We live in a gendered world, where we are ceaselessly bombarded by messages about sex and gender. On a daily basis, we face deeply ingrained beliefs that sex determines our skills and preferences, from toys and colors to career choice and salaries. But what does this constant gendering mean for our thoughts, decisions and behavior? And what does it mean for our brains? Drawing on her work as a professor of cognitive neuroimaging, the author unpacks the stereotypes that surround us from our earliest moments and shows how these messages mold our ideas of ourselves and even shape our brains. By exploring cutting-edge neuroscience, the author urges readers to move beyond a binary view of the brain and to see instead this complex organ as highly individualized, profoundly adaptable and full of unbounded potential.

Introduction : whac-a-mole myths -- Sex, gender, sex/gender, or gender/sex : a note on gender and sex -- Inside her pretty little head : the hunt begins ; Her raging hormones ; The rise of psychobabble ; Brain myths, neurotrash and neurosexism -- The twenty-first century brain ; Your social brain -- Baby matters : to begin at the beginning (or even a bit before) ; Let's hear it for the babies ; The gendered waters in which we swim : the pink and blue tsunami -- Sex and science ; Science and the brain ; Good girls don"t ; Inside her pretty little head : a twenty-first century update ; Mars, Venus or Earth? Have we been wrong about sex all along? -- Raising dauntless daughters (and sympathetic sons).