Gender Differences: The Battle of the Sexes

COMPARE & CONTRAST

Gender Differences

The "battle of the sexes" started with Adam and Eve, and it will probably continue forever. In many cultures, it has been accepted that men are superior to women, but the feminist movement is trying to change this view. Feminists claim that boys and girls are exactly equal at birth, but later on they become unequal because they are treated in a different way by society. However, recent research proves the view that males and females are naturally different.

Without a doubt, common influences both inside and outside the family cause many differences to develop. Inside the family, boys learn to be men by watching and copying their fathers, and girls learn to be women by watching and copying their mothers. Outside the family, boys who play with dolls after a certain age receive displeasure. On the other hand, girls continue to play with dolls.

However, not all differences are caused by public influences. Some are due to differences in the physiology of the brain. For example, more men than women are left-handed. It means that the right side of men’s brains is dominant because the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body. Right-brained people generally have better reasoning abilities, whereas left-brained people generally have better verbal skills.

In fact, girls are better at language than boys. For both men and women, the language center is on the left side of the brain. However, girls not only begin speaking earlier than boys, but they also speak more clearly and develop larger vocabularies. In contrast, more boys than girls stutter and have trouble learning to read. Boys' difficulty with language may be the result of their right-brain dominance.

In addition, men and women have different spatial abilities. For example, men are better at turning three-dimensional objects in their heads. That's why they can read maps more easily than women. Women often have to turn a map around in order to know which direction to go, whereas men can do it in their heads. On the other hand, women excel at other spatial tasks such as remembering the location of objects in any pattern. For this reason, women are better than men at finding misplaced car keys and eyeglasses.

While it is clear that some differences are rooted in the physiology of the brain, it is equally clear that other differences are not. For example, boys and girls are equal in math ability until about seventh grade. Then girls start to fall behind, perhaps because math teachers encourage boys more. Furthermore, there are many exceptions to these general patterns. Just as some women are good at abstract algebra, some men become skilled poets and public speakers. Although continuing research produces further information about gender differences, it will never resolve the battle between the sexes.

Dominant: more in control stutter: speak with repetition of initial word sounds three-dimensional: having height, width, and depth random: not in any organized sequence resolve: solve gender: sex feminist movement: activities and people in support of equality for women physiology (of the brain): functioning (of the brain)