Difference between Men and Women

Key difference: Men are said to be better suited to some tasks then women and vice versa. This is why traditional gender roles dictate that men are suited to careers like politics and science, while a women’s place is said to be in a household. While, this is not entirely the case, there is some truth to the matter. Men and women do differ from each other, not only physically, but in brain structures as well.

It is universally acknowledged that men are difference from females. They tend to react differently to different situations. Men are said to be better suited to some tasks then women and vice versa. This is why traditional gender roles dictate that men are suited to careers like politics and science, while a women’s place is said to be in a household. While, this is not entirely the case, there is some truth to the matter. Men and women do differ from each other, not only physically, but in brain structures as well. While the differences may not be related to each and every single person, the descriptions are more or less on generalization.

It is known that men and women differ physically from each other. Men are usually taller and have more muscle mass than women. The differences also relate to the sexual reproductive organs, where men have mainly internal and some external reproductive organs. All of the female reproductive organs are internal. Also, only the female body is capable of carrying a baby and for giving birth, in addition to nursing the baby via breast milk. Women are fertile after puberty and until menopause. Men are fertile after puberty and until death. The oldest known father was aged 92.

Further physical differences between men and women exist. As compared to women, men tend to have:

  • more pubic hair
  • more body hair, mainly terminal hair as opposed to women’s vellus hair
  • more facial hair
  • larger hands and feet than women
  • broader shoulders and chest
  • larger skull and bone structure
  • larger brain mass and volume
  • greater muscle mass
  • a more prominent Adam's apple and deeper voice
  • a longer shinbone
  • larger waist in comparison to their hips
  • denser, stronger bones, tendons, and ligaments
  • longer canine teeth
  • taller, narrower, and more compact pelvic, as opposed to women’s wider pelvic cavity, which is necessary for giving birth.
  • thicker and oilier skin
  • more prone to baldness

In addition to these physical differences, further differences exist in hormone levels, sensory systems, tissues, etc. Wikipedia lists these additional differences:

  • Females have a more sensitive sense of smell than males
  • Females have more pain receptors in the skin.
  • Females report a higher prevalence of many pain-related diseases and syndromes, particularly auto-immune diseases.
  • Women report more severe pain, more frequent pain, longer-lasting pain, and wider-ranging pain than men.
  • Women show higher performance levels on tests of verbal fluency.
  • Women generally have a higher body fat percentage than men.
  • Women usually have lower blood pressure than men, and women's hearts beat faster, even when they are asleep.
  • Men and women have different levels of certain hormones. Men have a higher concentration of androgens while women have a higher concentration of estrogens. The main male-associated hormone is testosterone.
  • Adult men have approximately 5.2 million red blood cells per cubic millimeter of blood, whereas women have approximately 4.6 million.
  • Females typically have more white blood cells (stored and circulating), more granulocytes and B and T lymphocytes. Additionally, they produce more antibodies at a faster rate than males. Hence they develop fewer infectious diseases and succumb for shorter periods.

Furthermore, science has proven that the size of a male brain differs from a female, i.e. it is bigger than the females. While the reason for this phenomenon is still unknown, it has been attributed to the fact that men are physically bigger than women; hence it makes sense that this will be reflected in brain size as well.

Also, men are predominantly left-brained, which means that they use their left hemisphere more. The left hemisphere is attributed to logical and rational thinking. The right hemisphere is usually attributed to emotions and creativity. In women, both the left and right hemispheres are equal in size and function. This is why women seem to be more emotional then men. However, this makes no impact on general intelligence. Both men and women have shown no significant differences in IQ levels, except the fact then men seem to excel in mathematics, presumably due to their logical reasoning, whereas, women tend to excel more at languages, due do their effective use of cognitive abilities of the right hemisphere.

According to Simon Baron-Cohen, the male brain is characterized by systemizing tendencies, where systemizing is the drive to analyze, explore, and construct a system. Men seem to what to figure out how things work and they often try to extract the rules that govern the behavior of a system, in order to understand, predict or reinvent the system. Women, on the other hand tend to have empathizing tendencies, where empathizing is the drive to try to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion. Women are hardwired to try to understand another person, to predict their behavior, and to try to connect with them emotionally. This makes them intuitive to their own feelings, as well as the other person’s, and overall better communicators.

These tendencies and differentiations have developed in response to the certain situations and environments that each of the sexes have faced over the millennia. The systemizing tendencies of men were necessary for inventing and making tools and weapons. Also their low empathizing ability helped them survive the solitude during long hunting and tracking trips as well as for committing acts of interpersonal violence and aggression, which were considered necessary for male competition.

Women developed their empathizing tendencies in order to effectively take care of their infants, including anticipating and understanding their needs as they cannot talk yet. Also, these tendencies helped ancestral women make friends and allies in new environments and tribe into which they were married into.

These differences are also the basic reason why men and women can’t effectively communicate with each other. Men try to analyze the relationships rationally, analyzing them like logical systems. They fail to realize that relationships involve other human beings with emotions and feelings, and that the other human beings, i.e. women view the relationship differently than them. Women tend to put more emphasis on emotions and feelings, and want to talk about these feelings in order to try to explain them to their significant other, while failing to realize that the significant other, i.e. men don’t care about feelings in general.

Additionally, there are number of diseases men and women are more prone too, such as men are more prone to cardiovascular diseases, alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder, whereas women are more prone to suffer from unipolar depression, anxiety, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Also, women are generally less vulnerable than males to developmental difficulties and chronic illnesses. There are many more such differences.

Currently, the sex ratio of the world population is favored to men. The sex ratio stands at 101:100. This means that there are 101 men to every 100 women, i.e. there are more men in the world. However, this can be attributed to female infanticide in a number of developing nations. Furthermore, women tend to outlive men. However, one possible explanation for this is the fact the men are more likely to engage in risky behavior.

Image Courtesy: collider.com, poptower.com

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Comments

Certainly there are differences between men and women; that's not to say that supposed "masculine" and "feminine" qualities are exclusively male or female, respectively.

I wouldn't cite Baron-Cohen -- the methodology of his studies aren't adequate enough to derive a solidly objective conclusion on the INNATE brain differences of men and women.

A man would have also spotted this and corrected it "It is universally acknowledged that men are difference from females"

then the title would be "men vs females"

Have look at the tale of two brains on the youtube !

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