August 24, 2009

Male Gender Differences
As far back as literature is known to go, men have been trying to figure out women. Volumes have been written about the mystic of womanhood. In 1995, Yale brain researchers, Bennett and Sally Shaywitz, asked nonsensical questions of both men and women while they electronically monitored the brain activity. The biological differences in each became evident; which prepares the genders for different interpretations creating miniscule and major misunderstandings. The males’ left hemisphere lit up while the female used both left and right hemispheres to process language. Men hear things logically with their left part of the cerebrum, while women use both areas which includes the right part which is the emotional/creative area.

The majority of men tend to withdraw or become angry when confronted with female emotions. The silent treatment sends most females up the wall because they interpret the reaction as lack of caring and loss of love.

A large portion of the clients that I see have these gender difficulties. The husband or lover believes that the woman needs help handling her life when she is only venting about her issues. A Lover needs to listen to what emotions the wife is expressing and let her know he “gets it” . He needs to verbally detail her frustrations, abandonment, hurt, etc. until she feels a sense of relief that he knows her depth. Unfortunately this exercise is not handled well as many men have spent their entire life not dealing with deep affections and instead substitute sexual sensations for the essence of life.

Women, also, are confused by the male response and determine that it is cold, indifferent and unloving. During courtship males have more oxytocin which is a constant predominant in females and is responsible for her deeper affective behavior. When oxytocin biologically disappears in men after a commitment, the women feel abandoned. Women, also need to learn to be more specific with their needs, wants and desires. I, often feel like tearing my hair out, when a women says that she does not want to hurt the man’s feelings by being direct. Whereas, the man tells me he does not know what his partner wants. Many a man breathes a sigh of relief in my office when the counterpart is explicit. Now he knows what to do.

Learning to listen from the opposite point of view is a skill best learned in counseling. Once learned the sexes can co-ordinate their daily life and the love life that had become damaged from the misunderstandings which resulted from dissimilar definitions from a seemingly identical vocabulary. Once the definitions are on a level plane the relationship can stabilize.