Moms in the County: Differences Between Men and Women

Ok – first post for Moms in the County. I love Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and the City," so I am emulating her ideas for writing (not necessarily her style) to get us talking about stuff we all go through at some point. Thanks for reading my first post.

Do you see what I see?

Really, you can’t see the toys on the floor? You don’t know that the kids have school on weekdays and therefore need their backpacks and lunches taken care of? If the walls were pink, with green polka dots, would it cross your mind that something just isn’t right?

Ok, so men see things differently. My question is, should we set the bar higher, or understand that the landscape is just different with the male genetic chromosome?

Men and women do think differently, at least where the anatomy of the brain is concerned. The brain is made primarily of two different types of tissue, called gray matter and white matter. Men, according to various studies, think “more with their gray matter, and women think more with white”1. In general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men. So what does this mean? Basically, men may be more skilled in the areas of processing, like with mathematics, where women have stronger language skills.

So not only is the actual physical make up of the brain gender-specific, the way men and women use the brain is different as well. Simply put, the two hemispheres of a woman’s brain interact more frequently than a man’s, which lends itself to women having strong verbal and intuition skills. “Men, on the other hand, have greater brain hemisphere separation”2, which allows them to have greater skills in the area of abstract reasoning and visual-spatial intelligence.

Ok, so back to the questions asked at the beginning of this post. Why can’t men see the toys on the floor, or automatically think about the kid’s backpacks the night before? Well, men tend to retain a firm sense of direction. They need and will find the way home. They will stay the course. Men will hunt, and maintain a narrow range of vision. I.e., if the man is in charge of getting the kids to bed, that is the course they will stay on: physically getting the kids in bed and the routine around that. It will not lead to making the lunch, or getting the backpacks ready for the following day. Women will maintain peripheral vision, which helps us to see what’s happening around the house. Women will spot an approaching danger, to notice changes in the kids' behavior, or appearance. Women will see that after bedtime comes morning, which means lunches and backpacks need to be ready to avoid confusion 12 hours later. Men tend to be better at solving technical problems (i.e., bed time = pj’s + brushing teeth + reading, etc). Women have a sharper ear, we talk more and can multitask independently. Men have a tendency to think of problems on a global scale, where women think more in the walls of their home (locally), and focus on the details and nuances within. Women can decipher a wide range of information, at one time – which is why we can walk in the room, see the toys, notice the lunch not packed, and the laundry left undone. Women also criticize themselves, for tasks left undone. Men can walk in the room, and not see toys and laundry, and not understand why we get upset at something they can not see. Men tend to be more satisfied with what they do, even if it is not up to our par. (I almost wish women were more like men in this respect.) So, should we set the bar higher? Should we just accept that the landscape, the ‘brain’ landscape is different with the male genetic chromosome? Or should we continue to hope to make the landscape a little, well, prettier – a little more ‘womanly?'

1: Jan 20, 2005 Live Science Men and Women Really Do Think Differently, Bjorn Carey

2 http://peoplerelationships.syl.com/battleofsexes/difference : Men and Women: Differences

There are anomalies, and this post is merely to initiate discussion.