If our brains are the same, that means men must be socially programmed to be feckless and crude. That can't be right, says Michael Deacon.
Contrary to received wisdom and many studies, men and women have practically identical brains – or so says Professor Gina Rippon, a leading neuroscientist at Aston University. I do hope Professor Rippon doesn't tell my wife this. I have a nervous suspicion that the only reason my wife tolerates my untidiness, my laziness and my procrastination when it comes to any household task is that she assumes this is how all men are hard-wired to behave. I daren't think what she might do if she realises that these defects are purely mine.
Actually, though, I'm not sure I agree with Professor Rippon. I believe that there are certain ways in which the brains of men and women do work differently. There must be a reason a man will ignore the symptoms of cancer yet groan and wail as if his cold were the flu. There must be a reason he can tell you Leeds United's first-choice midfield from their title-winning season of 1991-1992, even though he doesn't support them, and yet can't tell you the birth weight of his own children. There must be a reason he will bin unread the instruction booklet of any electronic trinket he buys, yet devote hours to reading about the specifications of cars he will never own.
I suppose Professor Rippon might argue that the behaviours I've listed have nothing to do with the workings of the brain – and that, instead, they're due to the different ways men and women are shaped by society. That may in part be true, but tell me this: why would society want me, and all other men of my acquaintance, to be blind to the chaos of worn socks, old newspapers and unboxed CDs we've allowed to accumulate in our respective spare rooms?
Why would society want us to be unable to think of any useful reply when a woman says, "No, no, that's fine" to a suggestion she plainly disagrees with? Why would society want us to empty the loose change from our pockets on to the nearest household surface every evening, rather than simply spend it, like women do? (A while ago, a male colleague got round to counting the coppers he'd unthinkingly deposited around his flat during the past couple of years. They came to more than £200. That's what home is to a man: a madly disordered bank vault.)
Society doesn't benefit from these exclusively male failings; nobody raised us in the hope we'd turn out feckless and insensitive. We're like that because of our brains. It's their fault. (There we go, shifting the blame – classic male tactic.)
I'm not saying every stereotype about the male mind is true. This idea that, compared with women, we're clear-headed, decisive, no-faffing pragmatists is nonsense – one of the wonderful things about marriage, it seems to me, is that it frees a man from ever having to make another decision.
Everything, from where we live to what we have for breakfast, is decided by my wife, and I couldn't be more relieved about it. If I'd stayed single, I'd never have made any life-altering or even mildly risky decisions: never have bought a house, never have had the bathroom done up, never have taken a foreign holiday, never have had a haircut costing more than £7. Self-satisfied stagnation, that's the male way: rubbing our hands in the smug warmth of our rut. The item of clothing I wear most often is a fraying blue zip-up top I bought in 2002. She's working on its disposal.
I know it's not politically correct to say there are mental and psychological differences between men and women. At this rate, the day may come when it's not politically correct to say there are physical differences between them, either. But – in my pig-headed, narrow-minded, and horribly male way – I'm going to go on thinking it.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8001380/Why-would-society-want-men-to-be-blind-to-their-worn-socks.html
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