DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders

(from Psychology Today, Gregory L. Jantz Ph.D.)

It’s no secret that boys and girls 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.

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.

(end of Psychology Today article)

There appears to be a physiological reason in the brain 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 more globally, and outwardly network with others, and also within all centers of their own brains, better than males.  Yet, there are aspects of many styles of processing available to both men, and women, depending on their own internal natures, and intentions.  And, through proper training, intention, and insight, men can actually process information and emotions in more intelligent, balanced, loving manners.  And men can become much more interested in, and sensitive to the needs of others, and 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 become much more “feminine” in the way their brain processes emotions and information, showing the powerful transformative force that conscious “nurture” has upon “nature”.

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.

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.

Built right into the very fabric of life, is death itself.  There are up to fifty trillion cells within our human bodies which are constantly dying off, and being replaced by others so that we can continue to live, and even evolve (or regress as the situation may dictate).  So also should all of our old thoughts die off, to be replaced by newer, more vibrant creations, if we are to continue to live, and grow, and even evolve.  Those who do not do the work to shed the old ways, the old thoughts, the incomplete and inaccurate ways of seeing life, and being in life, will remain the “poor among us”, and more susceptible to the ravages of disease, aging and deterioration of the mind and body.  Yet, even though the disease and despair wrought by toxic male energy is woven throughout the collective garment that now covers our humanity, there are many threads of hope interwoven within it, as well, and these threads are our hope for transcendence.