A --- HOW men's and women's brains are different
B --- WHY men and women's brains are different.
C --- Single-focus "bachelor pad"
vs. multiple-focus "woman's touch"
D --- Some myths about creativity and "right
brain".
A --- HOW men's and women's brains are different
Evidence from neuropsychology, especially
clinical evidence of what happens to people
after strokes and brain injuries, gives fairly
logical explantions about natural differences
between talents of men and women.
1. Experts vs. Generalists
Why are women not more important in history
as geniuses? The usual assumption is that
women have not had access to education and
have not had the opportunity to excel. This
is true to an extent, but not the cause.
There is a real difference in brain design
-- women tend to have more balanced brains,
whereas men tend to have more specialized
brains. To understand this section, it is important
to have read the previous section on "balanced" brains.
A very important observation of stroke and
injury victims is that "men who have had unilateral brain damage
[left or right side only] tend to show more
profound deficits in functions associated
with the side of lesion than do women with
similar lesions." (Lezak 1983).
Translated this means that women tend to have less-specialized brains, with talents distributed over larger areas.
For example, men tend to have language concentrated
in the left brain, and may lose all language
ability with a damaged left brain, whereas
women have language talents spread over both
hemispheres.
These observations are based on statistical
averages of many people. Every person is
different. Many women have very specialized brains and
become experts, and many men have balanced
brains and become good managers. However, the trend is strong. The following
graph shows an overlap of talents, and you
could be anywhere on the bell curve of the
population.
| These are only tendencies. Where do you fit? |
 |
|
 Men with more specialized brains |
 Women with more balanced
brains |
| Advantages |
More likely to become geniuses and experts |
Better at managing, generalist thinking,
and "intuitive" thinking (ie. aware
of many aspects of a situation). |
| Disadvantages |
More likely to become idiot savants, absent-minded,
narrow minded, and be poor managers |
Less likely to excel as experts |
| Careers where this tendency is a real advantage |
Musician, Craftsmen, Specialist in any field,
and any career using spatial sense |
President, CEO, Manager, Supervisor, Mother,
Nurse, Secretary, Lawyer, Cook, Teacher |
Examples are easy to find.
- Hospitals are almost "run" by nurses.
Specialist male doctors ask the generalist
nurses what is happening with their patients.
- Secretaries are exceedingly important at
keeping most organizations operating smoothly,
thereby making the CEO and specialists successful.
- Most men do not seem very adept at being
house-husbands, which involves keeping track
of many things happening at the same time.
2. "Feminine Intuition" is Real
(a) Men tend to be very narrow focused so
they miss other details around them. What they pay attention to is usually what
they are good at.
- A man who likes cars will walk down the street
thinking about the cars parked along the
road -- their make, model, history, horsepower,
body rust, paint job, dollar value, etc.
(b) Women with their multiple-focus brains
will notice and think about many things.
- The old man on the steps looks lonely and
hungry, and may have lost his job, and his
shoes are untied..
- The traffic lights all are painted a dull
shade of yellow that does not match the yellow
of the light
- The person in front is carrying books so
may be going to the library that is a block
away
- The woman in the car is sitting away from
the driver and frowning so they may have
had an argument.
- A terrier dog is running across the lawn
....and may run out in front of the car with
the unhappy couple...who may not notice the
dog and run over it...and the dog may belong
to the old man... and he will suddenly jump
up and trip on his shoelaces...but the light is yellow so it may turn red
and stop the cars in time before the dog
is run over.
She might suddenly call the dog to get its
attention... which makes him stop running,
and none of the accidents will happen. No
one gives her credit for preventing the accident,
but her husband wonders why she is yelling
and why she didn't notice the Jaquar XKE
in mint condition they just passed. She smiles
at him, not in criticism but with understanding
of his maleness, and respect for his special
knowledge... yet she quietly stops to comb down the patch
of wind-blown hair sticking up from his head
and wishes he had worn a different shirt
that matched the color of her sweater.
3. Women talk, men grunt
Women have a reputation for talking because,
on the average, more of the female brain
is devoted to language. Of course, some men
also have strong language areas, and may
become teachers, lawyers, and writers, but
the tendency is for women to have stronger
language development.
In contrast, the right brains of men tend
to be more like their animal ancestors, with
skills useful for hunting and warfare ( talents
needed today for driving their SUV through
commuter traffic).
Often when couples get together, the women use their strong language and generalist
skills to talk in the kitchen, prepare food,
and manage the party, while the pack of men in the living room grunt and scream right-brain
animal sounds as they watch someone make
a goal on TV sports.
The men will also be treating the TV Remote as if it were a spear, pointing it at the TV prey, searching for
stations as if they were deer hiding in the
trees, and always looking for something better
on the next channel.
B --- WHY men and women's brains are different.
Human brains evolved differently for cave-men
and cave-women.
Rather than just have people laugh at sex
differences with jokes about "dumb blonds"
or "boys toys" which involve ridicule,
I would prefer to understand how male and
female brains evolved very logically, and
each has its advantages and disadvantages.
I see ignorance about these male-female brain
differences as the main cause of marriage
problems.
(Despite the name "Caveman" there
was a housing crisis for millions of years
due to the lack of enough caves and mortgages
to buy them. I use "caveman" to
refer to all early humans, whereas "cave-man"
refers to the male version only.)
Early humans developed some unusual traits
for good reasons. As the jungles of eastern
Africa changed to grasslands during a long
drying spell, jungle apes designed for trees
were at a disadvantage in catching food.
Evolution favored walking upright which allowed
more use of hands and arms for using tools.
1. Cave-MEN evolved brains for hunting and
grunting and fighting
- Tool use led to more advancement in brain design. -- A sense of time was very useful in planning tools for future
hunting trips. Creative visual-spatial ability allowed imagining a finished spear point
when looking at a chunk of flint. Logical thinking solved problems of losing the spear head
by notching and tying it to a shaft. Abstract thinking helped the hunter predict in his mind the
path of an imaginary spear flying through
empty space to hit an animal in specific
vital points if thrown at a high or low angle
and at different speeds, before he threw
his new spear.
- Language use could easily have developed to help
with hunting. Pointing the hand or spear
at an elephant and grunting a sound to match
would associate the grunt with the object
as a name. For a hunter who was often alone
during the hunt, language for most males
didn't need to progress much beyond grunts,
as demonstrated by men watching sports on
TV today.
- Left brain specialization. Tool use took brain specialization, but
if the whole brain was going to be modified
for purposeful action with tools and language
and sequential thinking, it would weaken
some of its other talents such as navigation.
By evolving a dual-purpose brain, leaving the original animal abilities in
the human right brain, then the left brain
could have freedom to evolve much more advanced
talents for tools and language. The brain is a team effort - left-brain human
talents cooperating with ancient right-brain
animal talents.
- Risk-taking. Men hunting for dangerous animals had to
take dangerous risks, and even the hunt itself
was a gamble about finding game. The fear
center in the brain decreased. Some people
get a pleasure high from adrenaline, so fear
emotions are replaced by pleasure emotions.
I observe that this seems to be more common
in men than women.
- Tribalism. The tribe is highly important for any social
animals. The brain is first aware of individuals
and family members, then can also learn to
recognize groupings of families as tribes,
whether related by genetics, language, location,
color of skin, color of flag, kind of religion,
etc. Tribal thinking in the brain attaches
emotions to groups of people about who is
"the good guys" and "the bad
guys."
- War. War is a spin-off of hunting skills and
tribalism. War is like a hunt because it
often brought home valuables like loot, land,
women or slaves. The thrills and risks of
danger of war were similar to attacking a
mammoth or bear.
- Self-centered and bragging. Men would naturally brag to the world about
their own hunting skills when sitting around
with other hunters at the fire, or when coming
home to the family and neighbors. Bragging
was good in the hunting world because the
stories taught the young men how to act,
and brave men brought back more food for
their families. Thus self-awareness parts
of the brain would be well developed in cave-men.
The cave-man brains would have had little
encouragement to develop sympathy for the
timid or weak human or animal. Failure and
cowardice hurt other hunters, and meant starvation
for familes.
2. Cave-WOMEN evolved brains for talking
and nurturing and being domestic
- Nurturing instinct. Most mammal babies grow fast and become independent
within a year. Baby horses can walk within
minutes, run within hours, and follow the
herd within a day. The important point is
that by next Mother's Day most female mammals
give last year's baby a cold shoulder, kick
him out of the nest, and give birth to the
next little one. Little Bambi didn't give
mom many clover leaves after getting the
boot.
But as humans evolved larger brains, female
humans had a problem -- the larger brain
meant larger heads and more labor pains.
Women solved the problem by organizing the
first labor strike. Early cave-women began
minimizing labor pains by having babies more
premature with smaller heads and under-developed
brains. (Too premature and the baby would
die. Not premature enough and the mother
would die. Nine months was the compromise
agreement after a million years or so of
contract negotiations.)
- Body talents. To be successful at raising children with
larger heads, women needed wide hips for
birth. Cave-women also evolved a shoulder
design that made it natural to carry a baby
while nursing, but in the process their shoulders
and arms were not as good for throwing spears
(or baseballs, etc.). Cave-men idolized women
who would produce lots of children so idolized
wide hips and breasts. Also, if their wives
were fat, that told their neighbors that
the man was a good hunter. The earliest human
figurines are called "fat venuses."
Roman statues of women showed them as plump,
showing them to be from a rich class..
- Management talents. This premature birth meant mom had to become
domestic, good at managing a cave. Even at
nine months the baby has so much growing
to do before it can be kicked out of the
nest that mom has to say no to the joy of
spending weeks on a mammoth hunting trip
with her husband. And mom has another baby
next season, along with other children still
hanging around the nest until they get married
off. With many things happening in the cave,
including cooking the food, disciplining
or feeding the children, caring for the old
people, talking with all of the people, and
sewing up leather clothes, women developed
management talents to juggle the many activities
and people.
C--- The single-focus "bachelor pad"
vs. the multiple-focus "woman's touch"
1. A man's achievements define his identity whether it's the size of mammoth he caught,
or things he has accumulated, or skills he
has shown, or size of his boat, or horsepower
of his car....
The "MALE pattern" of thinking
is often to have a single focus of attention
that relates to his achievements and identity
-- collections of things, over-emphasis on
a career or hobby, etc. which shows to other
men how he is special. It also involves "bragging"
about the achievement so he gains recognition.
When a man invites you to his living spot,
what does he talk about?
- HIS complete collection of original Beatles
CDs.
- HIS photographs and books and models of steam
locomotives of the British Empire.
- HIS library of original leather-bound books
from Hemingway.
- HIS wall full of high powered stereo equipment
with 26 speakers around the house
- HIS monster computer system with 32 Gigabytes
of Ram and a 12 Terabyte hard drive
- HIS opinon on .....
However the apartment may be a mess -- with dirty dishes or floor, no curtains
on windows, lack of planning of a color scheme,
unmatched furniture or kitchen utensils,
no flowers in vases, behind on rent payments,
dirty dishes left over from breakfast, the
meal pizza delivered to the door, and his
favorite loud music playing so you can't
talk. Then the neighbours knock on the door
wanting him to turn the music down...but
he turns the music up instead.
2. A "woman's touch" in a home means
that she has taken care of many things, especially
relating to human relationships.
You know "a woman lives here" when
you see most or all of the following
- Family pictures are on the walls
- Things are generally neat and clean
- The curtains on the windows match and are
nicely done
- The furnishings and decorations are probably
a similar style
- There are fresh flowers, real not plastic,
on the table.
- The music is background music so it doesn't
interfere with conversation
- Food is to be served in an attractive way
on the dining table.
There are many exceptions, of course, but
you get the idea.
D --- Some myths about creativity and "left-right
brain"
1. Myth: Women are more "right-brained"
Reality = WOMEN on the average tend to be
more "left-brained" than men.
A commonly voiced myth, usually spoken or
written by women in books for women, is that
"women are more right-brained than men."
This is wrong. The evidence from strokes
and injuries shows that women have more language development over
more areas of the brain, as described above. Because language is
a left-brain specialty, women tend to be actually more "left-brained"
than men, on the average.
Compared to the average male, women tend to have more left brain talents
such as talking more, talking more inteligently
and logically, and to be better at secretarial
skills of keeping track of schedules, orgainizing
file cabinets sequentially, and writing eloquently.
Girls in school tend also to excel at language
skills and history with its sequential thinking.
Reality = MEN on the average tend to be right-brained
For example the right-brain spatial area is important to animals for finding food, and for humans operating equipment, designing bridges,
fixing car engines, and building houses.Men
tend to be better drivers in high-speed situations
like racing where right-brain spatial sense
is so important.
Part of the "women are right-brain"
myth includes the myth that "left-brained men are more militaristic" and thus cause wars. Yes, men cause
almost all wars and military operations,
but it is because men are so right-brained and with aggressive
and competitive emotions. War is mostly a right-brain operation, tribalistic and visual-spatial -- flying airplanes, aiming guns, deciding
who is the enemy, establishing territory,
sneaking around the woods, and so on.
|
Custom Search