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Nov 25, 2009
Nov 25, 2009
By Barbara and Allan Pease
By Barbara and Allan Pease
 Published in 1998
This is a funny and interesting book which you can digest it quickly. I recommend it!It’s written by a couple, Barbara and Allan, who have travelled the world doing research on the differences between men and women in abilities, brain function and the effects of hormones. For example, why can most women talk on the phone and do other tasks at the same time and men prefer to just talk on the phone and get off as quickly as possible? Why do women generally talk much more than men? Why do men love to fix a problem, but hate taking advice? How women know exactly what is in the fridge and men can’t find the item right in front of them? There is a test in the book to see how your brain functions (as a male, female or both). This book also helped me understand why I can’t judge the distance between the front end of my car and how close I am to the freezer in the garage.....which explains why I hit the freezer door one day in a burst of speed going in........ Men and women’s brains are wired differently. I mean we all somewhat believe this but where did it come from and what impact does this have? The premise is that way back...... in hunting and gathering days..... the brain was developed to aid in the survival of men and women in their different roles ; men went hunting to bring home the bacon, so needed excellent spatial skills, fast reaction time, little in the way of verbal skills, good strength, ability to work as a team and had to focus on one task at a time. Women needed to work in groups to cooperate with making a “nest”, raising children and doing food preparation. They needed great verbal skills, peripheral vision, perception of small differences to assess health of children and others and cooperation. They also needed to be able to do many tasks almost simultaneously as anyone who has raised children will attest to. Here’s where hormones come into play: testosterone increases spatial ability, estrogen increases nurturing....... These were adaptations to the environment at that time, but these hormonally induced differences are still present today. That’s why women and men respond differently. They also looked at professions which have a high need for spatial ability, like surveying, engineering, computers, math and accounting and from their stats these were heavily dominated by men. It would be interesting to see the stats now and if it has changed as some of the social barriers to those occupational choices have changed over the last decade or two. Women dominate in professions requiring high verbal skills, such as English, public relations, teaching and counselling. This difference is also apparent in problem solving. For a woman, sharing problems with her friends is a sign of trust and friendship. Men climb onto their rock to solve problems. Women who follow them get kicked off (From pages 142-44). I have certainly observed that women are more open to discussing problems with their friends and men are sometimes surprised and horrified at the issues that are discussed between women! There are suggestions from how to give directions to women and men (its different!), to how to invite your significant other to have a discussion. The latter suggestion I actually tried with my son and it worked much better than my usual approach, which was we have to talk about this NOW. I’ll be checking out these authors for other books. Book report submitted by Linda Varro Linda is one of our ROAR Board Coaches and also does mediation and coaches individuals through conflict. |
