Brainsex

An interesting read and some good background information on the way male and female brains work. However, it is important to recognise that both male and female brains are on a spectrum; some women have a brain that is closer to a male brain, and vice versa.

Brainsex by Anne Moir and David Jessell (Mandarin, 1991)

Religion and education in the past maintained the subordinate status of women. Civilisations are founded on male aggression and dominance. In IQ tests researchers found consistent differences favouring one sex or the other in some of the abilities tested. Area of biggest difference is in spatial ability.

Men had stronger grip, sensitivity to shrill whistle sounds, ability to work under pressure, prefer red to blue, more adventurous vocabulary, prefer abstract and general thought. They tend to be better at work with 3-dimensional mechanical apparatus, maths involving abstract concepts of space, relationships and theory, hand-eye co-ordination (ball games), patterns and abstract relationships (chess), map reading. Men have a narrower field of vision and greater concentration on depth, more sensitive to salty flavours.

Women are more sensitive to pain, hear better, more conventional vocabulary, prefer blue to red, prefer practical problems and individual tasks, better memory, cunning, dissimulation, compassion, patience, tidiness. Are more sensitive to all sensory stimuli, better verbal ability (read earlier, better with grammar, punctuation and spelling), better at foreign languages, more fluent speech (stuttering and other speech defects almost exclusively boys), six times as many girls sing in tune as boys, sensitive to tone of voice, see better in the dark, better visual memory. Women react faster to pain but have a greater resilience to long term discomfort, have much greater tactile sensitivity, more sensitive to bitter flavours (eg. quinine), prefer sweet tastes, have better perceptions and delicacy in taste and smell. Women are better judges of character.

Brain structure. RS of brain controls LS of body and vice versa. Left side deals predominantly with verbal abilities; controls logical and sequential thought processes and detailed orderly processing of information; speaking, writing, reading. LS damage: various problems relating to language. Right side deals predominantly with visual information; spatial relations; controls abstract thought processes, some emotional responses, responsible for overall picture, basic shapes and patterns. RS damage: lose sense of direction, even to being unable to find way around own home.

However, women have less separation of brain structure. Women with RS damage had scarcely affected spatial skills, men were badly affected. Women with LS damage had some language problems, men were worse affected. Turner’s syndrome brains (genotype XO) have more diffuse brain functions than XX females. LS brain functions related to language (grammar, spelling, speech production) are organised differently in male (front and back areas of LS) and female (more concentrated in front area of LS). Women recognised emotionally charged visual information whichever field of vision/side of brain the image was transmitted to. Men only recognised emotional content when it was presented to RS brain.

Corpus callosum: bundle of fibres that link left and right sides of brain. In women, part of this is thicker and more bulbous than in men, so more information is exchanged between sides. The more connections, the more articulate and fluent a person is. Women have a greater capacity to integrate and cross-relate visual and verbal information. Men find it more difficult to express emotions because the information flows less easily to the verbal LS of brain.

Male strengths: architects, scientists, mathematicians. Many more females are musicians than composers; composing is more of a mathematical ability, while practical music needs fine control over voice and hands. A child deprived of human speech at the crucial stage of brain development for speech will always have difficulty even with special training later.

Babies. Girls more sensitive to touch, less tolerant of noise, more anxious about noise/pain/discomfort, more easily comforted by soothing words and singing, maintain more eye contact with adults. At 4 mths, most girls can distinguish photos of known people from unknown (boys usually cannot). Girls speak at an earlier age, develop better vocabularies. At age 3 yrs, 99% of girls speech is intelligible/comprehensible; boys take on average an extra year. Boys explore more physically.

A newcomer (of either sex) tends to be treated with friendship and curiosity by girls and indifference by boys. By 4 yrs old, girls and boys usually play apart. Boys tend to include someone if ‘they’re useful’, girls tend to exclude if ‘they’re not nice’. Girls accept younger children into group, boys try to join groups of older children. Girls know and remember names of playmates, boys often don’t. Boys games involve bodily contact, success measured by active interference with other players, winners and losers clearly defined. Girls games involve turn taking, methodically defined stages of games, indirect competition (eg. boys: tag, girls: hospitals).

Girls learn to read more quickly than boys. Basis of reading is in hearing not seeing. Boys are better at identifying animal noises. Boys do better in tests circling or underlining all (eg. S) shapes in a paragraph, girls better identifying all words with (eg. S) sounds in list of words read out. Education of type ‘I talk, you listen’ suits girls up to a certain age. Education system discriminates against boys in early stages, against girls in later stages. Viewed as important for boys to develop verbal skills and they catch up, though never as fluent as girls, but seen as less important for girls to develop spatial skills and they are not encouraged in the same way.

Girls: level of female hormones rise at c.8 yrs; age of menstruation c.13 yrs. Boys: hormones start to rise c.2 yrs after girls. Pituitary gland keeps hormone levels fairly constant in men, wide fluctuation for menstrual cycle in women. In 1st half of cycle, oestrogen makes brain alert, senses heightened, sense of well being; in 2nd half of cycle, progesterone makes brain more sluggish, anxiety, tiredness but also a calming effect. At 4 to 5 days before menstruation, levels of both hormones plummet and ‘withdrawal’ symptoms can be dramatic in some women (PMT). One study found that c.50% of acute psychiatric and medical admissions were in the pre-menstrual or menstrual period, while c.50% of female offenders committed crimes at this period, and suicide and violence are higher in females also at this time.

Oestrogen has a neutralising effect on testosterone and has been used to control the behaviour of male sex offenders. Most criminals committing violent offences in adolescence had high testosterone levels. Adult men castrated for sex offences in Norway can retrieve some masculine attitudes by injections of testosterone, and then begin old anti-social tendencies again - fights, vandalism, etc. In sportsmen, testosterone levels are higher at end of match or season than at start; competition raises the levels, rivalry fuels aggression. testosterone can be burned off during vigorous physical exercise (eg. long distance running) though it is increased by short burst of energy (eg. in ice hockey). Boys enjoy more violence in films and TV.

Teenage summer camps in USA. Power structure soon developed among boys. Girls little overt display of dominance, various girls respected for specific abilities. This need for assertion means men more willing to make sacrifices of time, pleasure, relaxation, health, safety, emotions, to rise in hierarchy. Male desire for dominance fades in old age; level of male hormone declines from about age 50. Women have a sudden decline in hormone levels (45-50 yrs) with physical symptoms and consequences (brittle bones); they may become more aggressive and assertive as female hormones no longer block the small amounts of male hormones produced by the adrenal glands.

IQ: male scores soar between 14 and 16 yrs, females tend to level off. Testosterone seems to make the brain less liable to fatigue, more single minded, more ‘automatisation’ skill. Boys still largely tend to opt for mechanical and theoretical bias jobs, girls for jobs involving some human interaction - catering, caring, secretarial, teaching.

Sex. Key perception is visual for men, close-ups of female genitalia arouse men, sex is largely object focused. Women’s perceptions are taste, touch, smell, hearing, not aroused by close-ups of male genitalia, more likely aroused by reading about the sex act and imagining the relationship. Beauty and shape of opposite sex means more to men than to women. Men think women find a muscular torso sexy (only 1% of women do), 15% of men think a big penis inspires female admiration (only 2% of women do); women prefer wide shoulders and slim hips.

Banning pornography unlikely to change male appetite (but this not the only reason for banning or restricting such material). Women should recognise that men are easily aroused and easily misconstrue slight hints of friendship as sexual invitations; recognise that men do see women as sex objects - and maybe find some form of shared enjoyment in this? Men could acknowledge the need for communication in a relationship. Women are less ‘hit and run’ lovers than men, yet end romantic attachments more often than men; their judgement on the success or failure of a relationship is better. Men sometimes see relationships as them ‘providing’ sex and women ‘providing’ love. Men show affection by gifts (chocolate, jewellery, flowers), by doing things and invitations to share an activity (dine, sail, watch football); women would prefer more communication, want men to talk about things (which they find difficult) and women’s friendships involve sharing confidences.

Many more men (around 4% but some sources say nearer 10%) than women (around 1%) are homosexual. Sexual deviancy (transvestism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, sado-masochism) almost entirely male. Current theories focus on hormones affecting the foetus in pregnancy.

In the west, 93% of people marry, 75% of marriages survive. For men, power traditionally consists of dominance and aggression. For women, power is the force that creates relationships, binds families, builds societies. Despite marriage being against men’s nature, it is the norm for humans. Extra-marital affairs do not mean as much for a man as for a woman (whether partner or mistress).

Women are more emotional because they are more specifically designed to care for other people; they experience other’s distress as their own. Men respond to other’s distress by searching for a practical solution. Women can have a wide variety of relationships without diluting any of them; men may see affection as finite. Female attachment to an infant seems to be innate, male attachment a function of social learning. In women, progesterone levels rise a hundred-fold in pregnancy; once the child is born these levels decline rapidly, thus the ‘baby blues’ while adjusting to new levels.

USA 1979: c.93% bank tellers female, c.99% bank managers male. In UK, women’s earnings c.two-thirds of men’s; in USA women earn less than men. In UK, c.98% university professors male, c.99% company directors, civil engineers, surgeons, local authority chief executives and driving test examiners also male. There are nor more women lawyers and solicitors (the lower levels of the legal profession). Even in highly ‘female’ professions, the higher posts are mostly held by men (nursing, teaching, librarianship, doctors).

Women do not subscribe to the same definition of success as men. Sex specificity of jobs likely to continue. In Israeli kibbutz, women encouraged to do ‘male’ jobs but mainly opt for ‘female’jobs. To some extent salary level is less important to women, may be part of reason for lower pay. When traditional ‘male’ jobs are filled by women, the jobs lose status in men’s eyes. Women’s superiority in sensitivity and verbal ability could make them better doctors, priests, legislators and judges than men.

Inequality of achievement: women could mimic men; society could change definition of conventional success. Self-esteem equally important to men and women, but affected differently. Women want affirmative success (depth and strength of relationships), men want occupational success. Women’s sense of career is bound up in, qualified by or in conflict with personal relationships. Male success lies in the relatively male insensitivity to the world of everything and every body else.

Women are doing well in firms they have set up themselves; are nature’s best personnel managers; are naturally better organisers in any job involving attention to detail and a good memory. Decision making in women is a more complex procedure, taking in more information, taking account of more factors. The masculine ethos of management insists on blunt decisions, yet it requires (more likely female) brains to realise a decision need not be taken or that a problem does not actually exist. Men may be superior in providing a solution, women better at actually understanding the problem. Clinching a business deal, men have the benefit of competitive aggression; if women part of negotiating team, would bring new insights, discreet cues from opposition’s demeanour and tone of voice. labour negotiations and personnel management seem to be areas where women have vast potential contribution to make. Women led businesses have consistently good labour relations and an absence of petty rules and regulations and hierarchical relationships.

Women get upset more easily than men, who mistakenly assume that when a woman cries she is in the same state as would reduce a man to tears. When a woman cries over a small matter, a man assumes she has misidentified it as a large matter, by unsound judgement or getting things out of proportion. Work behaviour: men use jokes, teases and verbal rough and tumble, often with edge of challenge and aggression, to ease daily grind at work but women often feel hurt by this or simply don’t find it funny, which leads to ‘she’s got no sense of humour’. Men and women do not laugh at the same things and get upset by different things. Young men are reluctant to participate in mixed sex sport as the level of competitiveness falls when girls are included. Women are more law abiding but with conflict between priorities of law and the individual, will champion the individual. Women more than men see nuclear weapons as evil, threatening life; men more accepting of the concept of mutual deterrence.

Performance of young women writing examinations drops by as much as 14% depending on timing of menstrual cycle; unjust but many women prefer to accept this than press for an exam system which would take this into account. To encourage women into maths and engineering, experiment with different forms of teaching, more verbal, less symbolic. Girls should be encouraged at an early age to investigate the structure and functioning of mechanical objects in groups rather than individually.

If boys by nature more boisterous, selfish, aggressive and dominant, society might try to modify this by example, restraint, punishment or bribery. But you first have to accept that boys will be boys and will have to be changed if that is what we desire. In men, too high or low levels of male hormones at puberty affect the efficiency of the brain and inhibit spatial and mathematical skills; the mathematical genius probably has intermediate levels of male hormones. On ships at sea, there is an unspoken acknowledgement or agreement that one tiny corner of the vessel ‘belongs’ to a particular seaman - his territory.

Women might make better neurosurgeons but to reach the heights of a profession requires single minded desire to be top as well as innate ability. We may have reached the stage where women who want to do something can do so and what militates against it is financial hardships and possible old attitudes in family. Women should be more valued for their special abilities. Domestic effort and child rearing should be more valued.

END