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Juulie,
This is certainly an interesting (if non-basketball) topic. I have a degree in Psychology, and I remember the many heated discussions in Developmental Psychology (my favourite subject) when the lecturer started discussing the differences between male and female brains. In my experience, I found that too many women believed that "different" meant "worse" and became quite defensive during these discussions. Personally I put this down to hundreds (if not thousands) of years of women being told and treated as less intelligent than men. I think it is important for people to keep in mind that "different" does not mean "worse" or "less", it just means different.
I firmly believe that male and female brains are different, and that some of these differences account for some of the differences between men and women. Certainly environment and culture play a part as well. One thing that I think people would do well to remember is that we (humans) are just animals - like any other. Too often people assume that we are better than other animals, whereas in fact we are simply more highly evolved. Although we have learnt to control many of our animal urges and behaviours, these facets are still present and often exhibit themselves in subconscious behaviour.
One of the best examples of the differences between male and female brains that my lecturer raised was watching TV. The majority of males will rapidly change between channels looking for something to watch, pausing only briefly on each channel. On the other hand, women tend to change channels rarely, and give programs a much larger ammount of time to grab their interest. It has been suggested that this difference goes back to the very early days of mankind, where the men hunted and women gathered. Hunters had to make quick decisions on whether prey was worth pursuing, otherwise they risked burning more calories than they would gain with the kill. Women were more able to slowly consider the benefits of individual plants since only a minimal outlay of energy was required. Obviously this is only an analogy and is, like all psychology, a generalisation and does not apply to everyone.
Anyway, I look forward to reading the rest of your (and others') posts about this book.
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