Reddit mentions of Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain Fourth, North Americ Edition by Bear PhD, Mark F., Connors PhD, Barry W., Paradiso PhD, Mich (2015) Hardcover

Neuroscience: Exploring the brain by Bear, Connors and Paradiso is probably the best introductory textbook. http://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Exploring-Mark-Bear-PhD/dp/0781778174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425815661&sr=8-1&keywords=Neuroscience%3A+Exploring+the+Brain

Don't worry about being smart enough. Just work hard and study hard. If you're looking for a good book try Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. If you find this to be too dificult then make sure to brush up on some general biology. If you're particularly ambitious then you can try Kandel's Principles of Neuroscience (This is a graduate level text, but it has a lot of information and covers a wide breadth of Neuroscience).

I like this question.

Beginner:

• Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (I don't like this text, but it's fairly accessible to beginners.)
  
  
• Auditory Neuroscience
  
  
• Musicophilia
  
  Student:
  
  
• Neuroscience
  
  
• MATLAB for Neuroscientists
  
  
• An Introduction to the Psychology/Physiology of Hearing (sorry, that was cheating)
  
  Expert:
  
  
• Principles of Neural Science
  
  
• Spikes
  
  
• Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics
  

The other commenters have already explained this very well, but I'm going to try putting it in my own words anyway.

There are two things to talk about: sex and gender. Sex is the biological aspect while gender is the behavioral aspect. But wait, can't behavior have a biological influence? Everything points out that yes, it can, but it can also have environmental influences such as culture.

So how did sex arise? Some animals have only one sex, and some are even able to make babies with themselves. The reason some animals evolved away from this suggests an advantage to having multiple sexes in multiple people. The multiple people part is easy, genetic variability. If you only make sex with yourself, you're going to have very little change in your genes, and any new hazard, like viruses and changes in temperature could wipe your genome out.

What about different sexes? In this case, it is all about specialization. Having someone specialize in nurturing and someone specialize in proliferating might have given advantage to our predecessors. This specialization starts in our germ cells, with one producing small, motile, and ever proliferating spermatozoan and the other producing large, immobile, once in a lifetime eggs. Males make millions of spermatozoan during most of their lifetime while females make eggs only in an early age.

Now, what does that have to do with gender? It is possible that the different costs on the different types of sex cells could have led animals to behave differently. The female invests a lot on a single egg, so maybe she needs to be really picky about whom she mates with; the male can just throw his stuff around. It would also be dangerous if males started mating with males instead of females. That would be just wasted energy that could have been used in effective reproduction.

Note that this behavior isn't always observed in animals. The ultimate goal is gene survival, and there are many factors that help genes survive. Maybe a male fish will find that having a male lover while procreating with a female will cause this lover to protect his offspring for some reason. This would reinforce the behavior of keeping male lovers in this species.

Now, to humans. What makes humans complex is the hypothesis that we have this consciouness that can govern our lower impulses and perhaps even act against them. This area is still growing, and there are many theories. One could say that gene influence is still what matters most. Maybe by choosing not to have children and instead focusing on my career, I am helping my genes survive through other people (all humans have some similar genes, and if my career helps the world, it also helps my genes). On the other hand, I could argue that there is something in humans that really allows them to outrule their survival insticts, or that there are new powerful forces such as culture that can govern our actions more than our genes and our own will together.

So, is there such a thing as gender? Yes, but in humans it could go much beyond simple inherited "instincts". I recommend you read the chapter on sex of this book and maybe take a look at the selfish gene.

At a first year student ‘Neuroscience- exploring the brain’ has been recommended if that helps

What kind of paper? Don't you have access to most of the journals through your university?
I can browse many journals at home with VPN-Access, provided by my university.
For books, try these:
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Fifth-Kandel/dp/0071390111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452278840&sr=8-1&keywords=principles+of+neural+science
OR (less detailed)
http://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Exploring-Mark-F-Bear/dp/0781778174/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452278819&sr=8-1&keywords=neuroscience

I heard some rumours that at least the Kandel is available as a free PDF in the internet, just use google with the proper terms ;)

I’m minoring in neuroscience but my major is biochemistry. If you’re like me and are interested in more of the cellular/molecular aspect, the textbook we use is brilliant! I’ve never seen such complex topics discussed in a more accessible way. And the images are dope. Highly recommend this textbook.

Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain Fourth, North Americ Edition by Bear PhD, Mark F., Connors PhD, Barry W., Paradiso PhD, Mich (2015) Hardcover https://www.amazon.com/dp/0781778174/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DLbLDbZZR5MFN

about those books recommendations: i have some

Neuroscience: exploring the brain is a very good textbook about the "circuitry" of the brain

Memory: From mind to molecules is interesting because it tries to "draw the line" between the laws which dictate how atoms and molecules work and abstract concept of "memory"

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning is a very layman directed read and is more about "how to remember more things when studying" but it have some good explanations on why some memories are "clear", some are "diffuse" and some memories fade out

The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory offers an integration between the neuroscience of memory and some behavorial analisys, it also have some very interesting topics on the plasticity of our mind