Gender Gaps on the Brain



'''Gender Gaps on the Brain. '''

Did you know that women's brains are smaller than men's? The average male brain weighs about 1.3 kilograms, while the average female brain weighs ten percent less. Since research has consistently shown that the bigger the brain, the cleverer the animal, men must be more intelligent than women. Right? Wrong. Men and women consistently score similarly on intelligence tests, despite the difference in brain size. Scientists have wondered why for years, but now a team of researchers may have come up with the answer. It's not just the size of the brain, they say, it's what's inside that counts. The brain consists of 'grey matter' (the part of the brain that helps us think) and 'white matter' (the part that helps us transfer information). And while men have more of the latter, the amount of 'thinking' brain is almost exactly the same in both sexes.

It has been suggested that, in the case of human brains, smaller may also mean 'more efficient', perhaps because the two sides of the brain appear to be better connected in women. This means that little girls tend to learn to speak earlier, and that adult women can absorb all sorts of information from different sources at the same time, making them more adept at multi-tasking. When it comes to talking to the boss on the phone, cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the baby all at the same time, it's women who come out on top every time. Men seem to do better tackling one job at a time.

There are other important differences that distinguish male and female brains. White matter is the key to spatial tasks - knowing where things are in relation to other things - and men consistently do better on this kind of exercise. 'Spatial abilities are a big part of sport,' says one researcher. 'A great soccer player, for instance, always knows where he is in relation to the other players. It's not just a question of muscles and speed; it's knowing where to go.' And perhaps knowing where to go - or at least thinking they know - also explains one of life's great mysteries: why men refuse to ask for directions ... and women often need to!

The differences, according to researchers, begin in the womb. At about nine weeks old, differences in testosterone levels mean that male foetuses ['fiːtəs] (an unborn human) begin to develop a male brain, and females a female brain. The results can be seen in the behaviour of children as young as one. In one experiment, when a barrier was put between the toddlers and their mothers, the typical boy tried to climb the barrier or push it down. And the girl's strategy? To show distress, and attract help from another person.

In adult life, these brain differences are clearly reflected in the career choices men and women make. 85 percent of the architects in the USA and 90 percent of the mechanics are men: both jobs which require good spatial skills. Meanwhile, 94 percent of speech therapists are women. It may all go back to our ancestors, according to Dr Helen Fisher, an expert in gender differences. 'In prehistoric times women needed verbal and emotional skills to control and educate their babies, while men needed spatial skills to hunt. We've got a very old brain in a very modern culture.'

All this depresses you, it shouldn't. As biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling, points out, 'Just because we say we are born a certain way, we shouldn't close down possibilities. For every male or female who is 'stereotypical', I can think of another who isn't. The brain is not static. It changes throughout our lives according to what we do with it.'