There are many similarities between the male and female brains, but also some differences that mark prototypical behaviors of both sexes. To simplify, we can say that female brains have an architecture more conducive to empathy and male brains would have an architecture more conducive to finding their place in a hierarchy.
With 11% more neurons in the language centers of the brain, we speak more than men, using around 20,000 words a day, compared to 7,000 for men. In addition, the female brain has up to four times more connections between the right and left hemispheres and matures two to four years earlier than the male brain.
This allows women to multitask and be stronger in crises. The female frontal cortex gives us greater social composure and impulse control.
In contrast, fear is a more common emotion in men, as is aggression as a form of behavior. Men are more aggressive than women for social and hormonal reasons: it has been proven that hormones change both the way our brain is activated and its structure.
If we cannot put an end to our differences, let us help make the world a place fit for them.
Differences between the male and female brain
Science has managed to establish with greater certainty the gender differences in the way we think, feel, and act. According to Dr. Louann Brizendine, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of “The Male Brain” (2010), both brains have their differences, from birth and childhood to adolescence and adulthood.
All nerve cells have their gender inscribed in the genetics from which they come: XX and XY. The Y chromosome, which defines masculinity, plays a role from the first days of fertilization, setting the stage for the action of hormones later on. During adolescence, boys have two and a half times more space in their brain hypothalamus than girls, dedicated to libido. This may explain why men are more concerned about sex than women.
Estrogens in girls (XX) enhance the regions of the brain responsible for language and the expression of emotions. This, in turn, also strengthens the female ability to easily tune into the mood of others. This makes them better negotiators and conciliators when they grow up.
Although there are proven biological differences between male and female brains, there is also strong evidence that they can be coupled under certain circumstances. This represents times of better communication, intimacy, and emotional harmony in couples.
“Women’s testimony is about seeing the outside from the inside. If there is one characteristic that can differentiate women’s discourse, it is this framing.”
-Carmen Martin Gaite-
Is your brain male or female?
Although typical feminine and masculine behaviors are reproduced in our daily lives, the results offered by the studies are more controversial in this regard since it is difficult to separate genetic influence from cultural influence. According to popular wisdom and some studies, girls have greater emotional intelligence or greater linguistic intelligence, and boys have a facility for logic and mechanics.
If your brain is characterized by the coherence to analyze, explore, and build a system, we would be talking about a prototypically masculine brain. Men would tend to be more interested in how things work and what would lead them to show more curiosity about the rules that govern the behavior of a system, to predict or improve it.
If, on the other hand, your brain allows you to identify the emotions and thoughts of other people to respond to them with an appropriate emotion, your brain corresponds more to the female prototype. Women would be predisposed to understand other people better, predict their behavior, and connect emotionally with them. This would make them more intuitive with their feelings and, in general, better communicators of them.
Editor’s note: The controversy surrounding the topic we are addressing in this article is great. Most studies do not offer conclusive results and the few that do have significant methodological flaws. This is therefore a fascinating field and, despite the amount of literature on the subject, we are just beginning to explore it. Science is built this way, step by step.