Whether we like it or not, evolution made boys and girls very different. For hundreds of thousands of years the men went off to kill animals for food and defended the tribe. The rest of the time they sat around staring into the fire. The women pretty well did everything else. There is no point in trying to be PC based in this discussion; just ask any woman. She knows her brain is superior and that it’s not even worth discussing. Unfortunately chaps it is true!
Let’s consider the effects of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and list the few things which men had to do and so on average they have the advantage today:
a.) Fighting. Every living man today is the product of a very long line of strong men who killed enemies in order to survive. If just one of your ancestors had not been strong enough during brutal times you wouldn’t be here. Chaps, it’s bred into you. The future challenge is to adapt to a world of intelligence not fisticuffs.
b.) Physical Strength. The same argument applies here. Being good at killing things (in those days) meant having to be strong.
c.) Judging Angles. Trapping animals to eat meant perfecting the art of angles of attack to surround them and then judging the exact angles for throwing rocks. These days, just think how many times a wife is upset when her husband drives their car through a supposedly “impossible” gap. He is genuinely wondering what on earth all the fuss is about whilst she is convinced he is a dangerous, reckless driver, stupidly trying to impress her. This is a simple evolutionary difference. Girls, let him get on with it! There aren’t many things he is better at but this just happens to one of them. It’s been hot-wired into his brain over millennia and he is not taking a risk. It really is just normal (to him).
d.) Geography. A vital part of successful hunting is understanding the lie of the land and having a map of the locality in your head (when maps didn’t exist). In modern times this translates into map reading.
e.) “Straight Ahead” Vision. The animals tended to be big (although dinosaurs had long died out before the humans were around). Good eyesight (straight head) was vital for tracking and taking aim with any weapons.
f.) Lack of Communication
Things were very basic for the caveman and basically centred on food and survival. If there was none to be found everyone could die. So, when in difficulties, the male kept it (in whatever way he could) to himself rather than spread despair. Looking his family in the face knowing he had failed at his sole purpose in life and that everything he cared about could die, was just too much to bear.
In modern times it seems so stupid that husbands still feel reluctant to share their troubles with their wives. Unfortunately, it will take a long time to “weed out” this instinctive, evolutionary baggage but perhaps understanding it can help both men and women to move forward.
That’s pretty much it for the males (on average).
Now let’s look at the females’ (on average) hot-wired evolutionary strengths. We can’t possibly list them all so here are just five that are more obvious.
a.) Multitasking. Just imagine trying to look after lots of kids in those days when you are out in the open and on your own. You need eyes in the back of your head with so many predators around. Over millennia you learn to carry out tasks such as skinning animals to eat using the skins as clothing) whilst simultaneously watching the movements of every child as well as the horizon for any sign of danger.
An example of this skill today would be to watch a group of (say) seven young women standing in a group at a social gathering. At any one time there may be 4 different conversations going on and each girl is listening to every conversation, without anybody being insulted. Conversely, in a group of seven men, only one will be speaking and anybody interrupting will be considered ill-mannered. To a man, the natural behaviour of the women is so far beyond their ability to comprehend, that it is dismissed as chaotic chatter and only worth ignoring. In fact this one simple example clearly indicates how the female brain has evolved to multi-task and process information at a staggering rate compared to the simpler minds of men. Remember, this article is being written by a man!
b.) Observation.
Every female had to be extremely observant to survive when their man was away hunting. The smartest women (your ancestors) would move the family immediately they saw the slightest change on the horizon. Perhaps it was just a change of shade. They also knew that, wherever they went, the men would use their hunting skills to find them, so that was not an issue. Observation of tiny details was the key to survival for the female and her family.
Nowadays this might be translated into a boy and girl going to a party. The next day, if the boy is asked what it was like he will tell his mates something like, “It was great and Harry was sick!” To men that is the end of the conversation. However, ask a girl about that same party and the answer is very different. There will be a thirty minute description of who was wearing what, who fancies who (whether they were open about it or not) who clashed with each other and so on. Any woman will see a myriad of detail that is missed by a man. Hence it is the man who has to ask his wife where the butter is in the fridge. This leads into the next heading.
c.) Colours. Over the ages of evolution each generation will have seen the survival of only the most observant mothers. Hence, with every generation, only the very best survived. Recognising colours and shades to spot distant changes was a key to success. By definition, every female today is the product of a long line of successful and very observant mothers. In fact we now know that on average every girl has thousands more colour receptors in the back of each eye than any boy. The girls who did not have these extra colour receptors were not observant and so died out. This legacy of evolution is still with the female of the species and unlike the male trait of being loath to communicate, remains a huge strength within the modern world.
Unfortunately, in modern times, it can still lead to friction between a man and a woman because, to put it simply, a female will see any object more vividly in terms of colour than any man. Conversely, this means that men, compared to women, live in a world of rather dull colours. Unfortunately, neither gender will ever be able to fully appreciate the other gender’s view of the world.
For Example:
A young wife says to her husband, “Shall we have this shade of peach or this shade of peach for the bathroom tiles?” The new husband looks at the tiles and wants to say, “I can hardly tell them apart and quite frankly I will get used to either. So why don’t you just pick one. Anyway, I eat peaches so what’s all this about colour anyway?” BUT he has already learnt that his new bride will be offended by this because colours (it seems) are very important to her. So he says something like, “Oh this one darling, it’s much better.”
The young wife is then going to ask the most dreaded question, “Why?”
Unfortunately, he hasn’t got a clue and if he tries to bluster he will get into more trouble. Very often an argument will start.
If only young couples could understand the evolutionary gifts and baggage that we carry with us that make the two genders so different, there would be far less tension in the world.
Millennia ago these basic differences between men and women were vital to our survival but nowadays they are simply confusing, as each gender finds it so hard to understand the evolutionary hot-wiring of each other’s brains i.e. understand each other within the modern world.
d.) Peripheral Vision.
We now know that women who performed best in the brutal world of pre-history, not only had more colour receptors in their eyes to be more observant but they also had more light receptors on the periphery of their vision so they can see much better than us chaps out of the corners of their eyes. Remember girls, your successful predecessors had to watch all those kids whilst doing other things, so over hundreds of thousands of years the female body adapted. Perhaps the best way to describe this is in terms of today:
When a man looks at a woman’s bottom/figure in the pub he must turn his head to look straight ahead. Hence, by this blatantly obvious move he is constantly being caught “looking” by the females. The ladies however have a huge advantage over us hapless men, as they look out of the sides of their eyes. So, yes ladies, we know you look at our bums; it’s just that we can never catch you at it!
e.) Communication. The family groups that remained when the men went off to hunt had to learn to co-operate to survive. Communication, on whatever level, was the key to this and any problems were shared by the group on a very close basis. Sharing such troubles would often help as the group could pool their ideas for a greater chance of survival. Nothing could be further from the in-built evolutionary instincts of the male who is hot wired to believe sharing troubles equals failure. He just can’t help it. There is no point in asking him why; he can’t explain such a deep and ancient instinct.
It is this legacy of evolution that means most girls will arrive in reception class and be more ready than boys to talk, listen, read and write.
Conclusion
Whilst the list of male strengths is pretty well complete, the list of female strengths goes on and on beyond our remit, including such things as “emotional stamina”.
In fact this (female mental superiority) was uncovered in the late 1980s by scientists but could not be published then due to the fear of upsetting the feminist movement who, at that time, were insisting that both sexes were exactly the same. Well, they are not the same and, if nature has a balance, it weighs heavily in favour of the females of the species. Just as we now celebrate the differences in the various cultures of the world so we must now repeat it with basic gender differences.
Finally, we must conclude that (on average) the female brain is fixed (in evolutionary terms) in a manner that is far more suited to the emergence of intelligence and common sense that are so important in today’s society. Due to the overwhelming legacy of evolution, ladies are more likely to use their brains than their fists. It is the men who will have so much more trouble trying to overcome the in-built legacy of a need to fight.
In one way it is possible to refer to the physical bullies of the world as being “cavemen” who cannot move on.