The Female Brain Read Online Free PDF Page A

few of the girls touched the forbidden object, even though their mothers never explicitly told them not to. The girls looked back at their mothers’ faces many more times than did the boys, checking for signs of approval or disapproval. The boys, by contrast, moved around the room and rarely glanced at their mothers’ faces. They frequently touched the forbidden toy cow, even though their mothers shouted, “No!” The one-year-old boys, driven by their testosterone-formed male brains, are compelled to investigate their environment, even those elements of it they are forbidden to touch.
    Because their brains did not undergo a testosterone marination in utero and their communication and emotion centers were left intact, girls also arrive in the world better at reading faces and hearing emotional vocal tones. Just as bats can hear sounds that even cats and dogs cannot, girls can hear a broader range of emotional tones in the human voice than can boys. Even as an infant, all a girl needs to hear is a slight tightening in her mother’s voice to know she should not be opening the drawer with the fancy wrapping paper in it. But you will have to restrain the boy physically to keep him from destroying next Christmas’s packages. It’s not that he’s ignoring his mother. He physically cannot hear the same tone of warning.
    A girl is also astute at reading from facial expression whether or not she’s being listened to. At eighteen months, Leila could not be kept quiet. We couldn’t understand anything she was trying to tell us, but she waddled up to each person in the office and unloosed a stream of words that seemed very important to her. She tested for agreement in each of us. If we appeared even the tiniest bit disinterested, or broke eye contact for a second, she put her hands on her hips, stomped her foot, and grunted in indignation. “Listen!” she yelled. No eye contact meant to her that we were not listening. Cara and her husband, Charles, were worried that Leila seemed to insist on being included in any conversation at home. She was so demanding that they thought they had spoiled her. But they hadn’t. It was just their daughter’s brain searching for a way to validate her sense of self.
    Whether or not she is being listened to will tell a young girl if others take her seriously, which in turn goes to the growth of her sense of a successful self. Even though her language skills aren’t developed, she understands more than she expresses, and she knows—before you do—if your mind has wandered for an instant. She can tell if the adult understands her. If the adult gets on the same wavelength, it actually creates her sense of self as being successful or important. If she doesn’t connect, her sense is of an unsuccessful self. Charles in particular was surprised by how much focus it took to keep up the relationship with his daughter. But he saw that, when he listened attentively, she began to develop more confidence.
    E MPATHY
    This superior brain wiring for communication and emotional tones plays out early in a baby girl’s behavior. Years later Cara couldn’t understand why her son didn’t settle down as quickly when she picked him up as her daughter, Leila, had. She thought it was just temperament, a fussier personality. But likely it was also the sex difference in hardwiring in the brain for empathy. The baby girl is able to resonate more easily with her mother and respond quickly to soothing behavior, stopping her fussing and crying. Observations made during a study at Harvard Medical School found that baby girls do this better with their mothers than do boys.
    Another study showed that typical female newborns less than twenty-four hours old respond more to the distressed cries of another baby—and to the human face—than male newborns do. Girls as young as a year old are more responsive to the distress of other people, especially those who look sad or hurt. I was feeling a little down one day and