Seriously? You don’t think I can throw the ball as far as you?
Nope, my big brother said.
And he was right and I’m sure more than a bit disappointed with three sisters and no brothers. Still, he ventured to teach us baseball, wrestling and boxing, only to find out that while we all loved athletics, we often wanted to play with our dolls (me), do cheerleading (my sisters) and watch soap operas with mom (admittedly, all three a bit!).
To help him bear that cross a little, I was Pac-man one Halloween and cheered on with him vividly at all of the Pay-per-view wrestling matches he ordered. Most of this I ended up discarding for decidedly more female interests as he went and grew up on me but my brother still tries to get me to be tough every single time I see him including this week when he texted me that one of his three daughters loves scary movies every bit as much as I do…
And I don’t and he knows it but he’s still trying to make me tough. And mostly I’ve given him a peace offering in the form of my husband who he can now take with him to sporting events when he visits, etc and he leaves me to babysit his kids, whom he is fiercely protective of and whom I love and enjoy so much and don’t mind a bit.
Is this OK that I’m being that honest about the roles we step into sometimes, even comfortably? Stereotypical of me to say? Does it mean we’re wired by different sides of the brain and it’s nothing at all to do with our maleness or femaleness? Or is it something deeply wired in the male and female natures?
I think the roles we lean towards as males and females are quite natural and research tends to concur.
But what exactly does the research say about our brain differences and commonalities? And what does it mean for us in our current relationships?
Well first of all, let me tell you that it’s both fun and conversational for us to talk about a “right brain” versus a “left brain.”
It’s been found that some do indeed prefer more “left-brained” activities such as logical puzzles and focused analytics whereas other individuals have a more natural proclivity toward “right brained” creativity and intuitive features.
However, the stereotypes of these personalities do not have their foundation in brain science but more belong in the personality theory of temperaments we’ve been studying. To use them in this format is perfectly fine if we’re doing it for the purposes of the assessment of and the ‘meaning making’ narrative of our personalities.
If we actually want to talk actual brain differences, we need to move from the lighter personality assessment “right and left brain” conversation. This is because apparently, and according to scholarly research (I personally make no presumptions as to being a physical brain guru) just as the innerworkings of a computer are interconnected, everything in our brain is so tightly wound in together that it’s just too difficult to say one or the other activity is truly “right” or “left brained.”
But this is not the case when it comes to the male and the female brain.
FIrst, God makes a distinction as we note in the Creation story, that He has created us male and female in Genesis 5:2.
And as we move into scientific processes, we can truly find actual differences between the male and female brain development and process and that’s hard science. And for those feeling really upset right now, perhaps because you defy stereotypes and we all do to some degree, there will always be overlap and anomalies. But normatively, there are some main differences.
In general, males have some tendencies that the articles I’ve linked below and Dr. Sharon Otis, PhD remind us of:
Tighter grip physically, more romantic jealousy.
Taller.
More aggression, less emotionally sensitive.
Spatial processing/ability to rotate objects more easily/geometrics/physics
Usually more into physical features when seeking a partner for reproduction purposes.
Logical and detailed and have of a more focused type of processing.
Females also have some tendencies in no particular order:
Better at multitasking and the ability to switch tasks.
More depression.
More likely to pick a secure financial and/or older and taller mate.
More likely to pick a man based on his storytelling abilities whereas men less likely to care about that.
More likely to process emotionally and have a longer memory for emotional distress.
Larger hippocampus/memory center.
And as one of the articles below shared, most people actually tend to lean even more into their “stereotyped roles” in the more egalitarian cultures such as Sweden where you find less a less pushy stereotyped culture.
So what do these gender preferences or leanings mean for those of us in relationships?
Whether we meet those criterion personally or not, I believe it helps us to empathize and to understand why oftentimes, our male and female counterparts simply don’t get it or can’t relate to some of the things we can.
That doesn’t make them wrong, it makes them different from us. That’s an important distinction.
And I want to remind you that finding someone exactly like you of the opposite gender may do you more harm than good, ultimately. You will likely instead find someone who complements you and yet who’s different from you. Those in relationships must know this to be true.
I know this is true for my family. I remember zeroing in on my husband in part for his ability to process a physics equation. That lacking spatial relations quality that earned me my first and only D ever made me clamor for someone to balance the equation (sorry, math joke!). I respected him for it and I paid attention to him finally since prior to that he seemed like a typical jock, which according to our list, really doesn’t make the cut long term unless there’s some brain power to boot.
And when you find that person, you begin to realize that together with you and your strengths, this person offers your family a life more fully in line with what they deserve, a still imperfect but much more complete package of human capacity at its finest trying to make it work in tandem for the good of all.
If you’d like more reading on the topic, I’ve included several interesting articles below and make sure to take a look at the infographic above!
Love Living Intentionally With You,
Christa
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-theory-cognitive-modes/201405/left-brain-right-brain-two-sides-always-working-together
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders%3famp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/abcs-child-psychiatry/201605/are-brains-male-or-female%3famp
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201711/the-truth-about-sex-differences%3famp
