Relationship Guide – The Differences Between Men and Women

Relationship Guide: Men and women: the similarities and differences

No relationship guide would be complete without covering how males and females instinctively relate to each other. The differences between men and women have been well recognized since the earliest times. However, there has been a recent tendency, perhaps deriving from feminism and perhaps from the great publicity that sexual matters have had in recent years, for people to assume that women and men are not only equal but actually the same.

It’s true that many jobs are equally well done by both, and that some of the reasons that men have been better paid and promoted in their employment are to do with men’s natural competitiveness, combined with an inbuilt historical unfairness in society. However, from a “relationship guide” point of view, the differences between the genders are very clear and well known, and these have made it difficult at times for men and women to understand each other.

Differences in brain function

It’s now accepted that there are some brain differences between men and women, and this is partly in the way that each gender uses the right and left halves of the brain. Women are more ‘left brain’ competent, and manage better in tasks that involve language and communication. Men are more ‘right brain’ competent, and therefore manage better in tasks that require spatial coordination, such as maths, physics and engineering.

In fact, whether from nature or from social pressures, most boys aged three will talk co other boys of the same age about cars, guns or computer games: girls of the same age will prefer to talk about their families and friends. Men are good with machines and things generally, while women are better at understanding people and relationships.

Differences in psychological strengths

In a similar vein, girls and women are good at ‘multi-tasking’, and can keep many goals in mind at the same time without neglecting any of them. Boys and men, on the other hand, will concentrate on the job at hand, and leave other tasks to another time or delegate them to someone else.

In this connection, women are usually better at looking after children, and manage to keep a focus on the kids in their charge while at the same time getting on with making meals and doing housework. Men can do all these things, but tend to forget one while concentrating on the other. They tend to want to get the children safely settled so that they can get on with other things.

Cooperation and competition

Men are likely to be more competitive that women, and when you see two men or boys together they will often be making comparisons between the speed of their cars, the amount they earn, their achievements in sport or the size of their houses – a very important point to make in any relationship guide. This is perhaps related to the way in which in an animal setting males tend to compete for both status and the right to mate with the females in the herd. It is a natural pattern of behavior, and is probably driven by testosterone.

Women and girls, on the other hand, will form cooperative networks and put their ideas together without insisting on taking credit for a particular initiative. Again, in the animal setting, the females in the herd will often collaborate in bringing up the young, especially if the ‘assistant carers’ are related to the mother of the offspring.

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