Women just talk, talk, talk
Six stereotypes about men and women that are
scientifically true:
Gender stereotypes have made numerous headlines around the world
recently. First there was an Israeli finding that men are categorically
not from Mars and women not from Venus; then there was the
earth-shattering backlash from academics in Norway, who found that men
are better at assembling IKEA trolleys than women. So what should we
believe? It's a minefield out there, but here to clear things up are six
gender stereotypes scientifically proven (by at least one person with a
BSc, we promise) to be true:
1. Men are better at navigating
Last week a study was released proving that, when it comes to finding
their way at least, men are naturally superior. Scientists at the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology asked 18 men and 18 women
to make their way through a virtual maze, completing various tasks along
the way. Men were able to solve 50pc more of the problems than women,
and displayed a difference of method that could help understand why
asking for directions is seen as a female option.
Gender roles may be shifting, but there are some differences
that cannot be avoided credit: Alamy |
While men favour 'cardinal' directions (those of the compass), women
prefer to think more specifically, creating a path to follow.
"If they're going to the Student Society building in Trondheim, for
example, men usually go in the general direction where it's located,"
said Dr Carl Pintzka, who worked on the study. "Women usually orient
themselves along a route to get there, for example, 'go past the
hairdresser and then up the street and turn right after the store.'"
The explanation? The report argues that these distinctions originated
in caveman times (here we go), when men were out hunting and gathering
while women stayed and tended to the cave. Not only do women have better
memories to be able to follow directions, then, but they can locate
things nearer to them more easily. Men, on the other hand, like to be
flexible and spontaneous in their navigational exploits, making them
better over long distances.
2. Women just talk, talk, talk
According to a well-peddled psychology book by Dr Luan Brizendine,
women speak an average of 20,000 words each day, more than double that
of the average monosyllabic man. They also talk faster, learn to speak
younger and devote more brain cells to conversation.
More recently, researchers from the US offered a more detailed
explanation, mainly involving the presence of a protein called Foxp2. In
a study conducted by the University of Maryland, scientists separated
four-day-old rats from their mothers and then experimented with how
often the rodents responded, varying the amount of Foxp2 each gender
produced. Whichever had more of the protein, they found, became more
vocal.
Moving on to humans, scientists then discovered girls have 30pc more
Foxp2 than boys.
3. Women care more
In unsurprising news, scientists have found that men lack powers of
empathy in relationships. They don't care, essentially, and tune out
when listening to their partners problems, only showing a strong
connection to their emotions when they are themselves the victim.
The Australian researchers conducted a survey of more than 20,000 men
and women to discover how their feelings change based on their partner's
experiences. Women admitted to being considerably affected, but men
showed no particular change.
"It is not that men are unemotional or uncaring, since they are quite
strongly affected by what happens to themselves, but they simply are not
very emotional when it comes to the feelings of their partner," the
study's lead author, Dr. Cindy Mervin, said.
4. Men are funnier
This one comes with a telling caveat: men are funnier, a study found,
but largely because they insist on doing all the joke-telling. In 2011
Professor Laura Mickes and a team of psychologists from the University
of California asked men and women to caption cartoons in The New Yorker
magazine. Without knowing the author, a mixed gender panel favoured male
jokes. Challenged to recall who wrote what later in the day, too, the
sample generally assumed funny captions were penned by men, even when
they weren't.
Various theories are at play, and almost all of them relate to common
social constructs. The psychologists argued that men employ humour to
woo women, who in turn are attracted to a GSOH and thus indulge the male
ego by listening. Men, meanwhile, find other men funnier because their
humour matches - or at least they believe it does.
"Men's view that men are funnier could be a result of their actually
finding the humor they produce funnier, as well as their biased recall
of funny things as having sprung from men's minds," the authors wrote.
"Women laughing more at men, when the gender is known, may be largely
due not to superior humor, but to more social influences."
5. Women can multitask
The tired old cliché is, it seems, true. Psychologists at the
University of Herefordshire proved in 2010 that that when faced with a
problem, women are infinitely superior to men at balancing their
remaining commitments.
The study gave 50 male and 50 female students eight minutes to
perform three tasks at the same time: maths problems, finding
restaurants on a map, and sketching a plan for locating a lost key in an
imaginary field. To make it worse, they all received an optional phone
call as they worked. If they picked up they were given a telephone
general knowledge test to add to their pile.
Women, it turned out, were easily capable of managing all four tasks
at once, while men fell down when it came to the looking for the key.
"Men are supposed to have better spatial awareness than women, so
they should have outperformed the women on that task," the lead
researcher, Professor Keith Laws, said. "It shows that women are better
at being able to stand back and reflect for a moment while they are
juggling other things."
6. Men make better drinkers
It may depend on what you define as 'better' (some would view the
female disadvantage as value for money), but men do certainly have a
biological advantage when it comes to handling their booze.
Women lack a crucial component of the isozymes (gastric alchohol
dehydrogenase, to be precise) used to break down alcohol in the stomach.
As a result of this deficiency - exacerbated by generally having a
smaller body mass - a survey found that women "absorb about 30% more
alcohol into their bloodstreams than men do."
And some that aren't so true...
Don't get too comfortable in your staid gender perceptions; for every
stereotype verified by science, scores have been debunked. For
reference, then, women are just as competitive and aggressive as men,
better at driving, and no worse at mathematics.
Men, on the other hand, are more clingy in relationships, no less
faithful, make worse bosses and are more prone to faltering
understressful conditions.
(This article originally appeared in Telegraph UK) |