The simple answer is yes. Men and women actually have very different brain, bone, and muscle structures. Watch men working sometime and then watch women working. The differences are quite recognizable, and yet we often think that the other gender is doing it wrong.
The differences have been recognized for a long time. In the 1980s, Joe Tannenbaum was giving a presentation called, “Men’s and Women’s Realities,” which ended up in his book of that name written in 1990. In 1992, John Gray wrote the better known book, Men are from Mars, Women from Venus. Gray gave some great examples of funny moments that help us understand the gender differences in perspective.
One was the example of a man watching a ballgame on TV. A woman comes in with her stack of bills or other paperwork and sits down with the man to also watch the game. The man asks her, “Are you gonna watch the game or do paperwork?” She says, “Both.” The man rolls his eyes or even gets irritated because he “knows” that is impossible.
Another example is a man and woman out for dinner and having a great conversation. They finish dinner and start walking to the car. The woman continues the conversation and suddenly notices that the man is not paying attention. She gets frustrated or feels hurt because she “knows” he is no longer interested in what she is saying.
Both examples speak to the unique strengths and differences between men’s and women’s brains. For starters, the corpus callosum, the structure in the middle of the brain that connects the two hemispheres, is larger and more bulbous in females than in males (Wright et al., 2008). This size difference is tied to the fact that women have literally hundreds of more connections between the two hemispheres of the brain, giving them a better ability to multitask and to process information at a higher rate. This ability may trace back to earlier times, when women were busy handling active children at the same time they had to cook over hot fires or do other chores.
Women not only talk faster and perform better on verbal tasks and memory skills, but they have the ability to access language skills from both hemispheres. But a man typically uses one side of his brain to listen, understand, and react to what he sees. He does not have the same capacity to access his other brain hemisphere to do two things at once. Historically, this is a valuable trait for men to possess. They cannot be as easily distracted from the hunt and they can focus intensely in an unfamiliar environment to spot possible danger. So the man who stops talking as a couple leaves the restaurant and walks to the car is actually unconsciously checking the parking lot for danger, ready to protect his wife.
Females have also been found to have larger orbital frontal cortices than males. (Gur, Gunning-Dixon, Bilker & Gur, 2002). This is the part of the frontal brain cortex used for decision making and cognitive processing. Modulating emotional behavior takes place in this part of the brain, and because of the size differences, there are differences between the sexes in emotional processing. Women’s brains receive, experience, and recall emotional experiences and also regulate aggression better. This allows women to hold conversations about emotional topics without becoming as emotionally engaged by revisiting some of the issues. On the other hand, a man can look at something carefully once, and then put it away for good.
The reason men can store things so well is that their brains can literally separate topics during a conversation better than women. Mark Gungor has a funny video on YouTube that explains his theory that men’s brains contain an empty box where men go when they are relaxing, while women’s brains have constant electricity running around, connecting everything to everything.
Another important fact about differences between men and women is related to body structure. Men tend to have more large muscles while women tend to have more small muscles. This distribution was biologically important for men to handle strength-related physical skills, while women needed to perform more fine motor tasks over a long period. Many men are able to perform great feats of strength, and then they sit down and rest. They may also hike up a trail much faster and then be ready to stop sooner. On the other hand, women have been known to outlast men in fine motor-repetitive tasks and they often hike a trail much slower, but can go farther over the course of time on the same day.
One final example of differing communication styles may help couples to identify situations that may have caused conflict for the wrong reasons. Men can store information and use one side of their brain to process because they do a great deal of internal processing before they verbalize something they may need help with. Once they verbalize the subject, they really would like some ideas for solutions. On the other hand, women talk a lot about a situation and do not really want advice, they are simply using their higher verbal skills to help get the two hemispheres of their brains in sync before they make a decision.
Current research continues to indicate differences between men and women with regard to how their brains process and use information. However, the same research also indicates that some of the separations previously considered hard-wired into one or the other side of the brain are actually shared by different parts on both sides of the brain. Dr. Amen, the author of Unleash the Power of the Female Brain: Supercharging Yours for Better Health, Energy, Mood, Focus, and Sex (Harmony, 2013), has stated that “even when men and women succeed at the same task, they tend to call on different strengths and areas of the brain to achieve this result.” While this may be true, brain neuroscience is still finding new information about the brain as our technology for researching the brain is developing, and thus it is important to keep an open mind and recognize that our brains actually have more plasticity and ability to change than we once believed.
What matters is that we recognize that neither men nor women are broken because they approach things differently. Situations that appear to one or the other gender to be purposefully hurtful or irritating often boil down to differences in the brains and bodies of the sexes.
When a couple is fighting or considering divorce, it can be helpful to remember these biological differences, and communicate respectfully with one another to reduce the amount of conflict.
