Apart from the obvious musical challenges, it's hard to imagine Tammy Wynette's famous ballad as, "Stand by your Systemizer." Just think of her belting out the first line as, "Sometimes it's hard to be an empathizer." However, there is a general perception that a woman's life is harder than a man's.

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Womens' Work is Never Done
Germaine Greer (an infamous Australian feminist) says that women don't know how to relax. In addition to paid work, women are also responsible for most of the housework and childcare. Even womens' leisure activities (shopping, personal care, and beauty) are approached as more of a necessity than something to do for fun.

Men Spend More Time at the Gym
A study completed by the British government in the year 2000 shows that men and women have, on average (everything is "on average"), the same number of work and leisure hours in a day. However, they tend to spend their leisure time differently. Men spend more time playing sports, watching TV, and traveling. Women sleep a little longer, have more of a social life, and (darn it) devote more time to eating. It makes sense that women, who tend to be empathizers, spend more time socializing than men, who tend to be systemizers.

Differences are All in the Mind
It would be very interesting to see work and leisure activities split by brain type instead of gender. Would we see an even more marked split in the choice of leisure pastimes? Would women and men with the "female" (empathizing) brain spend more time on the leisure activitities that are mainly attributed to women? Would men and women with the "male" (systemizing) brain spend more time on activities that we tend to associate with men these days? I'm pretty sure this would prove to be the case.

Suddenly, Shania Twain's enthusiastic lyrics, "Man, I feel like a woman," make more sense to me. I always thought they should be sung by a man.

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About the author

Katrina Boydon is a systemizing female with empathizing traits. She is as likely to be found crying over a sad film as balancing her bank account to the last cent.