Think Men are "better" in any way other than upper body strength; Not so much.
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All rights reserved
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The behavioral differences of men and women have been scrutinized, discussed, denigrated, satirized, honored and praised; likely since Adam and Eve, or the first hominids, gave it much thought. This paper will delve into the biological parameters that distinguish male and female behavior.
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All rights reserved
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The behavioral differences of men and women have been scrutinized, discussed, denigrated, satirized, honored and praised; likely since Adam and Eve, or the first hominids, gave it much thought. This paper will delve into the biological parameters that distinguish male and female behavior.
The behavior of men and women originates in the same place; the brain.
The brain is influenced in its development by everything humans experience in
the womb and during the first few years of life. Different parts of the brain
are the source for various different behaviors. However the brain works in
conjunction with the nervous system towards processing information related to the
formation of thoughts, actions and all bodily functions; ultimately towards the
individual’s survival. It is the nervous system that uses specialized systems
such as the central nervous system (CNS), the peripheral nervous system (PNS)
and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to send information, often in the form
of commands, from one part of the body to another, forming the foundation for
decisions and the behaviors resulting from those decisions (Wright; Chapter 6;
p. 1 – 2).
Important to this network comprised of the brain and the central nervous
system is the basic and smallest part; the individual cells called neurons.
Neurons are categorized into three types; sensory neurons, interneurons and
motor neurons. At birth humans have about 100 billion neurons which work
together as the body’s communication system. Human mental characteristics, and
likely particular human male and female characteristics, are determined by how
these 100 billion neurons are connected (Wright; Chapter 6; p. 7).
Given this biological framework for behavior and the differences in the
behavior of men and women; what is it that is different, in that which is the
foundation for decision making and the consequent behaviors exhibited by men and
women? In other words, the brain and central nervous system in men and in women
seem to function differently at various levels. This paper will explore the
biological parameters that differentiate female and male behavior.
According to Louann Brizendine (2006)
during the first 18 weeks of pregnancy the fetus develops sex-specific
circuits. The male brain is created around the 8th week of pregnancy
when a testosterone surge eliminates cells located in the communication centers
of the brain while at about the same time grows cells located in the sex and
aggression centers. Paradoxically, the opposite process occurs in women
(Brizendine, p. 3). Eight weeks after conception the embryo has gone on a path
towards either the male or female state of being. Males lose some of the brain
cells that make communication fluent, while females gain more of those brain
cells. Males gain more of the brain cells for aggression while women do not.
This alone makes the argument for male female traits being wholly based upon
socialization questionable and improbable. Wright asserts that critical
differences in male and female children are established likely before birth
(Wright; Chapter 7; p. 7).
Women have corpus callosum that are larger, proportionally, than that of
men and also more bulbous in structure than the corpus callosum in men (Hines,
1990; Steinmetz et al, 1995: in Wright; Chapter 7, p. 4). The corpus callosum
is responsible for the transference of information between the two hemispheres
and for acquiring intelligence and self awareness. If women have larger corpus callosum than
men, what Brizendine stated about the growth and elimination of brain cells in
opposite directions is borne out by the evidence that the larger corpus
callosum of women seems to have better and faster communication processing
between the right and left hemispheres than that of men (Innocenti, 1994;
Jancke & Steinmetz, 1994: in Wright; Chapter 7; p. 5). The corpus callosum
is prominent in the development of self awareness and intelligence (Wright;
Chapter 7; p. 5). This efficient communication between hemispheres in females
gives women superior verbal ability and fluency (Halpern, 2000: in Wright:
Chapter 7, p. 5). According Brizendine, girls have 11% more neurons in the
brain centers for language and hearing. Girls’ social and relationship skills,
along with verbal fluency, develop years before those of boys. Girls begin to
speak earlier and faster than boys and at the age of about 20 months girls have
two to three times the vocabulary of boys. Girls use their vocabulary to speak
two to three times as many words in a day than boys. Talking increases dopamine
and oxytocin which is responsible for social bonding in humans and mammals.
Brizendine indicates that only in females is the oxytocin and dopamine
increased by talking. In effect, talking provides females with stimulated
pleasure centers in their brains. The males’ desire to talk may be limited by
the lack of stimulation to their brain’s pleasure centers. Boys have ten times the amount of
testosterone than girls and young boys use language as a tool of aggression to
control others. Girls have six to eight times the levels of estrogen than boys
but use language in collaborative methods towards building consensus. Men have
more than twice as many brain cells devoted to aggression and sexual drive than
women. With aging, women enjoy better connected and stable relationships than
men who generally prefer not to stay connected. Men prefer isolation and are
more hierarchical in thinking as opposed to the circular thinking of women. Men
can focus better while women can multitask better (Brizendine, 2006).
It is in or about the fifth week of
fetal development that around half the embryos will be flagged by a Y
chromosome to grow testes that will greatly affect the individual’s levels of
androgens. Wright states this one event in development will profoundly
determine, at five weeks in the womb, the individual’s cognitive competence on
specific cognitive tasks for the rest of the individual’s life. The type and
amount of sex hormones will affect the formation of the new brain and
sexually-specific genitals (Chapter 7; p. 3).
Men and women have differing cognitive
structure and function that begins formation before birth and becomes very, but
not completely, defined by age five. The differences in hormonal levels in
fetuses mentioned above, at the time when sex specific structures develop in
the fetal brain, determine the function of those structures, or how the
individual will think after birth either as a human male or as a human female.
This gender differentiation in cognitive processing seems to be related to
lateral hemisphere preferences in which specific functions are controlled
mostly, or only, in one hemisphere of the brain (Wright; Chapter 7; p. 3).
Females are less lateralized than males in
cognitive functions. An example is the brain specific areas important to speech
and language. Superior verbal skills,
possessed by women, are spread between both hemispheres while in men they are
located in one hemisphere. If the male head is harmed in such a way as to
damage the verbal skill area, the male does not have the advantage of the
female; a backup in the other hemisphere (Wright; Chapter 7; pp. 5 & 12).
The biological parameters that distinguish
between male and female behavior become apparent when reviewing the research on
this subject. Why these differences exist can be traced through evolutionary
needs, i.e., superior or natural language abilities are important in child
rearing as are feelings of empathy and attachment. Male aggression and other
male specific behavior, such as better performance at mental rotation tasks,
had evolutionary significance in survival (Wright; Chapter 7; p. 13).
Societal factors influencing differences
in male and female behavior are moot to this paper; however the politically
incorrect thought does comes up that there is something not right about the
roles played by men and women in the work force and professions given the
biological parameters of male female behavioral differences. Why is not the
medical profession filled only with those who are naturally more empathetic and
less aggressive? Are men or women naturally better airline pilots? What would
politics be like if there were more real female politicians, (the kind that do
not try to emulate the male behavior of male politicians)? Society may be poorer for not recognizing the
values that exist in the different strengths and weaknesses that biology and
evolution has given the two sexes. Wright mentions that dominant successful
males, historically and evolutionarily, have a superior advantage in spreading
their genes through multiple mates attracted to their success; however, modern
American successful males do not seem to be doing this by any measure in numbers
of offspring (Chapter 7; p. 17). That there are males in the majority of power
positions, and those females who are in power positions seem to be acting like
males, indicates to this writer that the males might understand, at least as
some sub conscious level, that the bilateral female brain connected by an
efficient corpus callosum, with its superior biological advantages is a power
house waiting to be unleashed. The fear of such a female, not socialized to
male dominance, will delay male emancipation from the bondage of maintaining
dominance for another 100 years or more.
I highly recommend this book.
This woman writes like a bolt of lightening hitting hard and accurate.
