Chapter 10

The title of our next chapter is "Sexuality and Gender."

So the question is "How do men and women differ in thinking, behavior, and personality?"

Research has shown that women score higher on tests that involve verbal abilities, and men score higher on tests about mathematical and spatial skills. A different study also showed that, when listening, women use both hemisphere of the brain while men only use the left hemisphere. This suggests that women pay attention to the tone and emotion of statements as well as the general content. Early explanations of these differences involved physical reasoning that basically said the different sexes have different brains, but more recent research strongly suggests that psychological and social issues are more responsible for these differences. To be more specific, the supposed differences in mathematical abilities are believed to be caused by a lack of effort or a lack of confidence on the women's part. Fortunately, now that society views the two genders as equal, these various differences are starting to diminish.


The differences that are normally thought of between men/women interacting with others are the result of stereotyped thinking. So this makes it difficult to show differences that aren't stressed in the social environments that all men/women grow up in. Generally, men are taught to hold in their emotions, be strong, be manly, don't cry, etc, while women are encouraged to be open with feelings, and whatever other stereotypes you can think of. Anyway, the point is, society makes it hard to point out real differences.

According to research, men tend to talk to each other about current events, sports, and other events. This has been called a "report" style of communication that involves switching topics frequently with attempts to dominate the conversation by certain members of a group. Women tend to use a "relate" style of communication, which involves revealing information about themselves and showing concern/sympathy. Women also tend to interrupt each other less and allow everyone to participate in conversation.