The Male Brain: What Men May Not Understand

 This blog is going to delve into the psychology behind the male brain. 

"The female brain is predominately hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominately hard-wired for understanding and building systems." Simon Barron-Cohen

Simon Barron-Cohen who is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Cambridge University and co-director of its Autism Research Centre. He has carried out research into both autism and sex differences over a twenty-year career. He is the author of Autism: The Facts and Mindblindness.

According to Barron-Cohen systemizing is the drive to analyze, explore, and construct systems.

Let me be clear systemizing and empathizing are non-sex based traits. Both men and women are endowed with both abilities. As it so happens, males overall lean more towards the use of systemizing to understand the world around them. Females are more likely to lead with empathy when connecting with the world. 

Those individuals who systemize intuitively determine how things work, they pry until they discover the rules that regulate the behavior of a system. Systemizing is most useful when used to determine inputs that deliver outputs. 1 + 2= 3 is an example. Systemizers use logic to determine the outcome of a situation and rarely figure in any other input to determine other possibilities. The problem arises when systemizers try to apply this input/output way of thinking to day-to-day social interactions. This realization is what the architects of patriarchy did not know. Because the male brain has an "if this happens-then that will happen" mentality, many do not allow for the reality that folk psychology, (the intuitive everyday ability to explain and predict human behavior by attributing mental states like beliefs, desires, and emotions). Ironically, folk psychology is just another term for common sense which enables social interaction and understanding without formal, scientific, or technical training. 

Our emotions and behaviors do not follow any set pattern. One of the responses men have the biggest issue with is a woman not being happy when she gets what she wants. The male brain thinks want + want being met = happy. To the systemizing brain this is the outcome that is most logical. Systemizing cannot determine a person's mood swings.

What the architects of patriarchy did not know is that though the most accurate way to understand and even predict the natural path of events and objects is to systemize, empathy is the most realistic when dealing with human beings.

Fortunate for me and our family, my husband displayed a wonderful balance between systemizing and empathy. We only had one argument about gender roles. I am not a woman who has a domestic nature. I'm messy. He termed it organized chaos because if he asked for something, I knew exactly where it was and could put my hands right on it. One day he approached me in frantic frustration, "Don't you see this mess? You're a woman. You're supposed to want to keep a house perfect." 

Needless to say, the argument was on and popping, but once we cooled down I sat him down and said, 'Look, we had this conversation the very first time you visited me. When I said I didn't believe that men and women had specific roles when it came to running a household, this is what I meant. What is keeping you from cleaning up when it needs to be done? Why does it have to be me?'

This was one of the most beautiful exchanges we had in our relationship. That last question opened his mind to the reality that it doesn't have to be me who cleans just because I'm a woman. He then said, "I really am more domesticated than you are." 

We never had another argument about who does what. From that day forth, he cleaned, cooked, took care of our children and supported me while I was chasing several dreams of mine. Yet, there were times when his systemizing brain drove me crazy like insisting all the labels on the can goods faced forward or he couldn't understand why I had such a hard time learning chess and would become infuriated stating, "It's simple logic."  He would also get upset when the children couldn't understand math problems (systems).

He was great at reading my face and would literally ask, "What kind of mood are you in?" If he saw me deep in thought he'd say, "A penny for your thoughts." I have often attributed his balance between systemizing and empathizing due his time spent incarcerated. Inmates, to stay alive have to be aware of their surroundings. They have to learn to read the room and the shifts in energy. He was big on respect and being cordial. 

Doing this research has opened my mind up to understanding even more why men have been labeled as slow, detached, displaying learned helplessness, etc. In the next blog, I will delve more into what research states about these behaviors.

To be continued.....