There are fundamental differences between the male and female brain which has been timelessly observed through all cultures. Science (neurology) has made breakthroughs in discovering exactly what those differences are.
The brain is divided into two halves, the left and right hemisphere. The left is the logic orientated side (generally), with very little emotional range or lateral creativity. The right side is the emotional and creative side (generally). The left can think with words, numbers, symbols. The right can think with feelings, visions, colours.
Men and woman have basic differences between the connections between those two sides of the brain. Most men and woman fit into the description, to varying degrees, but not always.
In the masculine brain there is very little connection (and therefore communication) between the two sides of the brain. They are either thinking rationally and logically with little emotion, or they are thinking emotionally with very little logic, with the left side of their brain. So if they are working on a problem solving exercise that they have very little emotion for (mathematics, engineering, finances, physics), they are completely rational with little emotion or creativity. However, if they are working on an emotive problem (eg. their loved dog is dying, they are in love, have a loved child who needs protection, just broke up with meaningful partner, like a song) that they feel strongly about, there is little logic and rationality, and they are using the right side of the brain. So if you are dealing with them when they are dealing with a logical problem, there is little point in trying to point out the emotive factors. Apply gain-orientated logic. If they are in an emotional state, there is little point in pointing out the rational factors (such as life will go on, or the logical processes involved). Apply feeling (sooth if upset, share the joy if happy). Ie. feel for them.
The feminine mind however, has a lot of connections (and therefore communication) between the two sides of the brain. The brain moves easily between emotional/creative thought and logical, rational thought. An example is "women's intuition". A female mind can feel something then apply logic. That's why they are capable of talking about emotions. If you are helping a female mind dealing with a problem, either logical or emotional, point out factors that make sense both logically and emotionally. Neither aspect can be ignored.
As stated before, your physical sex is an indication of your brain's sex, but different people show differing degrees of these connections. Occasionally people have brain's that are completely different from the norm.
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There are some very interesting new theories about the male and female brain that are being put forward by Simon Baron-Cohen, Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock.
ReplyDeleteIn a nutshell the mind can be considered to have both a male and a female side. Most people are roughly in the middle of this spectrum with a bias to one side. The interesting part of this theory is at the extremes. Baron-Cohen proposes that the extreme Male mind is Autistic.Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock have a complimentry theory that the extreme female brain is schizophrenic.
The central point of this theory involves what is called "A concept of mind", meaning that we have a concept of our own mind/feelings/thoughts and a concept that others too have a mind.
The autistic male side under-infers minds and the schizophrenic over-infers mind.
Woman for instance have a natural instinc to try and solve a problem with communication and by empathising. This strategy is quite stupid and ineffective if your trying to make a computer work or make a car start (obviously woman realise this), yet instinctively they may well sit there at the traffic lights talking to the car "please, please, please, I need to get to work will you ..."
If you give a lump of wood to a young female child, they wrap it a blanket and try to teach it to talk. The last example illustrates the purpose of schizophrenic behaivor. A real baby cant communicate, and a mother has to use her empathy to read the babies mind.
Men are the opposite, give them a lump of wood and there instinc is to break into to pieces (to see how it works) or maybe to use it as a weapon or tool of some kind. Empathy is no good for hunting, whats works for the
hunter is being able to remain quiet for long times, being able to kill things, Men stay in the tribe and view outsiders as competitors. Woman left the tribe (to avoid Incest) and had to be are able to make friends and allies in new environments.
So the autustic instinc is to treat people like "things". I myself sometimes think I can understand women and my relationships with them the same way I would a computer. Ie look up the problem on the internet, buy something for them instead of actually listening to them and trying to feel things from THEIR point of view.
Neway thats just a sketch of their ideas, there was a good article in the magazine Psychology Today earlier this year and theres a lot of their research available on the internet, I dont have the time to reference it any better than that sorry.
Very interesting. Sounds like the evolutionary pyshology book "the Madness of Adam and Eve", about how schitzophrenic (outside the box) thinking moved us into civilisation; ie. if I use the fire to cook my food I get less sick, if I use the fire to frighten predators I live longer, if I use the fire to melt special rocks I have stronger weapons and tools.
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