Male, Female Brains Work Differently

A couple of months ago I wrote a column on the brain and biological differences between women and men. In that column I listed a few of the differences that profoundly affect the way the sexes relate to one another and join together to create a society.

When we explore this sort of information, there is always risk. Science, like religion or politics, can be misunderstood, misapplied, lied about, used to harm others. Wherever I travel to teach information about male and female biology, I meet people who fear a holistic scientific approach to male/ female issues.

Some of these people would prefer that pseudo-science be used - as in the book “The Bell Curve,” which argued that between the races there are significant intelligence differences but based this conclusion on external surveys without proving structural differences between Caucasian, Black or Asian brains. Without proving such differences, these pseudo-scientists contradict their own politically motivated point. They end up showing that in areas of race it is not structural, but environmental influence, opportunity and education that control intelligence quotients.

At the other end of the political spectrum there are people who prefer that only social sciences be used in the gender field; they are afraid if brain and biochemical science gets used, the recently developed idea that environment is the prime determinant of human behavior will be proven false. Yet when we do use brain science we discover that there are seven significant structural differences between male and female brains. These differences indicate no inferiority or superiority of one brain over the other. They indicate difference, profound difference.

Because of this pretty dramatic research, confirmed all over the world, the premise that “environment is the prime mover between women and men” is being re-evaluated. Sex and gender culture, we are discovering, is as much an expression of our biological systems as it is a reaction to environment.

Men tend to push themselves up corporate ladders more than women, not only because of a “social system that keeps women down,” but as much or more because men are driven by testosterone, the hormone that controls sex drive and aggression. When women are injected with testosterone-like hormones, their aggressiveness increases, no matter the environmental influences around them.

Women tend to spend more time with kids, not only because “they’ve been taught that kids are women’s work,” but as much or more because their hormonal systems, especially the bonding hormone progesterone, guide them to do so.

Women hear better than men, on average. In fact, they take in more and various sensory data overall than men do. For millions of years their primary role has been to take care of children, which requires more holistic sensory skills. Men’s primary role has been to hunt and work, either alone or in groups, in environments and at jobs that require specific, often singular, sensory skills - most often the visual.

In a given week the average woman uses four to five times the number of words as the average man. Males and females process emotion differently - women and girls tend to process it more quickly, more efficiently and with better verbal skills to explain themselves. Men and boys tend to need stories and external objects - from punching bags to whittling sticks to sports systems - through which to connect with feelings. This is the way each brain is set up.

What shall we do with the plethora of scientific information we have before us? Let it get mired in political rhetoric? That has happened to many scientists - like Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein - and to no good. We feared brain research for the last three decades and so it got suppressed. Now it’s coming out and explaining to millions of people what to expect from the other sex, how the sexes can be different yet equal, and how women and men can co-create, through mutually respectful male/ female dialogue, growthful ways of loving each other. Let’s move through our fear of scientific information and let it help us be more compassionate, caring, helpful and understanding of each other. That’s what it’s there for.

To learn more, read “Brain Sex” by Moir and Jessel, “The Lemur’s Legacy” by Robert Jay Russell, “The Moral Animal” by Robert Wright, “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” by Sagan and Druyan, “Mystery Dance” by Margulis and Sagan, and “Sexual Strategies” by Mary Batten.