Women and Men are Different

All right my friends hold on to your socks, I’m going to be talking about gender differences, this could get rough, but I’m just sharing what I learned mixed with some of my own opinions. If you don’t agree with what I say that’s fine, just please keep your comments respectful, thanks.

I would like to repeat once again that I am a college age student, I do not have a doctorate degree in marriage and family studies. Much of what we talked about this week in class were things I didn’t really know about and most people would probably feel uncomfortable talking about because of popular opinion today. I still believe though that this is very important information that people want to over look, but much of it is backed with scientific research. The findings are generalizations though not every boy and girl meets this mold, there will be those who don’t fit with this generalization.

Guess what, males and females are different, crazy I know. Is one better than the other? Heck no! I said different not better than. There have been numerous studies done by researchers to encapsulate exactly what those differences are and explanations of why those differences exist. Even right out of the womb subtle differences in the way males and females act can be seen. Males tend to startle much more easily than females and females tend to move their mouths more and make cooing noises. These two differences may seem insignificant, but in the long run there are innate differences between the two sexes that we are just born with.

Many studies have been done about male and female behavior, especially when they are very young and still growing. I was very wary till reading about parents who did their best to keep toys gender neutral or give boys the chance to play with girls toys and vise versa. They didn’t want their kids to fall into that mold society had supposedly constructed. Some talk about their boys taking barbies and pretending to shoot each other with them and girls wrapping up toy cars in blankets and pretending they’re babies. Many studies have been done observing how children play and how they interact with each other. Here are a few things they noticed;

These are all generalizations about each sex, but are not 100%. There are girls who may prefer boys toys or boys who prefer girls toys and don’t fit the mold, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I also learned about another study done comparing the structures of the male and female brain. I had always thought our brains were the same, but apparently not, they have some interesting differences. Males have more gray matter in their brains which is used to process and store information, giving them the ability to have hyper focus on one thing at a time. Women have more white matter which are the connections between different parts of the brain, giving the ability to be aware of several things at one time. All very interesting information that made a lot of sense to me upon hearing it.

I do believe there are jobs that women are more adept at and men are more adept at because of these differences. Because of men’s ability to hyper focus on one thing at a time and having more upper body strength; being fireman and soldiers comes more easily to them. Because of women’s ability to be aware of more than one thing coupled with more proficient interpersonal communication skills; being early childhood teachers and nurses come more easily. That being said I do not believe that either men or women should be kept from doing something because of their sex. They should each be given the chance to make their own choices and try.

My whole opinion can be summed up this way; men and women are different, but should have equal opportunities. All should have the same chances to try and succeed or fail at what they choose. The differences between each of us individually is greater than the differences between sex, race, ethnicity, or nationality. We each have amazing things to offer to the world if we take that chance and try.