Neuroscientist Gina Rippon painstakingly refutes in this exhaustive study long-held beliefs about gender’s role in the development and functioning of the brain. The book is, at the core, concerned with the question of whether male and female brains are different. Rippon, a British professor of cognitive neuroimaging, reviews the history of studies of the gendered brain. “We have to pay more attention to how our experiences drive our brain architecture. It’s a bit like trees that grow on windy plains. Their biological drivers make them grow upward, but the winds make them twist or grow branches on only one side,” she said in recent comments published in time.com. Much of Gender and Our Brains is written for the scientifically savvy reader. “It’s a reminder that gender messaging is never a nonissue. It helps sell products, supports power structures and, for better and worse, tells boys and girls what the human tribe expects of them,” said Karen Sandstrom in a review published in WashingtonPost.com.