Gender Mosaic

Beyond the Myth of the Male and Female Brain

By: Daphna Joel PhD, Luba Vikhanski

Narrated by: Thérèse Plummer

With profound implications for our most foundational assumptions about gender, Gender Mosaic explains why there is no such thing as a male or female brain.
For generations, we've been taught that women and men differ in profound and important ways. Women are more sensitive and emotional, whereas men are more aggressive and sexual, because this or that region in the brains of women is smaller or larger than in men, or because they have more or less of this or that hormone. This story seems to provide us with a neat biological explanation for much of what we encounter in day-to-day life. But is it true?
According to neuroscientist Daphna Joel, it's not. And in Gender Mosaic, she sets forth a bold and compelling argument that debunks the notion of female and male brains. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, including the groundbreaking results of her own studies, Dr. Joel explains that every human brain is a unique mixture -- or mosaic -- of "male" and "female" features, and that these mosaics don't map neatly into two categories.
With urgent practical implications for the way we understand ourselves and the world around us, Gender Mosaic is a fascinating look at the science of gender, sex and the brain, and at how freeing ourselves from the gender binary can help us all reach our full human potential.

Critic reviews

"Brilliantly accessible. Gender Mosaic takes you on a fascinating scientific journey that will transform how you think about sex, gender, and the brain."
—Cordelia Fine, author of Testosterone Rex

"The book I've been waiting for! Enlightening, funny, and never dogmatic, Joel plumbs the science and beyond, offering great insights into how moving beyond the stale story of the gender binary could improve medicine, educational achievement, careers, personal relationships, and more."
—Rebecca Jordan-Young, author of Brain Storm

"A power-packed manifesto that will change the way you think about sex, gender, and the brain. Daphna Joel's Gender Mosaic offers a fierce conceptual challenge to attempts to carve a clear, stable, predictive picture of brain sex -- and envisions what our science, and our world, might look like if we let go of tired gender stereotypes."
—Sarah Richardson, author of Sex Itself

An important and powerful nessage

Some chapters may be very sciency but the takeaway message of the book is so important for today's society.

Fntastic book , everybody should read it!

this book does a great job dismantling gender stereotypes without having to claim that no differences exist, and that everybody is the same. the main claim is that everybody is a mosaic of different traits some more prevalent in males, and some more prevalent in females and we would do ourselves a favor by treating each individual as unique combination, rather than trying to fit into binary categories.