Have you ever wondered why a man can seemingly read a map blindfolded but can't find his own socks? The reason may be found in his genetic make-up. Gender research is discovering that men and women actually perceive reality differently. In one university experiment that tested the differences between men and women, students were blindfolded while an experimenter who served as a guide walked them through a complex maze of tunnels that run beneath campus buildings. After traversing this maze, women were asked to locate a familiar college building. Nearly every woman in the gender research experiment was uncertain and unable to locate it. Men, on the other hand, had relatively little trouble with the task. In spite of all the subterranean twists and turns, men tended to retain a firm sense of direction and, with a kind of internal compass, were far more likely to identify the location of the building - even after walking through the maze, blindfolded. Chalk one up for the male species.
But before you put all your money on men, consider another gender research experiment. In this one, students were asked to wait in a small room with a cluttered desk while the experimenter "got something ready." The students thought they were simply waiting for the experiment to begin, but this actually was the experiment. After two minutes, the student was asked to describe in detail the waiting room from memory. Men, it turns out, didn't do well on the test, and were able to remember very little. Most men were barely able to describe much of the room in clear and accurate detail. They often missed major objects located on a desk right in front of them. Women, on the other hand, could go on and on with precise descriptions of the room's contents. In fact, women proved 70 percent better than men at recalling complex patterns formed by apparently random and unconnected items. One point for the women's side, but who's keeping score?
Insight into Modern Gender Research
In these gender research experiments and dozens of others like them, men and women consistently perform at different levels - sometimes men outperform women and sometimes vice-versa. Which is all to say that scientists are suddenly fast at work trying to account for the differences between men and women -- and what they're finding may surprise you.
Why are researchers just now exploring the differences between men and women? The reason can be traced to the 1970s when the feminist revolution nearly prohibited talk of inborn differences in the behavior of males and females. Pointing out distinctions between the sexes was simply off limits if you were a respectable researcher wanting to keep your job. Men dominated fields like architecture and engineering, it was argued, because of social, not hormonal, pressures. Women did the vast majority of society's child rearing because few other options were available to them. Once sexism was abolished, so the argument ran, the world would become perfectly equitable. But as hard as we tried to squelch our differences, the evidence for innate gender variance only began to mount and the differences between men and women have now become unavoidable. What's more, the differences are not exclusively relegated to how you were raised as a child and society's traditional stereotyping. The differences between men and women, gender research is discovering, may lie much deeper.
Understanding the Fundamental Differences between Men and Women
Gender research scientists have not ignored the ol' nature-nurture debate altogether, but they have come to accept that a few fundamental differences between men and women are apparently biological. It turns out that men and women's brains, for example, are not only different, but the way we use our brains differs too. Women have larger connections and, subsequently, more frequent "crosstalk" between their brains' left and right hemispheres. This accounts for women's seeming ability to have better verbal skills and relational intuition than men. Men, on the other hand, have greater brain hemisphere separation which enhances abstract reasoning and visual-spatial intelligence. Poet and author Robert Bly, describes women's brains as having a "superhighway" of connection while men have a "little crookedly country road."
Big deal, you may be thinking, men can rotate three-dimensional objects in their heads and women are better at reading emotions of people in photographs. How's that affect my relationships with the opposite sex? Fair enough. Here's our answer: If you evaluate the opposite gender's behavior according to your own standards, never considering the significant social and biological differences between men and women, you will miss out on a meaningful connection because you were compelled to make that person more like you. That's what we call the fundamental cross-gender relational error: assuming that misunderstandings between the sexes have only to do with cross-purposes and not psychological and biological crossed wiring.
About the Authors
Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott are founders of RealRelationships.com and co-directors of the Center for Relationship Development on the campus of Seattle Pacific University where Les is a professor of psychology and Leslie is a marriage and family therapist. They are also the co-founders of a new Christian dating website, MyRightSomeone, which provides Christian singles with the tools needed to find love that lasts a lifetime. Their best-selling books include the award-winning Saving Your Marriage Before it Starts, Love Talk, and Crazy Good Sex. They have been featured on Oprah, CBS This Morning, CNN, and The View, and in USA Today and the New York Times. Visit their website at www.RealRelationships.com to learn more about their new book, L.O.V.E.: Uncovering Your Personal Love Style.
Whether or not there are actual mental differences between biological males and females does not adequately address the issues of gender discrimination within contemporary Western societies. While geneticists may be able to pinpoint small differences between the two sexes, the truth is that, using averages, males and females perform similarly in many areas.
Findings like this just make women think that they perform well in certain fields because of their gender, which is extremely damaging.
Most Helpful Opinions
I would argue that gender research has come to say that it is "biological" because scientists cannot study past organs - only fossilized bone. If you're studying a brain, chromosomes or genes, it would be useful to look at the evolution of the genes from how peoples thought processes were reinforced in the past to what they have become. Humans only moved to the top of the food chain when man, tools, &wolf became a hunting team. But we can't look at those genes to see how they evolved in a society
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
9Opinion
Links to these studies? If you're going to use this site for free advertising the least you could do it provide some evidence for your claims. Besides, your arguments don't make sense. This is one of those articles which really makes me cringe, on the surface they seem scientific, but in the end they're just a list of random studies paired with conclusions which have nothing to do with the study...
The most important thing is who you are dealing with. Either men or women, when it comes to bad or good intention behind, you need to recognize it. If you just ignore what's difference between male and female and treat 2 the same way, then you will know who's lying and trying to take advantage. Good and bad matters not women and man. Women will always top whether you study them or not and men will always top you whether you work diligently or not. Unless you are willing to coporate you won't get
but I am telling you that women and men are same. Just because they have bigger connection doesn't mean that men can't make senses. Sometimes, men feel like their brains has gotten stolen because women are using their detect ability to get what they want and they could nail you when you are neglecting. However, men will learn in the end that it's only simple association that anyone could do, and women also will learn that she could do what men do if she work hard.
That's why men are good at working outside while women work at home. Women are designed muti-tasking which is useful for taking care of things near by. And, men could go further with one specific thing. However, women's boundaries are limited. Men could go further but their brain could stuck with one thing only. Bad habit die hard. Even after they retire, they still feel like work as habituated. Women could take care of baby, cooking answering the phone all at the same time but can't go far.
There is only one big difference between male and female's brain. The size of the fiber connecting left hemisphere of the brain and right hemisphere of the brain is larger in woman's brain than in man's. So, man's brain is specialize and woman's are associating. The reason why men are good with direction is they only focused on specific things. And the reason why women remember more what's in the room is because she is making connection between the objects.
Men and women do have different realities but its even more individualistic then that because everyone has a different reality.
physically we are different but culture-wise(which means a way of thinking) that is where we shape our reality and get into conflict, differences, norms, taboos, and controversy.
If you don't think so prove me wrong :)Wow, really interesting. But this is terrible because now I'm going to be up all night doing research haha. Dumb curiosity.
From my experience this is almost entirely true. Being with the same woman for 11 years, I have seen most of these differences just between us.
However, if you treat the same way you do to both, you will find that you are actually not the person that they think and they are not the people that they act. So, you are most likely be alone.
I can tell you, as a master degree student, it is still a taboo to speak of most differences within academia.
You will be freeeeeee.
Learn more
We're glad to see you liked this post.
You can also add your opinion below!
Most Helpful Opinions