Suggested Reading & Links

A few of my favorite books:

He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut and 59 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, by Jessica Valenti

More details at: http://www.amazon.com/Other-Double-Standards-Every-Should/dp/1580052452

Loved this book. She’s very blunt, and she curses a bit, but nothing I would call unwarranted given the material It’s also easy to read in fits and starts, it’s a perfect book to take along when you’ve got a heavily interrupt-driven task ahead of you. Some of these will definitely make you think.

The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine, M.D.

More details at: http://www.amazon.com/Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767920104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227310844&sr=1-1

How wonderful to read a woman M.D. interpreting male-female brain differences. As you can imagine, with a positive spin towards the female, and she’s a fine writer to boot. So much more has been learned in this area in just the last two decades (did you know during pregnancy the size of a woman’s brain changes? And that some men possess an infidelity gene? I’m just surprised they didn’t look for this in women too). One tiny caveat: I didn’t like the examples she used for teenage girls’ obsession with relationships and their looks. Even if it explains current social behavior, I think the energy would be focused differently if a.) their female role models had more power and b.) patriarchy didn’t teach girls that they need boys to prove something about themselves. However, that’s an incredibly nit point and there’s a ton of fantastic information here that I recommend for everyone, whether they have a female brain or just want to understand one better. It also does an excellent job of tracking hormone and brain changes (along with the shifting priorities that accompany them) throughout a woman’s life.

The Woman That Never Evolved, by Susan Hrdy

More details at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Woman-That-Never-Evolved/Sarah-Blaffer-Hrdy/e/9780674955394/?itm=2

A terrific book which has been around a long time (but has a new forward) by one of the first radical thinkers in socio-biology (in terms of women’s place in it). I have a number of Susan Hrdy’s other books on my wish list to read and review soon.

The Chalice and The Blade, by Riane Eisler

More details at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Chalice-and-the-Blade/Riane-Eisler/e/9780062502896/?itm=2

An absolute classic, first published over twenty years ago. My very first encounter as a teen with the history and facts of prehistoric Goddess culture and how abysmally certain information was misinterpreted by while male anthropologists. Riane returns to original fact to point out the obvious mistakes. A liberating (though quite scholarly) read. This synopsis of it is pretty good:

The phenomenal bestseller, with more than 500,000 copies sold worldwide, now with a new epilogue from the author-The Chalice and the Blade has inspired a generation of women and men to envision a truly egalitarian society by exploring the legacy of the peaceful, goddess-worshipping cultures from our prehistoric past.

Sperm Wars, by Robin Baker

More details at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=9781560258483&ourl=Sperm%2DWars%2FRobin%2DBaker

A fascinating book which among other things teaches us that not only have males evolved to compete for females but their sperm has evolved to fight other sperm. It also is quite blunt about women’s likely behavioral contributions to this. In essence, whether they are psychologically in denial or not, male biology assumes female infidelity and/or promiscuity. A number of studies around “confused paternity” where men assume they fathered children they did not supports this evidence (of course they were fathering their neighbor’s children and vice versa, so don’t feel too badly for them).

The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley

More details at: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0140245480

Matt is an excellent writer. This is one of those rare books which is fun to read but packed with tons of information about an incredible number of species, the ways they go about selecting mates and their sexual habits. I love his conclusions: a.) human beings are biologically programmed to desire a stable long term relationship (monogamy) but with a parallel desire for occasional infidelity (men and women equally of course) and b.) we are not condemned to our biological nature, of course, we get to choose. Only one very small knock on Matt for saying that “men are universally attracted to fertile women, hence women who are young” unless he wants to define “young” as up to fifty-one which is the average age of menopause. Plus, how the heck does anyone know? As Louann (above) notes, women haven’t lived past menopause (except probably in ancient times) until recently. Maybe men will be attracted to them for reasons he or we can’t imagine yet. Still, this book was great.