h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Am I right or am I right?

They just don't have the right neural network in their brains. To make up for it, they are good at......*excuse me while I think for a bit*

Because that is the way they are made. Men are good at single minded determination. Thats why you get more men at the top of their professions than women.

It is not a case of one sex being better than the other at anything. It's just that they are different and the differences compliment each other.

Just the same as whipped cream compliments a bowl of strawberries. Either on there own is not that good, together they are divine.

Donald

So would it be possible to train their neural network so that they can? Some sort of reward system??

So, are you men determined to stay singleminded? Don't you see any advantage of multitasking.

Yum, yum, Donald, by the way.

I don't see any advantage in everyone being able to multi-task and nobody with the single mindedness to achieve great things.

Besides, its impossible to reverse 5,000 years of evolution in a lifetime.

Donald

don't need to multitask, everything gets done.... it just takes longer

Considering how versatile the brain is, it does seem strange that certain facets are inbuilt & unchangeable. Of course it's not quite a simple as a male/female divide, more a tendancy. Some are extreme, some men have 'female type' brains & vice versa.

However, working in a mostly male environment, as one of few females I astound them with my ability to hold a conversation and type on my PC at the same time. I often have to remember that they have to stop what they're doing before they even notice I'm there to talk to them.

Then again, I also astound them with my ability to get totally and utterly lost anywhere .

You have a point about tendencies, as my mum is a far better navigator than my dad. Either way, we're all different

There are many facets of the human brain that are gender specific. For instances the part of the brain the deals with auroral perception is bigger in females then males while the visual perception area is bigger in males than females.

However, there are overlaps. On a continuum, the majority of males and females will fall into one group or the other.

Donald

Yep R. I don't have a problem with navigating either.

Some interesting points Donald. Thanks

"would it be possible to train their neural network so that they can? Some sort of reward system?"

Not really, given that it's a fundamental hardwired feature of the brain, near as we can tell.

As someone has already said, most of the differences in gender stereotypes are easily explicable if one takes into account what the human lifestyle has been for the majority of the 2 to 4 million years we and our ancestors have been around, and bear in mind that we've only been "civilised", i.e. not living that lifestyle, for something like 6,000 years at most.

So, given our hunter-gatherer past, you have:

- your basic bloke: a biped optimised for pack hunting. Keen, long distance vision, highly adapted for use at night, but with little effective peripheral vision. Excellent at picking up silhouettes, but not a lot of use for distinguishing colours - most mastodons are the same colour. Limb physiology and cardiovascular system optimised for sprinting - the burst of speed to catch the antelope. Brain physiology optimised for lone or small-group, single gender hunting parties with a rigidly defined hierarchy. Memory and perception optimised for three dimensional integration (I.e. knowing how far to throw a rock) and two dimensional mapping (i.e. finding your way home) but conversely poor at non-verbal communication, personal relationship issues, and emotional intelligence.

- your basic woman: biped optimised for gathering and child rearing. Shorter distance vision but with improved colour perception (which berries you pick is important) and much improved detailed peripheral vision (eyes in the back of the head to watch the kids while working). Poor silhouette perception and night vision (you don't need to creep up on a leaf). Limb physiology and cardiovascular system optimised for endurance - walking from one hunting ground to another. Brain physiology optimised for largish-group, multiple gender groups without a rigidly defined hierarchy, hence basically more inclusive. Memory and perception optimised for personal relationship nuances, but conversely poor at two and three dimensional spatial integration.

These basic differences are a legacy of a past stretching back several millions of years, and there's no way that a mere 6,000 years or so of living in cities is going to change them.

It would be interesting to see what humans would be like if they lived as we do for another couple of million years, but that isn't going to happen - the pace of change is such that life will likely be so different even a scant hundred years from now that we will literally be unable to understand it. Let's hope.

H.

I agree entirely with everything you say Moo and very well put, but with exception of peripheral vision. Men generally have better peripheral vision than woman. It comes of spending all that time on the open plain where all round vision is a definite asset.

You don't want mummy mastodon creeping up on you while you are stalking baby mastodon. Females depend on their auroral acuity to determine what the kids are getting up to.

Donald

Sorry Hoo. (Dammed spell checker)

Donald

What an informed answer H. Thankyou. A few further comments:

Just because it’s difficult to do something does that mean it’s not worth trying? Wouldn’t it be true that the more you try and multitask the easier it would become? Ie Practice. Overcoming one's weaknesses.

Also, yes, we know about certain characteristics of the male and female genders, but isn’t it very easy to use then as an excuse? Ie:
“I can’t possibly wire a plug/change a washer blahblah, that’s a man’s job”
”No idea how to use the washing machine/keep the kids entertained blahblah, that’s my wife’s job”

All very nice when it suits, eh?

Would love to take the mick about “basic woman” and “basic man” but you seem to have gone to a lot of trouble, so I won’t.

"Just because it’s difficult to do something does that mean it’s not worth trying? "

Not at all. But on the other hand, one of my mates is colour blind. This is an affliction which predominantly affects men, and is very rare in women. (and incidentally this gender difference contributes to higher fatality rates from colon cancer in men - we're statistically less likely to be able to see telltale streaks of red in brown until it's too late...) It doesn't really matter how hard he tries to see colours, he simply can't. He has learned coping strategies which allow him to get by most of the time, so that most of the time you wouldn't know he's colour blind, but sometimes he's simply reduced to asking "what colour is this?".

And while it's possible that men could learn coping strategies that would enable them to do a convincing impersonations of multitasking, what I think you'd find is that they were just that - impersonations. I imagine I could make you think I was multitasking by alternating between doing several things really, really quickly - for instance, talking and typing. But in fact what I'd be doing is NOT multitasking, just switching my attention really quickly from one to the other. This is emphatically not the same as the true multitasking women can do. It's essentially a trick - one that can be learned, possibly, but for most men the question would be "why learn to type slowly and talk slowly at the same time, which is hard, when I could just stop talking, finish my typing quicker, then talk, which is easy?". Or possibly, "why learn to type when I can get a woman to do it for me?". Kidding!

Re: peripheral vision.

Two points.

1. Sorry to disagree, but every experience in my life tells me women have better peripheral vision than men. In particular, I have lost count of the times I've been told by my other half to "stop looking at her" - more than half the time in reference to women I haven't even been able to see, much less actively look at. My other half simply cannot believe that I can't make out details like clothing, jewellery, eye colour, etc. in someone standing outside a fairly narrow cone directly where my eyes are pointing. Sure, I'm able to sense movement in that region, but actual detail - nothing. She, on the other hand, could fix her eyes on mine and practically tell you the time on a watch held out at arms length to her side, which to me is simply incredible because I'd have a hard time making out that it was a watch, not a bracelet or a small dog.

2. Peripheral vision is NOT an asset on the plain. It's a given, for humans as for the other carnivorous apes, the chimpanzees - that the hunt is a pack, and that different members of the pack cover all the angles. This even carries over into modern infantry tactical deployment - soldiers are trained to take up positions covering arcs in all directions, the more overlapping arcs the better. The asset on the plain is being able to make out detail at distance and sense movement - and surprise surprise, that's what guys' eyes do better than ladies.

H.

Why would men need to learn to multi-task when women can? If a job requires multi-tasking, then if a woman can do it naturally but a man would take years to lrean to do it badly, doesn't it just make more sense to employ a woman in that role?

It seems you are right Hoo. However, I must be one of the exceptions as I have particularly good pheripheral vision.

The following article will make interesting reading.

http://www1.auspost.com.au/priority/index.asp?issue_id=25&area=coverstory

Donald

interesting! All about the peripheral vision i find to be true in general...but strangely enough in my house (i'm still a kid and live with my parents) its often totally different...when my mother is on the phone, or behind the pc playing freecell the whole world could go to hell but she wouldn't notice it. also, because of her physical condition (reuma in dutch but i can't translate) my dad does all the cooking and washing and somehow finds time to do the "man-jobs" even more strange, they both seem capable of goin into full battle mode; then thei're able to hear every sound, even asleep....strange but I have experienced the same on a holiday on a youth camping...long story, but i couldn't sleep as long as i heard a sound, any sound... how come

Bit of a blanket statement.I bet there are men who can multitask quite well.Just as there are women who are as spacially aware as any man and can parallel park quite efficiently.My husband certainly can't anyway.

Incog.