It is beneficial to provide some information about the physiological similarities and differences in the brain between men and women, and how we process information and express ourselves, as a result of those differences and similarities. What is of our biology, and what is of our environment and training play big roles in gender expression. I will also post some quotes from the Christian Bible, to show how men have attempted to suppress the nature of the feminine, both within the women in their lives and cultures, and within their own “masculine” minds. Both of these factors have ultimate importance in the Common Knowledge game, because these prejudicial forces form much of the basic foundation for perceptual creation within collective consciousness, and unconsciousness.
It’s no secret that boys and girls, and men and women, are different—very different. The differences between genders, however, extend beyond what the eye can see. Research reveals major distinctions between male and female brains.
Wow, there really is a difference! How did THAT get in there?!
Scientists generally study four primary areas of difference in male and female brains: processing, chemistry, structure, and activity. The differences between male and female brains in these areas show up all over the world, but scientists also have discovered exceptions to every so-called gender rule. You may know some boys who are very sensitive, immensely talkative about feelings, and just generally don’t seem to fit the “boy” way of doing things. As with all gender differences, no one way of doing things is better or worse. The differences listed below are simply generalized differences in typical brain functioning, and it is important to remember that all differences have advantages and disadvantages.
Processing
Male brains utilize nearly seven times more gray matter for activity while female brains utilize nearly ten times more white matter. What does this mean?
Gray matter areas of the brain are localized. They are information- and action-processing centers in specific splotches in a specific area of the brain. This can translate to a kind of tunnel vision when they are doing something. Once they are deeply engaged in a task or game, they may not demonstrate much sensitivity to other people or their surroundings.
White matter is the networking grid that connects the brain’s gray matter and other processing centers with one another. This profound brain-processing difference is probably one reason you may have noticed that girls tend to more quickly transition between tasks than boys do. The gray-white matter difference may explain why, in adulthood, females are great multi-taskers, while men excel in highly task-focused projects.
Chemistry
Male and female brains process the same neurochemicals but to different degrees and through gender-specific body-brain connections. Some dominant neurochemicals are serotonin, which, among other things, helps us sit still; testosterone, our sex and aggression chemical; estrogen, a female growth and reproductive chemical; and oxytocin, a bonding-relationship chemical.
In part, because of differences in processing these chemicals, males on average tend to be less inclined to sit still for as long as females and tend to be more physically impulsive and aggressive. Additionally, males process less of the bonding chemical oxytocin than females. Overall, a major takeaway of chemistry differences is to realize that our boys at times need different strategies for stress release than our girls.
Structural Differences
A number of structural elements in the human brain differ between males and females. “Structural” refers to actual parts of the brain and the way they are built, including their size and/or mass.
Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, girls and women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do. By “sensorial” we mean information to and from all five senses. If you note your observations over the next months of boys and girls and women and men, you will find that females tend to sense a lot more of what is going on around them throughout the day, and they retain that sensorial information more than men.
Additionally, before boys or girls are born, their brains developed with different hemispheric divisions of labor. The right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains are not set up exactly the same way. For instance, females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere. This is a significant difference. Girls tend to use more words when discussing or describing incidence, story, person, object, feeling, or place. Males not only have fewer verbal centers in general but also, often, have less connectivity between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, girls tend to have an advantage, and they tend to have more interest in talking about these things.
Blood Flow and Brain Activity
While we are on the subject of emotional processing, another difference worth looking closely at is the activity difference between male and female brains. The female brain, in part thanks to far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing), and because of a higher degree of blood flow in a concentration part of the brain called the cingulate gyrus, will often ruminate on and revisit emotional memories more than the male brain.
Males, in general, are designed a bit differently. Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, they may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may mistakenly believe that boys avoid feelings in comparison to girls or move to problem-solving too quickly.
These four, natural design differences listed above are just a sample of how males and females think differently. Scientists have discovered approximately 100 gender differences in the brain, and the importance of these differences cannot be overstated. Understanding gender differences from a neurological perspective not only opens the door to greater appreciation of the different genders, it also calls into question how we parent, educate, and support our children from a young age. It also brings to the forefront the importance of other activities to rebalance the brain, bring it into a better harmony within itself, and reprogramming it in ways that are more beneficial to the individual, and to the human race.
There are both physiological and cultural reasons for why men and women see life differently from each other. Men and women tend to process information and emotions somewhat differently. Women tend to think globally and network more efficiently with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, than do males. Yet, all aspects and styles of processing are available to both men and women, depending on their own conditioning, internal natures, and intentions. Activities such as insight, meditation, exercise, enhanced community involvement, and journal writing have all shown tremendous results in realigning and reorienting the basic fabric of the brain itself, for both men and women, as well as enhance the capacity to modify the consciousness that dances within, and outside of, the brain’s domain of influence.
Habitual ways of male thinking literally have become collective ruts in fragmented male consciousness through the generations. If these ruts are traveled too frequently and for too many years by the emotionally and spiritually unaware, they become worn down into the depths sufficient to become spiritual grave sites. Men collectively have been drawn to those grave sites through many generations of cultural conditioning, training, and bio-chemical predispositions. The Second Law Of Thermodynamics states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state. The male brain can tend to be such a closed system, and we have all witnessed the chaotic end result of such a process in our present world mind and experience.
Our collective consciousness in the USA has most of its historical religious foundation in Judeo-Christian values and ethics, a decidedly divisive understanding for living life which continues to directly impact our moral, religious, ethical, political, economic, and judicial processes. I will not be quoting from Buddhist, Hindi, Taoist, Confucian, or other foreign originated philosophies and religions in the following discussion, though works from many of these thought systems are relevant. The Christian bible will be quoted from, with the intention of showing how the Judeo-Christian ethic can predetermine collective understanding of the relationship between men and women.
Genesis 3:16
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
1 Corinthians 11:8
For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.
1 Peter 3:1
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
1 Timothy 2:12-14
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
The bible has so many revealing statements and texts about the subjugation and disempowering of women, all in the name of maintaining “Godly” relations. The Christian bible is replete with aphorisms and statements relegating women to the background of the “church”, and in all relations with life. This oppression of women, and repression of so-called “feminine characteristics” within the male have been historically inculcated into the history and traditions of so-called “religious people”, and it reflects in the diseased and imbalanced relationships between some Christian and Jewish bodies of thought, and the world in general
White Jesus Approved
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These religious principles have also become established as conscious, and unconscious, norms for perception within the collective consciousness of America, and mankind in general. Just having a political and philosophical need to keep the church and the state separate is not quite enough, apparently, to establish healthier norms for relationships between the sexes. And, an unfortunate and dangerous outcome to this division between the man and woman is that the man is unconsciously conditioned to see the ‘feminine” aspects of himself in an objectified manner, and tries to oppress, control and dominate those aspects, emotions, and tendencies as if those parts were his “Christian wife”, rather than integrate them into a complete holism within himself.
Brain plasticity is a common term used by neuroscientists, referring to the brain’s ability to change at any age – for better or worse. Through proper training, intention, and insight, men can actually process information and emotions in more intelligent, balanced, and loving manners. Men can become much more interested in, and sensitive to the needs of others, and to their own emotional needs, if this becomes a conscious intention for them. Studies have also shown that the internal nature of all brains can be changed, even after one reaches adulthood.
Men can learn to process information more globally, in the way their brain manages emotions and information, showing the powerful transformative force that conscious “nurture” has upon “nature”. And, there are the blessed few who have had spiritually transformative events, which dramatically changes the very structure of the brain, giving an immediate access to a new mind, as well. The world can still be saved, if men first save themselves from their personal delusions, and their own self-destructive “habits of thinking”. Then, we can all work towards saving this beautiful, and fragile, world..
You must be the change you want to see in the world
—Mahatma Gandhi
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