[.ca] What Could He be Thinking: How a Man's Mind Really Works (ISBN 0312311486)

What could he be thinking:
This book is not P/C. But even Newsweek says men and women are different so it must be okay to read heretical books like this. If you are a feminist, or male in denial about what testosterone does to your brain when in utero, you will not enjoy the time reading this book. As a husband I am now at peace with myself on many issues, including why I can't ever load the dishwasher correctly. As a father I am now far more able to parent my teenage sons because I realize how we are the same. Further, as a result of my confidence from this book, and insights from "Every Mans Battle' (stoker and arterburn) I am intervening and helping shape my teeneage sons lives on on issues of sexuality, pornography and other behaviour traps that face them daily. As a husband I have better understanding of my wifes view of work, the home, and what she values in a elationship. There are countless communication and value styles, and day to day, head to head issues in our relationship where this book has helped me. This proves you are never too old, or too married to learn. This book is chock full of "aha's" as you realize why things work the way they do, either in a male to female or female to male manner. Here are a few of mine. Why I seem to go blank, look for a quick summary or resolution, or am unable to concentrate and get frustrated when discussing complex relationship topics after 30-45 minutes (women have more parts of their brains dedicated to speech and cache information more quickly). Why my wife can remember staggering deatils about the times she's been hurt or happy (its not because I'm stupid its because of how womens memory is structured). If you are a guy and thinking about reading this, buy it and quit wasting time. If you are a women in a "relationship" buy it for your man and tell him it is only one of three books you'll ever ask him to read, even if you have to use sex to get it read. You already know the chances are slim he'll never buy a book like this (self help books are like directions - you don't buy them and you don't ask for them).

Enlightening and Informative:
I heard the author speak on a radio talk show a few months ago, and his book sounded good. I found it quite informative. Maybe I've missed something in my long marriage, but some of his revelations were new to me. I suspected many of the differences were true but didn't have the supported facts until now. I particularly enjoyed such topics as intimate separateness, "earn this", the heart vs life journey, "wouldn't have war" remark (pg. 61), the current decades long dominance of the woman's view, and stages of marriage, among many others. One could quibble with the stages, but it is nevertheless food for thought and gives some good insight into most marriages. Don't miss chapter 7 on the male at home. ... Martin Gardner, a science writer of some considerable note and talent, put together something of a quack detection list of 10 or so items. I don't think the term quack has any place here. Gurian does at least give very specific material that one can go to for additional information on sex difference research. This or Gurian's interpretation of it doesn't look like quack information to me. If one can question something about the sex difference argument, it is some educators' views (I think female organiaztion driven) that girl's are equivalent of boys and should be treated as such. There seems to a view that nearly two million years of evolution has not produced brain and other differences between the sexes. That view comes a lot closer to quackery than anything else on this subject. My biggest beef about the books is about some of the organization. Some of the last few chapters seem out of place, but still useful. I did find myself skimming a few sections of the book, since they really do not apply to me. Rearing children, for example. For some reason, he did not include any index. There are plenty of times when I wanted to refer back to info and an index would have been valuable--also for future reference. One saving point on this is that thankfully Amazon has a facility to search the entire book. There's also an abundance of brain terminology that would be served well in an appendix. I finally resorted to taking notes and found a good web site to get additional info ... I'd suggest this book be required reading for men and women.

doctors criticizing doctors...:
I am not a doctor, but I did stay in a holiday inn express last night, so I guess that qualifies me to be an expert on EVERYTHING - just like all doctors are...right. But seriously, here is the two cents of a major league skeptic who thinks this book has a lot of value. I think it is fine to be skeptical about some of this science, as the doctor from San Jose points out, but it doesn't logically follow that just because the science isn't perfect that the ideas in this book are wrong (which seems to be the implication). In fact, I would say that empirical evidence tends to support the author's ideas, and that the idea that men and women think totally differently is not a particularly wild one. Focusing only on the science misses the point, and I couldn't disagree more with the statement, "If you want a healthy relationship you don't need to read a book to learn how." EVERYONE struggles with relationships, and if reading books or talking to friends or, god forbid, even talking to a shrink doctor, helps you, then that is great and you should go for it. Books can provide perspective, advice and understanding, and, in this particular case they can shed light on behaviours, and it is easier to tolerate a behavior if you understand why. Now I agree with the good doctor's opinion that it is easy to use "that's just the way I am" as an excuse for bad behavior, but the differences in memory, emotional tendencies and other things discussed in this book are not all behaviors, but in many cases really are "just the way we are." I would go further to argue that communication styles are also "just the way we are," because even if they are learned behaviors, they are totally ingrained by adulthood, so you have to learn to translate what people say from their way of thinking to yours in order to respond properly and have a meaningful dialog. And this does filter into such everyday things as channel flipping and a host of other things that women don't understand about men. I think it filters into everything. My wife is finally understanding that when it takes me 10 or 20 seconds to process what she says when I am watching something interesting on TV, it is not because I am purposely ignoring her or am not interested in what she has to say. It's just that I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and it takes a bit to change gears. On a final note, the doctor closes by saying nobody changes and that you need to find someone rational, good and loving. OK, I believe that to be true, but in my limited experience, on the rationality front, women have the same capacity for rationality as men, but they are 100 times more likely to throw it by the wayside if it conflicts with their emotions. Most women I know don't make personal decisions after a rational thought process weighing all the factors. But because I know and accept that, it doesn't bother me that my wife is so irrational sometimes, and I don't try to solve all her problems with reason, like I try to do for myself. I do try to separate out the emotional issues from the logical ones sometimes, but most of the time she just needs someone to stand by her, listen, care and suppport her. My best advice to men is that to learn how to do that, and to women, is to learn how to forgive and understand us when we don't, because this isn't our natural tendency.

What could Gurian be thinking?:
What could Gurian be thinking? The back cover begins with a list of cultural stereotypes about men, beginning with "Why do men have to control the TV remote and channel-surf?" Some men do, and some women do, but many men don't. Throughout the book Gurian uses contemporary psychobabble to justify and reinforce all the men-negative stereotypes that a female dominated culture has promoted over the past 50 years. Despite the title he continually digresses to talking about women and women's brains frequently throughout the book. Occasionally Gurian approaches toward some real insight about men, but each time quickly backs away into a morass of jargon and the same old stuff in a new wrapper. He describes himself as a "bridge" man, which he defines as a man who thinks much like a woman. If you're a woman wanting to have your stereotypes reinforced, this is the book for you. If you're a man wanting to learn more about men, or a woman who really wants to know what a man might be thinking, you may think twice.

Nice Thinking --- Not Necessarily Constructive:
This book was clearly intended to attract a female audience and to cater to, or reinforce, some civilized-era female training. If you want to have quasi-traditional values reinforced, this is the book for you. Mr. Gurian clearly has a handle on brain chemistry, but, I believe his attempts to interpret the brain chemistry of men and women in directly analogous terms are misguided; the same "chemical" reactions don't induce identical emotional experiences in both sexes --- and he proceeds through much of the book as if they are directly analogous. As reassuring confirmation of our likeness it's helpful to observe that we are of the same physical composition, however, it is not helpful to understanding to interpret male and female brain chemistry in identical emotional terms. One must engage in a bit more nuanced and seemingly exotic analysis than presented in this book to truly understand the symmetrical qualities of our emotional responses. And while I am, sincerely, all for the maximization of feminine capabilities, I don't believe that leveraging our gifts against one another results in our flourishing together. It is through the reciprocal understanding of one another's strengths, weaknesses, desires, aversions, prowess and clumsiness that we truly become worthy and mighty partners for one another; not through promotion of power over one another. If there is anything inherently civilizing about the process of modernization that we endure then it is reaching toward, once again, restoring our respective, but specialized, peer statuses with one another. Peers we should be; adversaries we should not be. Promoting "power" over one another is not constructive to our collective journey. This offers some enlightenment about brain chemistry, but, I'd be very cautious about taking its guidance to seriously --- unless you've tried everything else and failed; in which case, anything's worth a stab.