There are other anatomical differences, but the truth is that none of these differences have been linked to considerable differences in male and female behavior. If they are, I theorize that we must have other mechanisms that activate to counteract those differences.
Male vs Female Performance
Although no real evidence of IQ differences exist between female and males, we do see a difference in various scholastic areas between the genders. Males tend to score higher on SAT mathematical tests. However in 7 out of 43 countries examined, female and males scored with no statistical gender difference and in Iceland girl’s outperformed males. This suggests that a cultural aspect is more likely to influence the differences seen in genders rather than a biological one.
Perhaps we would have to revise the way courses are taught , and see if we can close the gender gap as in those 7 countries. There are however, a few cognitive gender differences between male and females, and it actually has a biological basis to it. Men typically outperform women on mental rotation tasks and these differences are linked to hormonal levels. One single injection of a testosterone dose increased female’s performance on visuospatial tasks. The differences in gray matter also contribute to the differences in language skills in which women tend to outperform men.
Gender and Emotions
As I mentioned earlier, we normally tend to the stereotype that women are more emotional than men. While it is true that women tend to pay attention and express their emotions more openly than men, the reality is that men and female will experience an equal amount of emotions and emotional reactions to different situations. The difference lies in the way genders process and experience those emotions, which differs from male and females. I believe that part of the emotional differences is embedded in our own cognitive fallacies. Just as we stereotype that females are emotional, we stereotype that men are “strong” and “don’t cry”. As a result, men learn to hide emotions and control them ,while females don’t have the need to do so ,since society created their stereotype which entitles them to be more emotional.
Despite these epigenetic factors or you can call them cultural factors, we do express differences in our emotional behaviors and also our physiological make up, which probably dates back to our cave-man origins. Some of our behaviors have been rooted in our brains to ensure survival, bear a child and gather food. Hence the brain had to adapt and rewire itself to be able to be more effective in performing such tasks. For instance neurons responsible for fear and aggression in both sexes, are clustered in the same area in both female and male brains. However in males these neurons connect to areas of the brain that include vision and movement; and in females they connect to areas that regulate blood, hormones and respiration.
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