Male Vs. Female Brain Theory
It is increasingly clear that male and female brains are different. Studies from Scientific American, Tarleton State University and Washington University strongly suggest the old stereotypes are true: the male brain is based on systematizing objects, estimating distances and reasoning, while the female brain is based on expression, empathy and emotions.
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Types
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There are three types of brains. The first is the male brain, that separates language from emotion. The language and communicative part of the brain for the male is in the left hemisphere, while emotions and feelings are segregated in the right. The female brain has both qualities mixed in both hemispheres. This provides scientific evidence that women are more in touch with their feelings and can express them better. The mixed brain occurs from time to time, and features a balance between systemic thinking and empathy.
Features
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Not all men have the male brain, not all females the female. However, a large majority of males do have the male brain and females the female brain. The ingredient seems to be in the hormones. Girls who have an excess of testosterone often act and think like men, while boys who have received a larger dose of estrogen in the womb begin to act like girls in stereotypical ways.
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Effects
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In general, the differences between the male and female brains permits women to have more feelings, and more feelings of a complex variety. Women can be more expressive, but this connection between the female brain and emotions leads to a greater degree of depression in women. Women attempt suicide at a rate 10 times that of men, though men are more often successful. The ultimate distinction in terms of basic mental functioning is that men, in general, are geared towards systematizing information and ordering it, while female brains lean towards empathy and expression of feelings.
Significance
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Other than hormones, the basis of the differences lies in the nature of the brain cells. Men have roughly 4 percent more cells than women, and the male brain is larger by about 2 percent than the female. The female, however, has more "passageways" among brain cells than men do, and these passageways are what connects cells to each other, permitting them to communicate and share information. There is some speculation that this increase in brain communication in women has an integrative function for different types of thought, but this remains controversial.
Benefits
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This distinction among brains strongly suggests that men and women should not be enemies, but should work together, to "complete" one another. Nature, it seems, has provided men and women with very different, but complementary, types of thought. People need both reason and systematizing in order to make sense of the world, and also a strong sense of the poetic to make life worth living.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit chess game - king and queen image by Andrew Brown from Fotolia.com
