Men and women are different? It’s a no-brainer

So men and women think differently, according to scientific research carried out at a university in Pennsylvania.

Really? Who’d have guessed it?

The male brain links thoughts with ‘doing’ while although the female brain is 8% smaller it’s better at handling matters of the heart and mind and likes to study how other people behave then interpret it using intuition and analysis.

You could say “action man versus sensitive woman”.

But is it really that simple?

I know lots of guys in touch with their emotions and I know lots of women who are smart, sussed and capable of holding down challenging jobs while running a family, looking great and doing it all without breaking sweat.

So has this ‘brain mapping’ anything new to tell us?

Well it found that women use their brains differently and this makes us more intuitive, better at what the scientists call “thinking without thinking”.

Women just ‘know’ what’s going on under the surface, whether they’re sitting at a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street or round the kitchen table with their friends having a good gossip.

We don’t need the subtleties pointed out we can sense instinctively the games people are playing.

It’s why girls at school are more dangerous if they bully because they know how to hurt, twist the knife and say the words which can’t be taken back, while guys use their fists and it’s soon forgotten.

In the past when men needed to be tough hunter/gatherers, physical strength mattered. They may not have had the time or the inclination to wonder what the guy in the next cave was thinking or feeling, but you can bet Mrs Flintstone was wondering where her neighbour got the attractive skins she’d hung up as curtains?

Today when the workplace has changed dramatically and physical labour is less common than sitting in front of a computer, men have had to learn to adapt. Some do it better than others.

I often think they’d rather be sweating at the coal face than trying to fathom what a bunch of women in the office are thinking. But, guys, you need to change.

We are the future. Women are here to stay. The genie is out of the bottle and it is never going back. So you’ll have to do that difficult thing and learn to adapt.

I’m still waiting for my husband to understand that there’s no shame or loss of manhood in stopping and asking directions if we get lost. Instead we drive for miles with me itching to wind down the window and ask someone. He believes in the Holy Grail of technology.

Last summer in the Lake District the sat nav kept sending us miles from where we wanted to be. I knew with my inherent female wisdom that the woman at the bus stop would have told us the way.

Men and women always look at life differently. But it’s the contrast which keeps the spark alive.

Would there be any satisfaction at home or at work in a heated exchange of views if you didn’t need to use your female debating skills (or low down cunning) to make your point?

It’s the yin and yang of survival. Vive la difference!