ESSAY
purple brain
daphna joel, professor of psychology and neuroscience at tel aviv university, is the author, with luba vikhanski,
of gender mosaic: beyond the myth of the male and female brain (endeavour, octopus publishing group ltd, uk, 2019)
text by DAPHNA JOEL
“Purple brain.” That was the title of an e-mail I received from the editor of this magazine. It was also the tentative title of a popular book about the myth of the female and male brain I recently completed. Purple is a mix between pink, the color that commonly labels a new baby’s sex as female, and blue, the color used to announce that the newly arrived human being is a male. My research has shown that human brains are typically mosaics of features that are more commonly found in women (pink) and features that are more commonly found in men (blue), so a purple brain…