One day early on in our research, my kids and I dropped by the home of some close friends, Alec and Susie. While our children went outside to play, Alec asked me what I’d been learning about the mysterious other gender. I tried to describe a growing realization: The female brain is not a normal instrument. Normal, Alec and I agreed, would mean “male.” Instead, I described what many women had told me: that their thought lives were almost like busy computers with multiple windows open and running all at once, unwanted pop-ups intruding all the time, and little ability to close out or ignore any of that mental or emotional activity until a more convenient time. My friend shook his head in amazement. Strange, we both agreed. Very strange. Their thought lives are almost like busy computers with multiple windows open and running all at once. Susie, sitting at her computer nearby, had been listening, much amused, to the male sleuths at work in her kitchen. So my friend and I decided to test my working conclusions on the spot.
