts about the differences. I say painstakingly because this 315 page tome has almost 40 pages of endnotes and 45 pages of bibliography and zero fluff. Some might find this book too much - to that I say, read the sections you want to read. Even a paragraph is worthy of your time. Take small bites if you must, you won't be disappointed.

By now I hope you get the idea that Eliot has given us a book that puts all the research in perspective. She's not far left nor far right. As the mom of two boys and one girl, she has personal interest in each side of the debate.

Eliot does a great job at taking the popular culture literature that tells us that boys and girls are so different they can't be taught together and rips it to shreds WITH DATA! Yet, she also acknowledges the boy crisis as a real phenomena WITH DATA!

And this is where I think the book is genius. Eliot gives us so much data to prove her conclusions that you find yourself nodding along with one idea, then she switches over to the "counter" issue and you nod along. Here's what I mean:

Prenatal testosterone does make a difference to how boys and girls act and think, but not as much as we think. There are biological differences to the hormone levels, but it is not the end all be all reason why boys are more aggressive, better at math or whatnot.

Eliot shows us that nature does give boys and girls their own small advantages in life, but it is our socialization that exasperates them to such an extreme that we think that bravery is masculine and the need for emotional attention is feminine. Example: In an experiment where moms were asked to guess how steep an incline their infants can climb down - face first - the moms underestimated the girls by 9 degrees. This suggests that even at infancy moms already believe that girls can't be as brave or agile at such a young age. "Girls attempted and successfully descended slopes ranging in angle from 10 degress to 46 degress, while boys attempted slopes between 12 and 38 degree (pp 66-67)." Thus no difference in performance, but a big difference in expectation. Does this mean that moms are holding back their girls?

Eliot also points out that boys are, on average, larger at birth than girls. We usually think about how tough this might had been on the woman pushing an extra few pounds of baby out, but Eliot reminds us that this is tough on the newborn too. This could be why boys are fussier babies. Where our gender ideas come into play is that Eliot points to research that shows that parents are more willing to let baby boys cry longer than baby girls. This is the beginning of toughening our boys out AND where they start to learn that expressing their emotions doesn't pay. Are we shushing our boys into their un-emo ways?

Eliot covers the gamut from in utero thru the teen years, from emotions to math skills.

What I learned here is simple and honestly pretty much what I've been saying for years too. Yes, girls and boys are different, they have biological differences, but most of the differences we see are created. Eliot shows us the research that proves over and over that there are bigger differences within genders than between them. That the differences that are there are small. SMALL!

But it also challenged me to reexamine my views of gender and how we are socializing our kids. This book didn't just reaffirm my beliefs, but it taught me a lot about how we see gender.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pink Brain, Blue Brain is a thorough investigation into gender differences by neuroscientist Lise Eliot. With a nuanced and scientific perspective, she delves into all the major cognitive gender differences observed in children and adults and explores the source of these differences. Initial chapters focus first on babies, then toddlers, then preschoolers and older, and later chapters address verbal differences, math differences, and emotional/interpersonal differences.

The major concept that this book reinforced for me is that for any given difference it is not a question of nature OR nurture (genetic or environmental), but rather almost always a question of nature AND nurture. There are minor differences that can be attributed to things such as hormone levels or seemingly innate brain differences, but these differences are in all cases very small, and they grow into much larger differences through the environment the child is in. A small tendency towards one behavior or another can quickly become reinforced and enlarged when a child continually chooses or is encouraged to participate in that behavior - and vice versa. Furthermore, adult expectations for the behavior of one gender or another can further reinforce small differences. In each chapter, Eliot discusses many studies that have been done exploring the origins of gender differences - and demonstrating the ways in which adults set subconscious expectations - and concludes the chapter with many suggestions that parents, caregivers, and teachers can follow to minimize the exaggeration of small differences and instead encourage every child to develop every aspect of their abilities to their full potential.

I was hoping that Eliot would spend more time discussing the brain mechanisms involved in the nature and nurture cycle, but she only addresses this a little bit in the introduction. The main mechanism at work here is plasticity of the brain - that things we experience actually change our brain - and I think it is very important to understand. A brain difference in an adult does NOT mean that it is genetic: as Eliot points out, since we are biological creatures, of course any difference in behavior is going to stem from a biological difference, but that says nothing about how that biological difference came about.

There were just a couple things Eliot said, almost in passing, that I disagreed with, but they do not majorly detract from the book. One is her attitude towards competition: she said something to the effect that since we live in a competitive society, it is important for children to have some experience with competition. I do not agree with this perspective; I think that if children had less exposure to competition our society as a whole could become less competitive. The other was when she mentioned in passing that she encouraged her daughter in math by giving her rewards: there have been many studies that demonstrate that rewards destroy intrinsic motivation for the behavior being rewarded, so this is very much NOT a healthy way to encourage a girl in a traditionally male subject such as math.

However, all my minor caveats aside, it is overall an excellent book and I highly recommend it to anyone involved with children or interested in these topics.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This careful yet very readable examination of scientific research on brain differences between the sexes -- prenatal, infant, childhood, teen -- is an antidote to media hype about vast, obvious differences. A brain scientist, the author details the biological differences (or lack of difference) revealed by current research and suggests strategies for parents and teachers to help children of both sexes reach their full potentials. She points out that much research on sex differences in male/female brains are done on people 30+ years old, and because the brain is plastic and conforms itself to the use (or lack of use) it experiences, many differences seen are most likely developed rather than innate, since the differences at birth are so small. And some commonly reported differences have turned out to be inaccurate (eg difference in size of tissue connecting the two hemispheres of the brain).

Bottom line: while there are small biological differences in the brain at birth and some others developed later, the tendencies that result from them are greatly exaggerated by cultural and nurturing factors. The stereotypical Mars/Venus opposition is then taken to be hardwired into human physiology and psychology and unfortunately is often used to limit both boys' and girls' behavior and prejudge their abilities.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great. It does away with many old myths and presumptions about boys and girls. Here are 9 things I will never forget after reading this book. #1 The corpus callosum is the same in both sexes. #2 There is a "first puberty" at 3 months. #3 soy formula is banned in the UK. #4 pushing more writing ability in Kindergarten doesn't necessarily benefit boys because of their slower rate to develop fine motor skills. #5 most elementary school teachers are female, which can have all kinds of ramifications including role modeling #6 we need more playtime for spatial ability in the schools #7 around kindergarten boys and girls choose to separate and then rediscover each other around puberty. it's good to encourage friendships of the opposite sex during this time of "separation" so they're not alien upon the rediscovery. #8 playing with dolls helps develop verbal ability #9 men and women brains are the same

[Marissa Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that this book is an important one. Eliot shows how gender differences occur naturally and become stronger through nurture. Since young children are strongly influenced by their gender identity and tend to self-segregate, it's up to parents to strongly nudge them toward "opposite gender" toys and activities. A typical girl spends hundreds of hours in the preschool years playing mommy in her toy kitchen or painting at an easel--so she will grow stronger in verbal, empathetic, and fine motor skills. Boys, on the other hand, play with balls, trucks, and blocks--building gross motor and spatial skills. Eliot recommends limiting the toys in a child's at-home playspace to "opposite gender" ones a lot of the time, so that kids develop the whole range of skills.

[Mireille Duval · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of very interesting research, well presented, in a topic that I care about a lot. Of course, the fact that a lot of research concluded that there are no measurable differences in the brains of boys and girls make for some underwhelming results at times, but it forces a very interesting reflexion on how society/culture/nurture/etc. is the thing to "blame" for differences between boys and girls. I found the beginning very drab (in general I like more anecdotes or metaphors in my non-fiction) but it picked up after that, and I especially liked the last chapters on reading, math, and interpersonal relationships. I also really liked the "tips" section at the end of every chapter. I really recommend this book, particularly for parents.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book up until the minutes I stopped reading it. It was indformative, and well written, and had actual tips and things to do to help your child. I loved it. But the second I stopped reading it, I stopped thinking about it. I want to finish it, but I haven't the inclination. To the try-again-later shelf you go, Pink Brain, Blue Brain!

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't actually finish the book because it was due back to the library but I read almost half so I'm writing a review anyway.
It was really interesting! The main argument is that while the are some biological differences between boys and girls, they're actually really tiny in comparison to the differences among all kids. Society does way more to exaggerate differences. The author directly answers some other books that exaggerate differences, which I found interesting.

An analogy is like men are naturally taller than women, on average. And some people take to that to like: therefore men should work in offices with fifteen foot tall ceilings and furniture built for ten feet tall humans. But actually there's so much variation it would be better if desks and chairs were flexible enough for everyone.

The book also has concrete suggestions that are sort of gendered but are beneficial for all kids. Like kids should play with blocks or legos to learn spatial awareness (especially girls who might not get that much exposure, but it's fun and educational for everyone). Or, if kids are too squirmy for artsy activities, let them draw at an easel standing up (especially boys who tend to be more impatient, but relevant to anyone fidgety).

The structure is a bit of introduction then child development by age. I read the infancy and early childhood parts, I think. I might come back to this in a couple years when my baby-friends are older and I need more chapters.

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gender identity is the primal factor that differentiates a human being from another. When a baby is born, a large portion of the parents’ hope for the child’s future is shaped immediately upon knowing its gender. No wonder it had led to many stereotypes and oppression of one from the other. But, is there any difference among the two genders hidden in the genetic code and if it does how it will affect the development of the body, both physically and socially? This is a fundamental question which finds itself interesting to any reader, whatever may be his background. Lise Eliot is Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School and lectures widely on children’s brain and gender development. Being a first-rate scholar and neurobiologist, she is amply suited to dig deep into the issue and suggest practical propositions that would enable society to help develop each person to his or her fullest potential, without referring to how that person looks like, or what is preconceived about him/her. The book is gifted with an exhaustive notes section, impressive bibliography and a thorough index. Anyone oriented towards a deeper investigation would find this book an excellent starting point. After an exhaustive narration of the differences among the two genders, Eliot goes on to downplay the dissimilarities and argues that object-oriented training is enough to get over any supposed handicap, opening up vast and new vistas for the budding minds to conquer. A must-read book for all readers.

Eliot presents an exciting picture of the events unfolding in the pre-natal period when the brain casts itself into one or the other gender. A surge of the hormone ‘testosterone’ through the fetus’ brain transforms selective areas of the brain in order to make a person of the pre-programmed gender. The author argues with the evidence from research that this initial washing with testosterone differentiate boys who have skills like gross motor ability, visuo-spatial techniques and physical activeness. Though many of the skills can be acquired by a girl with enough training and attitude, the genetic proclivities can’t be denied. However, this surge of the male hormones is suspected to slow down the maturation of young boys when compared to girls of the same age. It is very critical that the hormone switches on at the right time before birth, as otherwise the changes are irreversible. Girls who are exposed to a stronger dose of the hormone act more boyish-like and boys who have a blocking chemical in brain that inhibits testosterone receptors end up being reared as females. They would be sterile, but exhibit many male attributes like height and presence of the Y-chromosome in their genome. It may also be noted that immediately after birth, testosterone levels are the same in both genders. The chapter on pre-natal transformations and the immense chemical manipulations happening on the newly conceived embryo is the most readable and interesting part of the book.

Eliot breaks down the stereotypes associated with both genders like females excel in interpersonal communications, verbal and reading skills, services which demand empathy and males are suitable for athletic skills, math, science and engineering. With a slew of research papers she argues that there is no valid reason to assert that biological reasons like genes or brain difference causes the dissimilarities between men and women. Nurture, rather than nature is said to be behind variance. The argument carries some weight too, as we know that there is a strong surge of females in those fields which are traditionally hailed as male bastions. The author is unwilling to concede even an iota of genetic supremacy to males in any of the areas. In fact, the narration goes to such an extreme that we readers wonder whether the author will stop at ‘proving’ that the differences perceived clearly ‘under the hood’ is really a product of nurture rather than genes.

The book addresses another grave issue that has current relevance. The academic standards of girls have increased much during the last few decades, putting boys at a disadvantage. With their verbal and reading skills, submissiveness, system-friendly work and generally being more mature than the same-age boys under puberty, girls replace them in many academic theatres. Exclusive schools, so far reserved only for girls, have now become essential to boys. The stereotyping now adversely affects them more. Parents and teachers adopt a condoning attitude to boy’s inferior skills under the pretext that they are immature as compared to girls.

It may be shocking to some readers like me, who had read a similar work by Louanne Brizendine, titled ‘The Female Brain’, even though it concentrated only on the pink side of the question. It was reviewed earlier in this blog and given a 4-star rating because of the valued information it provided. That makes me horrified to learn that Lise Eliot rubbishes many assertions of Brizendine as totally unfounded! In this dilemma that only one of the authors could be correct, we would be left wondering whom to believe. Eliot’s style of approach to the question is more balanced; more research-oriented and comparatively more matured than Brizendine’s, who often astonishes the reader with bold conclusions drawn from flimsy or equivocal results. I had remarked in that book’s review that men may find it impossible to lie to their wife’s faces if the book’s postulates are borne out in fact. Probably that explains the lucidity of the earlier work as some part of it may be compared to fiction.

The saddest part of the biological research appears to be that you can get hold of studies that validate both sides of the arguments so that your task become easy to choose one among them which suits your purpose. Eliot’s rubbishes many concepts which allow boys some advantage over girls with evidence supported by some studies, while still acknowledging that there are other studies which argue contrary to the hypothesis. Such dichotomy proves nothing but the fact that the natural sciences still has to travel a lot to get even near to the precision of physical sciences. The author’s rebuttal of the postulate that boys do math better than girls is, however defended by an unfortunate example for her argument. It is said that “It may surprise you to learn that babies can do math, but it’s true. Young infants can tell the difference between a picture of two frogs and a picture of three identical frogs…” (p.215). But frankly, this is not math but simply a sense of counting and there is research which suggests that even birds show some sense of numerical awareness, perhaps reaching up to the number 4. Mathematics is an abstract concept; which imparts the symbol ‘4’ with ‘fourness’ and which uses it further to calculate several complex operations. Eliot’s example is downright false here, babies show some evidence of counting, but that is definitely not math.

After the first chapter which thrillingly explains the subtle chemical changes made in the prenatal brain by gender-specific hormones, the later chapters fall into a predictable rhythm of extolling the virtues of individual attention and good parenting. The author could not overcome the pitfall of pulling anecdotes from her own family as a point of general argument. This is a common drawback seen in scribes of social sciences. The example might be convincing for them, but may seem selective and cherry picking in character for the others.

The book is highly recommended.

[Shana · Rating 3 out of 5]

(This is my review and it was originally posted on Elevate Difference).

Given the heavy media coverage about studies that “prove” significant, inborn differences between males and females, it is no surprise that we excuse or accept certain behaviors depending on whether they come from a boy or a girl. We are often led to believe that it is natural for a boy to be athletic and for a girl to demonstrate more empathy because it is part of their biology and something that cannot be helped one way or another. If this were true, we would have to resign ourselves to our appropriate gender roles and stick to the activities and behaviors assigned to us by nature.

Not so, says Eliot. Right off the bat, Pink Brain, Blue Brain shows us that we must examine these studies critically in order to appreciate their message. Eliot goes through various popular studies with a fine-toothed comb and comes away with a vastly different interpretation of the data. Rather than proving innate differences between boys and girls, instead we see that these differences are really not as large as they appear and that the outcomes have been subtly manipulated and phrased in ways that present the results as far more provocative, and therefore popular with the media.

After a close scrutiny of the studies, Eliot goes on to investigate the various claims of the differences between boys and girls starting at conception and ending around puberty. Though she is a neuroscientist, Eliot provides well thought out sociological critiques along with useful explanations of biology. She fuses both the nature and nurture aspects of development to show that gender gaps are not just innate or taught, but oftentimes both. What nature instills, society tends to exaggerate. The consequences are that these gender stereotypes become self-fulfilling prophecies, and this hurts both boys and girls.

Particularly useful to those who strive to raise well-balanced children are the ideas and tips that Eliot includes at the end of nearly every chapter. For instance, she recommends pet care as a way to teach and encourage a sense of nurturing in young boys. Likewise, she suggests getting girls involved in chess in order to help foster a healthy dose of competition and to improve spatial analysis skills. We may have been dealt a specific set of cards at birth, but this by no means should limit us in what we achieve and how we excel.

[Histteach24 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was very informative but I found it slow through the "brain talk". Mind you I know this was written by a neuroscience professional and not a psychologist. I only discovered that after already starting the book. I was expecting it to be more case studies, less science, so it was my fault for not reading about the author beforehand.
Regardless, she made interesting points that can be used by educators and parents. Of course, you probably should read the book as you prepare to have children and not as your son turns 18 as I did. If only I knew then what I know now from this book.
I found it interesting that she dispelled many myths about gender differences in the brain and hormones. As a society we have created too many stereotypes and bias based on false information about gender.
As an educator, I will try to have girls take a more hands on approach to using technology in my classroom. I also think mixing gender groups at times, while allowing same sex groups during other activities will help give students the best of both worlds. I hope to encourage all students to find interests and be creative rather than assuming gender bias.
Every book I read seems to point out that the educational system needs to be changed. As a teacher I agree. But why are parents and the community not doing enough to influence this? Most teachers would like to see more instructional time in which they can do hands on activities. But the reality is we are forced to teach to tests and aren't given the resources we need. The average class size I currently have is 31. It is difficult to individualize learning with that many students when I have 130 students each year and see them 86 minutes every other day. We keep yelling for more individualization but don't want to pay the cost and blame the wrong people for how the system works.

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Spatial skills are more like nipples than like antlers....". This quote alone should be sufficient recommendation for this book. Truly, this book does an amazing job of discussing the most current brain studies on sex differences in children, up through adulthood. Primarily that there are few established differences that come from biology, and that boys and girls are more influenced by their environment than by any significant difference in brain structure. Dr. Eliot gives concrete examples of how to mitigate biases of any small differences in make/female brain development and/or environmental bias. They are based in the science discussed , but at times I found biased by her own privileged background. The only serious negative of the book were the lack of numbered footnotes. Not only were they all at the back of the book, the numbers referenced were not in the text of the book. Useless! Otherwise, I enjoyed this read immensely.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eliot offers a good rebuttal to Sax, but still falls short of really challenging the way we think about gender. She is very essentialist and normalizing, just like Sax, in her distinctions between boys and girls. I'm very against using "science" to "prove" differences between gender. Science can only prove sexual differences, not gender. Sex is biological; gender is much more complicated. She does not offer any insight into the influences of race, culture, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexuality (when discussing teens)--she pretty much just discusses rather well-off, white "boys" and "girls".

That said, I did enjoy reading this one. She does make some important points about the social influences on gender (for the most part).

Basically, although I prefer her to Sax, she is not that much different when you stop and think about it.

[Cassi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book recommended to me by My Little Milkaholic's Montessori teacher because i worry about everything! I really liked how Dr. Eliot started at the very beginning and cited as many studies as she could find detailing how and where they were strong and where they were faulty. I really appreciated the deep biological information when trying to suss out what is innately male and female.

Her recommendations in the pre-school/kindergarten chapter helped me be confident in my kid's school and teachers, which was nice, given education politics these days. I also really liked how she brought it up to adulthood and how men and women think differently given culture. And I appreciate her discussing some of the holes in the research.

I found this book really interesting as a woman and calming as a parent.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm just gonna go ahead and rate this 5 stars right now, even though I'm only halfway through. This book is totally informative, gives all kinds of evidence to back up claims, and makes me think! Should be a must-read for every parent, teacher, guardian, etc.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Determined to figure out how much of my toddlers’ divergent behavior is based upon innate gender difference, I read Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender and the first 100 pages of Lise Eliot’s Pink Brain, Blue Brain (the introduction and chapters covering prenatal development and infancy, since both authors agree that these periods are key to determining whether only nurture is to blame for pre-pubertal differences between boys and girls). Though the two writers agree on just about every scientific point relevant to this inquiry, their framing diverges wildly. Fine reviews the evidence and concludes that science does not support the assertion that any gender difference in behavior or preference is hard-wired.

Eliot’s presentation baffles me. As the subtitle of her book makes clear, she concludes that “small” differences in “interpersonal skills, such as aggression, risk taking, and competitiveness . . . germinate from basic instincts and initial biases in brain function.” Each time she introduces or summarizes, she recites a similar assertion: “[N]ature sets the ball rolling, biasing boys and girls toward different interests and behavioral styles even before they’re born.” And yet, in the nitty-gritty discussion of each potential hard-wired “difference,” she concludes as Fine does, that the evidence is entirely lacking. It’s almost as if she titled the book first and then wasn’t able to change her frame of mind after sorting through the data. Or as if she wrote the individual sections at the office, and then penned the concluding and introductory bits at home while sleepy or drunk, allowing her own subconscious bias to sneak into the manuscript.

Eliot herself writes, “what I found, after an exhaustive search, was surprisingly little solid evidence of sex differences in children’s brains. Sure, there are studies that do find differences, but when I looked closely at all the data . . . I had to admit that only two facts have been reliably proven. One is that boys’ brains are larger than girls’ . . . [in] conspicuously similar . . . magnitude to males’ greater height and weight at birth and in adulthood. The second reliable fact is [a] difference that shows up around the onset of puberty.”

She continues:

"If you’ve read anything about boy-girl differences, you’ve probably become convinced that scientists have discovered all kinds of disparities in brain structure, function, and neurochemistry—that girls’ brains are wired for communication and boys’ for aggression; that they have different amounts of serotonin and oxytocin circulating in their heads; that boys do math using the hippocampus while girls use the cerebral cortex; that girls are left-brain dominant while boys are right-brain dominant. These claims have spread like wildfire, but there are problems with every one. Some are blatantly false, plucked out of thin air because they sound about right. Others are cherry-picked from single studies or extrapolated from rodent research without any effort to critically evaluate all the data, account for conflicting studies, or even state that the results have never been confirmed in humans. And yet such claims are nearly always presented to parents, with great authority, as well-proven and dramatic facts about boys’ and girls’ brains . . . . [O]ne particularly insidious way in which neuroscience has been misused . . . is the idea that the brain’s sex differences—most of which have been demonstrated in adults only—are necessarily innate. Ignoring the fundamental plasticity by which the brain learns anything, several popular authors confuse brain and nature, promoting the view that differences between the sexes are fixed, hard-wired, and predetermined biological facts. . . ."

She also rejects the idea of “differences between the sexes in sociability and emotional expression” at birth, explaining the evidence showing that they arise in infancy (and debunking the one study often cited for the proposition that girls are “innately more people oriented than boys are”). She concludes that the differences that begin to arise at about four months of age likely originate from the divergent way caregivers react to emotional expression in male and female babies rather than any hard-wired difference. “Dozens of . . . gender-disguise studies confirm that people judge babies differently based on what sex they believe the babies are and regardless of the real sex under the diapers. In addition to rating babies’ expressions and physical appearances differently, adults tend to choose different toys for each sex . . . and to engage them differently-interacting in more physical, expansive ways with boys and more nuanced, verbal ways with girls.”

She also quite reasonably concludes: “Does the neonatal testosterone surge . . . shape human boys’ development? We don’t really know . . . .”

And even after nurture has gotten ahold of babies and created “reliable” differences by around age two, she reminds us that “[t]hese differences are . . . really quite small.” For example, “Compared to the overall range of language ability in young children, the average difference between girls and boys is tiny, accounting for just 1 to 2 percent of this total variance. Consequently, you can find many boys who are more verbal than the average girl, and lots of girls who are less verbal than the average boy.”

All of this is perfectly rational and overlaps precisely with Fine’s interpretation of the evidence. And yet, in another spot she writes, “There are, to be sure, a few truly innate differences between the sexes—in maturation rate, sensory processing, activity level, fussiness, and (yes!) play interests.” To see why this statement is utterly confounding, let's unpack each of these areas of research.

When discussing maturation rate, Eliot cites boys’ slight delay in respiratory development, nothing brain or behavior related at all. Which explains why she doesn’t mention it in her meta-summary stating that the only proven difference is brain size.

Her discussion of sensory processing boils the differences down to extraordinarily slight discrepancies in hearing (so small that the newborn screening doesn’t differentiate between the sexes) based mostly upon the larger size of boys’ skulls. She concludes: “[A] close look at the research on sensory differences in newborns reveals that they are small and of little relevance to children’s learning. . . . It’s therefore disingenuous to suggest, as Leonard Sax does in his book Why Gender Matters, that ‘these built-in gender differences in hearing have real consequences.’”

As for activity level, she states that there is no evidence of gender difference in activity in the womb, and that boys and girls show no statistically significant difference in gross motor development in infancy. Her only reasoning supporting any discrepancy is convoluted at best: she figures that boys “excel [at] gross motor development [because they] sit[], stand[], and walk[] at the same ages as girls in spite of their overall slower maturation.” In other words, male and female babies reach the same milestones at the same time, showing no difference in activity level until after infancy. Later divergence is ascribed to the fact that adults “aware of physical differences in older boys and girls, set up different motor expectations for their sons and daughters, even in infancy.” This is all in her own words.

When it comes to fussiness, she “raises a crucial issue . . . : whether differences in sensory responsiveness, fussiness, . . . and so on are truly innate or are a consequence of boys’ suffering from their recent circumcisions. Surprisingly little of the research has controlled for this important variable.” She also states, “[T]hese differences have mostly been described by examiners who weren’t blind to the sexes of the babies, and some studies have failed to detect any sex differences in newborn irritability or consolability.” So fussiness is an innate difference, to be sure, except it's not, 'cause we're not at all sure.

Finally, she says that the only data regarding play interests show that there is no discrepancy in them whatsoever until after plenty of time for caregiver influence.

Thus the conclusion that these are “a few truly innate differences between the sexes” makes absolutely no sense in the context of her own research and writing.

Her recommendation that parents “[t]alk to your babies, especially boys” and her reference to “girls’ less active tendency,” also come out of nowhere, unless of course she’s talking about the period after infancy when this approach/description may be necessary/accurate to counteract nurture—but then she really ought to say that.

Unfortunately, Eliot’s inconsistent description of her own research in these first two chapters made me doubt her objectivity too much to warrant finishing the book.

As for stars, I’m at a bit of a loss. The book seems quite well-researched and provides an impressively smooth read for such a complex topic. On the other hand, Eliot’s inability to keep her subconscious gender bias from infiltrating the first 100 pages is a real deal-breaker. I'm crossing my fingers that with a little distance from the text Eliot will see the inconsistency and remedy it in the next edition.

[Svetlana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bewildering! For all her talk about small sex differences, this book is nothing BUT ridiculous magnification of difference between boys and girls. I found this so disappointing to read and really baffled how the author could make such ludicrous claims about male/female difference. The newest research puts all of this rubbish about sex difference to rest anyway. There’s more difference between individual men and women that between the sexes.

The author also has fairly weak strategies for encouraging boys and girls to excel in non traditional areas such as reward charts for hand writing (face palm!).

Yet another author who believes she has seen it all because she has both male and female children (so she must know everything right?). This book does nothing but waste the reader’s time by citing poorly researched gender studies without proper criticism.

[Swati S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening, but a dry read. Also felt like it was slanted towards making the world better for boys and caring for their needs more than making the world better for girls. While I'm not disagreeing that we should make the world better for boys, I feel like the whole point of this book (I thought) was a balance and making the world better for ALL kids. And undoing gender stereotypes so we can raise boys, girls, and gender fluid children to their maximum potential regardless of gender.

It was certainly enlightening on what could be a sex difference vs. what is just stereotype and I feel like I can use this info to raise any child to their max potential. From that respect, I think it is a book we should all read. But the slant made it feel less equitable.