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by d5kenn on September 6th, 2003

d5kenn

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They say men have better "3D and spatial perception," while women are better at discerning emotions and multitasking. Is this true?

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  • by Noi Wszolek on March 4th, 2005

    Noi Wszolek

    A very nice article was published in Time magazine, March 7, 2005 entitled "The Gender Gap" on this and other similar concepts, but for purposes of this website, I'll attempt to summarize.

    It is undeniable that there is a gender gap in the scientific community. Women make up a mere 23% of employed doctoral scientists, and even then, a large percentage of those women are involved in the health sciences or psychology, not what are generally considered the "hard" sciences.

    What studies have shown is that it depends on what age you are testing, and that results can change within the same person based on when you are testing them.

    Specifically concerning spatial perception, boys have performed better than females in many tests, but this may not be related to differences in the brain. As a study published in the journal "Behavioral Neuroscience" shows, young male monkeys performed better then female, but by old age, both genders performed equally well.

    The difference in test results may also be accredited to a difference in thr structure of sensory organs. In rats, the male retina has more cells to detect motion, while the female's retina has more cells built to gather information on color and texture. If this is true for humans as well, it may explain the gap in test results, at least partly. On the other hand, it might mean something entirely different.

    The article suggested perhaps sex segregated schooling may not be a bad idea after all, if girls and boys do indeed learn different subjects at different rates.

    However, I'd like to clarify while there are many theories, no one really knows exactly why there are more men than women in sciences. The technology to accurately map the brain has only recently become available, and the information available now is inconclusive. Though difficult to tell upon sight, the scanning of male and female brains have shown that they seem to work quite differently, and even have a different structure.

    Women appear to have more connections between the two brain hemispheres and a stronger connection between the amygdala and the regions of the brain that handle language. This couls possibly account for the observation that women seem to be better at handling emotions. But then again, maybe not.

    I hope this has been of some help. The question being asked is an incredibly complex one that has been asked for centuries, with much personal bias on either side of the argument.

    Comments

    • There are fewer women in science because taking time out to have kids derails your career savagely.

      lynnenorth

      by lynnenorth on December 30th, 2005

    • Good answer, but lynnenorth has a good point.

      Anonymous

      by Anonymous on July 28th, 2006

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