Product Description

Barbara and Allan Pease travelled the world collating the dramatic findings of new research on the brain, investigating evolutionary biology, analysing psychologists research, studying social change and annoying the locals. The result is WHY MEN DON'T LISTEN AND WOMEN CAN'T READ MAPS, the sometimes shocking, always illuminating, frequently hilarious look at where the battle line is drawn between the sexes, why it was drawn and how to cross it. Revealed: Why men really can't do more than one thing at a time Why women make such a mess of parallel parking Why men should never lie to women Why women talk so much and men so little WHAT MEN AND WOMEN REALLY WANT A must-read for everyone - you will learn as much about yourself and how to improve your relationships, as you will about the opposite sex.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1292 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
"Let's look at the thoughts, attitudes, and emotions, as they're experienced, in their very different ways, by men and women". This is one of Allan Pease's chirpy gear-changes in this provocatively titled book. Then he begins to ruminate: men and women live in the same world, but they experience it as if they came from two different worlds. Boys like things, girls like people. Every boy wants to be in a gang, and wants a gun; every girl has her best friend, with whom she shares her secrets. Men want status and power, women want love. It's amazing, he concludes, that they can ever live together. Well, yes, and that living together is a pretty fraught business, though he doesn't seem keen to go too deeply into that: this psychology, with its frequent allusions to research and its jokey little dramatisations, is upbeat feelgood stuff, which is why it's made him such a fortune on three continents. "Listen to this!" he'll say, then on comes an Aussie squabble, the woman berating a husband whose grunts proclaim the fact that he's not listening. But to sell four million copies of a book about body language--in 33 different languages--means Pease and his wife Barbara must be getting something right. There are many scientifically-documented facts about the difference between the sexes, and Pease is selling them with a smile to an ever-growing public. You may be a contented member of that public, or you may find your hackles rising. It takes all sorts! Betty Tadman

Synopsis
Barbara and Allan Pease travelled the world collating the dramatic findings of new research on the brain, investigating evolutionary biology, analysing psychologists research, studying social change and annoying the locals. The result is WHY MEN DON'T LISTEN AND WOMEN CAN'T READ MAPS, the sometimes shocking, always illuminating, frequently hilarious look at where the battle line is drawn between the sexes, why it was drawn and how to cross it. Revealed: Why men really can't do more than one thing at a time Why women make such a mess of parallel parking Why men should never lie to women Why women talk so much and men so little WHAT MEN AND WOMEN REALLY WANT A must-read for everyone - you will learn as much about yourself and how to improve your relationships, as you will about the opposite sex.

About the Author
Allan Pease is the world's foremost expert on body language and relationships. His acclaimed book Body Language has sold over 4 million copies, while his top rated TV series on the same subject has been seen by over 100 million people worldwide. He travels the world lecturing on human communication. Barbara Pease is CEO of Pease International, which produces videos, training courses and seminars for businesses and governments worldwide. She is co-author of the bestselling book Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, which has sold ten million copies around the world.

Customer Reviews

well....
Well, it looks to be perpetuating stereotypes sure enough, just from the title.
I was prepared to give it a shot, though. I'm relatively uncritical, and I am perfectly prepared to admit that authors have probably done their research and know more about the subject than I do, otherwise I wouldn't bother reading the book. And titles are sensationalist, and you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

So I start reading, objectively and open-minded. I'm not looking to pick holes in anything it says.

However, I'm pulled up short by the quiz to determine whether you have a masculine or feminine brain.
Fair enough, I think. It has those nice a. b. c. choices like in women's magazines (always fun...) and then you add up your scores (so many for each a, so many for each b...) and see where you fall on the scale: the higher you score, the more feminine your brain. Sounds good.
Until I look at the scoring system and realize...the system is DIFFERENT depending on your gender. The quiz which they bill as "enlightening", presumably meaning that it will clearly show you that the women you give it to score higher than the men...well, of course it will, because the women score five points more for each a. answer than the men.

As a woman, I score 125.
If I were a man, with EXACTLY the same brain, I would score 90.

A 35 point gap, on a scale around 300 points long, is SIGNIFICANT. 35 points is bigger than the 30 point overlap they have between their cutoff points for masculine and feminine. A man and a woman could easily answer the questions exactly the same way, and their scores place the man in the masculine zone and the women in the feminine (I say easily, because since a's score highest either way and both my scores are firmly in the masculine zone, whatever gender I calculate as, you'd need to check more a's than me to hit the overlap zone, and doing that would increase the gap)

...so, what does it prove? That if you set up the system in a way that means women will score differently from men, they will score differently?
Well, duh.

If the sort of methods you use to determine difference are biased, the results will reflect that. And if you publish that quiz and expect people to use it and find it "enlightening", I can only assume it's representative of the research methods you base the book on.

Somehow, that makes me lose my faith in the rest of what they have to say. If you are going to say men and women's brains are wired differently and they are fundamentally different in x y and z ways, then you should have enough confidence in your hypothesis to judge them by the same yardstick.

Sham and Scam
This book is similar to all of those infamous pyramid schemes--the authors make money off of other people's hard work, data gathering, and scientific studies. This would be bad enough if were not for the fact that the authors are also intellectually dishonest. The conclusions of the studies they cite do not support the premises of the authors. The Peases warp these studies' findings to fit their purpose and also ignore any facts that contradict their work.

For example, they discuss many studies on homosexuality, which they state all show that "people are born gay," when, in actuality, those studies' researchers stated that while some people have an innate disposition toward feminine behavior or attraction to their same sex, environment and an individual's development are as great, or even greater, factors in determining whether someone chooses a gay lifestyle. Just as someone may be genetically prone to depression or anger, so are some people toward homosexuality. The authors of this book also state that no therapies have ever succeeded in turning someone to a heterosexual lifestyle, when again, in fact, such therapies have a higher success rate than any current drug addiction therapy.

This is just one area where the Peases seemingly willfully ignore current scientific studies and evidence in order to sell their books, DVDs, seminars, video and audio programs. However, please do not just take my word for it and review the current available information.

Rather entertaining!
Having read some of the negative reviews I was somewhat wary of the content, but I must say that it is at the very least very entertaining. As I am not a psychologist or brain scientist, or any other type of scientist for that matter, I can't asses whether the authors claims and theories are true or false, neither can I comment on any of the apparent proof of them being wrong in the negative feedback. However, I did find many of the explanations to be plausible and not all that far fetched. Explanations about the theories are quite simplistic without much detailed reference to any researched, which is a downside to the book.

Both my wife and I got great laughs out of this book, and there where countless comments like: "That is so true!". Whether or not the theories are true or completely unproven didn't really matter to us, as it was still very good entertainment.