men and women

Is gender equality a myth?

Part A - historical differences

For thousands of years, everyone treated men and women as different.  Traditionally, the social roles people played depended on what gender you were.  People believed in the different abilities men and women had.

But this view of gender differences was challenged in the 1960s.  Women wanted equality. As a result, men began to lose their social and economic domination over women.  Educational policies were rewritten to remove gender bias.  In the Israeli kibbutz, the traditional roles of “male” and “female” ceased to exist.  This provided a model for other countries to follow. Never again would a woman simply fall into a role assigned to her by society.

But recent scientific studies have challenged us again. While many of us have been taught about gender equality these past 40 years, the facts are very different.  Not just different in a physical way, but worlds apart in life priorities, ways of communication, and sexual needs. According to researchers, the idea of equality from the 1960s was “a biological and scientific lie.”

Questions

1.     In what ways were men and women treated differently in the past?

2.     What happened in the 1960s?

3.   What has recent scientific research challenged?

Part B – Brain differences

Men’s and women’s brain work differently.  Men’s brains are more specialized and compartmentalized, with their spatial and language skills located in specific centers.  Women’s brain functions, on the other hand, are generally more diffused, meaning that these skills mentioned above are controlled by centers in both the left and right hemispheres.  

The male brain is dedicated to organizing and categorizing. They are single-minded.  Women, on the other hand, have greater overall awareness of a situation and are much more successful at picking up small facial cues that men don’t see. As a result, women tend to be better judges of character, and may account for “women‘s intuition.” Women also have more effective peripheral vision and generally better senses all round.

Men’s brains have an action orientation. For instance most men prefer playing a sport, or doing a hobby than spending time chatting. They are disturbed when women cry, and wonder why it happens so often. Researchers Moir and Jessel explain: “Women... see, hear, and feel more, and what they see, hear and feel means more to them. Women cry more often than men because they have more to cry about—they are receiving more emotional input, reacting more strongly to it, and expressing it with greater force.” When a man cries, on the other hand, there must be something seriously wrong.

Questions

1.     Are men’s or women’s brain more specialized?  What does it mean to be more specialized?

2.    Who is better at reading facial cues, men or women?

3.    Why do women cry more than men?  What does it mean when a man cries?