The Real Difference Between Men and Women

The difference between men and women are socially defined in most societies. Tradition, culture and religious texts are often used to support the argument that women would be inferior to men. Women have continued to challenge the power imbalance. As a result, a significant number of modern nations have granted men and women equal rights in the legal frameworks. 

But socially, economically, politically and culturally the domination of men seems to continue.

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Do Women Really Have Equal Rights with Men?

It would seem that many men think so. If you ask women, they would rather often tend to disagree. The poll by The Economist 9^th October 1999 shows that on average under 13% of women agree that women have equal rights with men. These are the results in different countries:

• Australia 25%
• Netherlands 20%
• Switzerland 14%
• Belgium 12%
• UK 9%
• USA 8%
• Germany 8%

Should Women Really Have Equal Rights with Men?

Should women have equal rights with men? This very provocative question brings in the influence of culture and upbringing more than any other question.

When the women are asked if women should have equal rights, the same poll gives an average 62.4% (but not 100%) of women saying yes. Notice the great variations among cultures.

• Netherlands 80%
• Australia 77%
• UK 73%
• Belgium 70%
• Germany 70%
• USA 62%
• Switzerland 39%
• Japan 21%

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Are Women Better Achievers than Men?

Yet another extremely provocative question which gets bogged down in the definition of achievement and how one measure it etc.

Women can sometimes be even better achievers in a typically men’s playfield, politics.

• In India, 10% of women candidates won elections while 6% of men did.
• 32% of women MPs had Doctoral or post-graduate degrees while 30% of men did.

This, of course, raises yet another question. Does this kind of result tell more about the candidate or more about the people who choose such candidates?

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Physically and anatomically, the differences between the male and the female of the human species are obvious. 

If you are looking for the lost Neanderthals, you are more likely to find them among the males living nowadays. 

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It is the male who is more robust, thick skulled (beyond metaphors, physically, men’s skulls are typically thicker than women’s) and the males constantly seeks to compete in sports, economics or other activities. 

Male brains are also supposed to be different from female brains.

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Physical Differences Between Male and Female Brains

Two areas in the frontal and temporal lobes (Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas) thought to be responsible for language skills show differences. Women have 23% more stuff in Broca’s area and 13% more in Wernicke’s area.

Some researchers claim that male brains have less neurons in the corpus callosum, the part that joins the brain hemispheres, than females, while others dispute it. The cutting edge digital morphometry methods or Diffusion tensor imaging in encephalometric investigations, show that micro-structural and morphological differences are too complex. So, it is extremely difficult to say anything accurate about how brain differences affect how men and women think and behave.

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Is it the Environment or the Anatomy that Dictate Skill Differences?

Could it be that in the dawn of time, men became hunters and gatherers because they had inherently superior navigational skills and being more robust could fight with off animals and enemies? The Society for Neuroscience supports the view that the different roles of males and females made perfect evolutionary sense. Women needed all their communication skills to hold groups together and persuade the men.

Deborah Blum writes in “Sex on the Brain: 

The Biological Differences Between Men and Women” "Morning sickness, for example, which steers some women away from strong tastes and smells, may once have protected babes in utero from toxic items. Infidelity is a way for men to ensure genetic immortality. Interestingly, when we deliberately change sex-role behavior -- say, men become more nurturing or women more aggressive -- our hormones and even our brains respond by changing, too."

During a communication workshop I was giving, each participant had to imagine that s/he was interviewing a celebrity (dead or alive) and the partner had to pretend to be that celebrity. One woman asked her partner to be Eve (Adam & Eve). When asked, 

“Why are you always naked?” 

the elegant and voluptuous Eve replied: 

“Because I can! I have this beautiful body!” 

This answer expresses a core difference between the essential being of a woman from a man.

A woman is while a man needs to do. For her, being is essential and for him doing is expressing himself.

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Why does Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa keep us enthralled? 

• Is she busy doing something, achieving, showing off her litter or standing in front of a table full of her cooking? 
• She is mysterious because she is. 

Doctor Marianus in Goethe’s Faust says in the last lines “Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan!” (The eternally female draws us onward!”)

Friedrich Nietzsche, the old male loner sees the interplay between men and women as: 

“The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything!”

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The folly of men

William Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing hits on the nail

“O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!

A woman has no illusions about a man.

“God made woman beautiful and foolish; beautiful, that man might love her; and foolish, that she might love him.” – Anonymous

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Some women would rather ‘season’ their man.

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“Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you'd like to have dinner with.”

Kathleen Mifsud

Men can also be treacherous, warns a Hollywood actress, Sharon Stone.

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“Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.”

Do Men and Women Behave Differently in Similar Circumstances?

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“When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking.”   Elayne Boosler

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How Women of Different Centuries Communicate!

“Where shall I begin? Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?”  Writes Jane Austen (1775-1817) to her sister Cassandra. 

"It is better to be unhappy alone than to be unhappy with someone else." Marilyn Monroe. 

"A woman is like a teabag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realise how strong she is". Nancy Reagan. 

“Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good looking, good tempered, well groomed and unaggressive”       Leslie McIntyre (contemporary)

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