A Tale of Two Genders

In the 1960s, the feminist movement started. It championed equal opportunity and rights for everyone regardless of gender and there has been remarkable progress especially in workplace discrimination and wage discrimination. I just read an article that could be very interesting to all of you by Mark J. Perry. Here’s the link. In his article, Mark Perry shows that a lot of the perceived wage gape seems to stem from differences in hours worked. We have women in Congress and women are the heads of many organizations in this country and the world! Truly the progress that we’ve made is remarkable.

Since the 1960s, there has been a lot of research to determine if men and women are different fundamentally. A lot of it is bogus, biased, unethical, and just plain wrong; however, that doesn’t mean that any science showing that there is something different between men and women biologically is automatically incorrect. For example, it’s an undisputed fact that women can grow babies in them, and men can’t. Rather than trying to prove that men and women have no differences physically, biologically, or mentally, let’s learn what those differences are and celebrate them!

We live in a society today which celebrates diversity. We all know that diversity can be beneficial to our community and our family. Our world and all its technological marvels is possible because of diverse and specialized professions. Isn’t it possible that our families could benefit from having diverse and specialized roles from parents? If it’s possible, would it not behoove us to consider that possibility? People like Gloria Steinem have stated things like, “We badly need to raise our boys more like our girls,” but what are the possible ramifications of doing this? If we are indeed different from birth biologically and mentally, shouldn’t we celebrate that diversity and see how it could best benefit our families?

Traditionally, the role of men has been to provide and protect where the role of women has been to nurture and teach. We no longer live in a world where our families are frequently in danger of being eaten by animals or attacked by our neighbors. The kinds of jobs that exist today are no longer as physically demanding as they were in the past. Nurturing and teaching can be done well by all kinds of people, so long as they know how. So, often these roles are looked on as being misogynistic and irrelevant. But what if there are biological reasons for why these roles were adopted in the first place?

When you look at the physical bodies of men and women, there are a number of differences that show up. First off, the gender chromosomes of X and Y. Men have both, women have two Xs. Next, reproductive organs are different, hormones are different, muscle and skeletal structure are different, voices are different, the kinds of medicines we take are different, certain diseases that each gender is prone to are different, could the brain be different biologically? Yes. In fact, women have 3x more white matter (connective tissue) than men and men have 3x more grey matter (storage and processing tissue) than women. If you were to compare our brains to computers, men have a bigger CPU and Hard Drive where women have a state-of-the-art WiFi connection and high speed, fiber optic cables to connect every part of the brain. Does this mean that our brains are more suited to diverse, specialized tasks? Yes, it does.

Have you ever seen a YouTube video called, “A Tale of Two Brains,” or “Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti?” Both are hilarious (and I highly recommend watching them) and both share some really good insights into how our brains work. Here’s the summary, men tend to focus on one task at a time and women are able to connect a lot of tasks together and get from one topic to another while men are stuck at the first part of what the woman was talking about. Now here’s something really amazing. Functional MRI’s have shown that when given a task, men’s brains shift all focus to that task. If a man is given an audio task, the brain diverts all power to the auditory lobes of the brain and keeps enough blood flow in the other parts to ensure the brain keeps living. Women, however, keep their whole brain on and only slightly increase the amount of power in a given area depending on the task. Here’s what this means, women are capable of being aware of multiple tasks at any given time. Men are able to be extremely focused on one task at a time.

So how can knowing this help us? In the modern family, women can make fantastic mothers and nurturers because they can keep track of all their kids and give them equal attention, while still doing other tasks that are necessary. Men can make great motivators and heads of household because they can help their children focus on completing chores, homework, and other tasks.

In summary, men and women are diverse. This diversity should be celebrated, not berated. Instead of seeking to make men and women the same, we should see how our diverse and specialized abilities can complement, hone, and improve one another.

What differences and diversities in men and women have you seen and how can they be complementary?