Brain power seems to be on my mind this week. I read an article about brain quirks, which described nine different ways in which your brain works that are counter-intuitive. Actually mostly I’m surprised that my brain works at all, and it never works in the way that I think it’s going to.

The kind of facts that they came up with were things like the brain has a short term memory maximum capacity between five and nine items. This is complete news to me. Without a written list I have no short term memory, and on a bad day I forget the list.

A really interesting one was that we all have two nervous systems. One is involved with excitation, and the other with inhibition. Now here I really think they’ve got confused. I believe this is about marriage and the sexes. Before marriage, the male nervous system is concerned with excitation, and the female with inhibition. After marriage, they cross over. Well, actually this probably means they’ve probably got it right then.

The third item I noticed was that long term memory shuts down during sleep. I absolutely agree with this for females. During sleep I remember nothing. But I think they have probably missed something for male partners, whose long term memory shuts down not only during sleep but also during conversation with their female partners.

So there we have it. Our brains have a life of their own, nothing to do with us. We can therefore abdicate all responsibility for the product of their activity, and function entirely on instinct and emotion – something that women are aware of, and men do but deny vehemently.

There’s something that doesn’t really quite make sense here about Natascha Kampusch.

For years television was her main form of entertainment and view of the world as she lived in an underground prison. Now the kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch is to become a TV talk show host herself - a career of which she dreamed during her incarceration.

Less than two years after her release, the 20-year old Austrian says she is now learning “the other side” of the media. On Sunday she will host the first in her chat show series, “Natascha Kampusch Meets …” on the private television channel Puls 4.

I mean, yes, she is famous, she’s certainly had a different life so far to almost everyone else. But, umm, are we entirely sure that the best training for chatting to people is to spend eight years in a cellar on your own?

I seem to have read several articles about the difficulty of being friends with the opposite sex.  I read them with interest, because I have very good male friends who were lovers, but I have never had a friend who became a lover – must be some comment on my EQSQ balance.

 

However, I do think that there is always recognition that at the very least your friend is not of the same sex – and even just a flicker of sexual interest, unless he is gay.  I hadn’t really thought about this until a few years ago when I became very good friends with two men who were not very obviously gay.  There was a certain chemistry missing – not the instant attraction type chemistry, but a more subtle one of summing up the possibilities.

 

I really enjoy my male friends.  They are restful in that they don’t want to know all the details about your emotional life, but on the other hand they can be very useful too when I have problems understanding my lover.  They also tend to shed a more systemic light on my activities – a good thing for me as I have a very strong systemic side to my character too.

 

I find that they also want to talk about emotions because they have very few opportunities to discuss these matters without making it personal.  I realize that many men who have the capacity to be emotionally intelligent find it difficult to develop the skills necessary to put this into practice.  They do not become skilled at communication of emotions, and find it difficult to be self-analytical without the discussion of these topics with other people.

 

Actually the whole EQSQ thing comes into these friendships – maybe I should get them to take psychology tests before I commit to a friendship. 

 

 

Writing this blog is interesting. I have started to think about all my prejudices - and why I hold them, if I can talk about them to other people without feeling that they are unreasonable. I love the differences between men and women in principle, but of course when I come face to face with them, they often annoy me.

For instance, I enjoy the feeling of interdependence with my partner.  I look forward to doing things for him that he could easily do for himself.  A classic example is  packing for a journey he is going to make. Typically, he would ask me “Have you remembered everything” (one of the most annoying responses ever). We are simply fulfilling certain stereotypical roles - mine one of nurture, his one of - well, what? Being annoying? Passing on responsibility? Acting like a child?

There we are - prejudice written all over this piece, and yet a frequent scene in my life, and I’m sure that I’m not the only person who has enacted this  particular play. So how do we combat these silly scenes, or do we have to cultivate a tolerance that can actually be difficult to keep in place on a daily basis?

Everyone has their own answer.  Sadly for me, I no longer have to keep the tolerance going - I’m resolutely single after 20 years of married life.

I was very interested to hear that single sex education can give both sexes an equal start in life.  Educationalist Dr Leonard Sax happened to be in New Zealand (where I live) visiting in his role as executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.  He gave an interview on New Zealand National Radio which I listened to as I drove to a meeting on education and training for the eighteen to twenty five age group - an area of concern for us in education, as numbers of men are trailing far behind numbers of women.

Dr Sax argues that both boys and girls do much better in different physical environments as well as different philosophical environments.  Boys study better at temperatures some 3 to 4 degrees lower than girls.  Girls enjoy longer uninterrupted classes; boys can study for around 20 minutes and then need to have a break.  Although developmental differences are greatest at an early age, equality isn’t complete until around the age of 30.  Women’s brains are completely physically mature around the age of 23; men around 30 (no great surprises to most women there). 

This has all kinds of implications for higher education as well as education and training at primary and secondary levels.  Career education assumes that the gender divide has disappeared in the classroom - although most tutors will tell you that this is not true. 

If we are going to take this seriously (and I think that we must if we want a balanced adult population and an effective work force) then we have to do real research into factors such as gender differences for online education, career choice and career education. 

Who knows, if we do this properly then we may find that men can be educated to put their dirty washing in the laundry basket rather than on the floor.

 

>???????????? It’s been some time since I’ve blogged, so I feel like I’m jumping into the ocean without knowing the temperature, but here goes.

I’m a fifty-something woman who has been married, not had a family, always had a career. I remember going to University to study a degree in Textile Marketing and being one of four females out of a class of forty.  Women’s liberation just started to penetrate my corner of the world as I reached my late teens and started in higher education. I noticed it but I was sufficiently absorbed in myself that it didn’t seem to be anything to do with me and my career education. Today I look back and wonder just how blind I was, and how much the world changed for women like me. 

But I also see that the world changed for everyone. Many men took the opportunities that were presented and took on career choices that they wouldn’t have considered before.  We now routinely accept that men are nurses, men are midwives, men are househusbands. This stands well with the career choices of women as bankers, women as engineers.

What else changed? For me, lots of things. I found that my role in my personal relationships was radically different from that which I had been taught. I read the books I read in childhood and find that mothers made meals, fathers went to work and earned money, girls wore dresses and boys were bossy. Today we can move any of the roles and actions between genders in many households and no-one sees anything peculiar.

I want to explore some of these things in the next few weeks and reflect on how it makes our lives different - and how much our lives have stayed the same. I want to see how factors such as higher education and education online affect men and women. There’s fun to be had during this process, as well as some interesting social comment.

And of course, how much being men and women affect how we think and what we are; and the interaction between the two.  Particularly the interaction between the two.

Yet another report, this one from the Center for Work-Life Policy in New York, telling us something really rather different from what they think they’re telling us. This is like on, “Oh, gosh, there’s Sexism! Eeek!” report:

A time warp of 1970s sexist attitudes is driving women in their late thirties from careers in science and technology and undermining key sectors of the economy, according to an international study.

Researchers claim to have discovered a “hidden brain drain” as women opt out when facing a choice between family life and pushing for promotion at work.

The majority choose their children and alternative careers instead of struggling with the hurdles of a macho “lab coat culture” with long hours, old boys’ networks and the risk of sexual harassment.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist at the Center for Work-Life Policy in New York and the lead author of the study, said the research had revealed a world with values seemingly stuck in the 1970s.

She said: “It has been a bit like a time warp. This predatory or condescending culture [towards women] was more common across the workplace 20 to 30 years ago but has somehow survived in an engineering, science and technology context.

“It is the hidden brain drain. We have this amazing, talented pool of women who have left the industry. It is highly destructive to our society and economy.”

The thing is, they haven’t found some outpost of 1970s sexism, there’s nothing “macho” going on here (really, the geeks, macho? Sure you’re not all getting confused with the jocks there?). What they’ve found is that it is very difficult to balance both the climbing to the top of the career tree and having and raising children.

That’s it, tout court. One of their examples:

Nancy Lane, a cell biologist at Cambridge University, recalled the conflict she felt between work and her two children. “I felt forced to make agonising trade-offs, asking myself, ‘Do you abandon an experiment or abandon a needy child?’ ” she said. “I found myself deliberately choosing questions that allowed me to run experiments in a five-day week.”

See, it’s not the employers, it’s not the society, it’s not anything other than the intrinsic demands of doing science at the highest levels.

And women get a choice: do they want to pursue that science or are they more interested in other parts of life, like their children and their family? The absence of such a choice would be something to bemoan: but given that the choice exists, it seem very strange indeed to complain about the choices which are being taken.

Essentially, all that this research has uncovered is that women tend to carry the greatest burden of child care and that carrying this burden means that they might need to make compromises in other areas of life.

Wow! Surprising finding, eh? People have to make choices?

This really rather amused me:

About 19% of men admitted they were potential gold-diggers and would tie the knot with someone in order to benefit from their wealth and luxury lifestyle, compared with only 11% of women.

There’s so many little things to unravel: you mean that my plans for making a huge pot of money by the time I’m 60 won’t actually be worth it? That I won’t be able to get that youthful babe?

Slightly more seriously I really don’t find this at all surprising. Men are always told that we are the less emotional gender: certainly, that we seem to be ready for sex without requiring the same levels of emotional intimacy that the distaff side claim to. So give that whole non-empathic side of the male psyche, the idea that more of us would put money ahead of love doesn’t surprise.

Further, I’ve read a few historical novels in my time. No, I don’t mean bodice rippers written now but set in the past, rather, novels that were written in the past. A standard plot device is of the man (often but not always a cad) looking for an heiress, any heiress, to marry. Good grief, Jane Austen’s work is famous enough and at least one of the novels turns that convention on its head: the girls cannot marry as they have no dowry to take into the marriage with them.

But to return to flippancy about the survey. What we’ve really found is that there’s a different attitude towards the truth between the sexes (again, something that’s not examctly news). 89% of women will lie in surveys, while only 81% of men will.

Well, yes, OK, we all know the differences, many of them delightful, between teenage boys and girsl: they’ve grown out of the stage of being either snails and puppy dog tails or sugar and all things nice and are growing into reasonable simulacrums of adults. But as always when sex (or if you prefer, gender) rears its ugly head we do need to realise that while there is equality, that’s not quite meaing the same. As PJ O’Rouke has pointed out there are times when it’s vital to note the differences between men and women, as, for example, when attempting to make babies. There are also times when the differences are not important, like when trading bonds.

It would appear that one of those times when the differences are important is when teenagers play sport. Now we already do this at least in part: we know that boys tend to be faster and stronger, so there are few sports with mixed teams. But there are other more subtle differences that we should take note of too:

Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence. Higher levels of testosterone allow boys to add muscle and, even without much effort on their part, get stronger. In turn, they become less flexible. Girls, as their estrogen levels increase, tend to add fat rather than muscle. They must train rigorously to get significantly stronger. The influence of estrogen makes girls’ ligaments lax, and they outperform boys in tests of overall body flexibility — a performance advantage in many sports, but also an injury risk when not accompanied by sufficient muscle to keep joints in stable, safe positions. Girls tend to run differently than boys — in a less-flexed, more-upright posture — which may put them at greater risk when changing directions and landing from jumps. Because of their wider hips, they are more likely to be knock-kneed — yet another suspected risk factor.

This divergence between the sexes occurs just at the moment when we increasingly ask more of young athletes, especially if they show talent: play longer, play harder, play faster, play for higher stakes. And we ask this of boys and girls equally — unmindful of physical differences. The pressure to concentrate on a “best” sport before even entering middle school — and to play it year-round — is bad for all kids. They wear down the same muscle groups day after day. They have no time to rejuvenate, let alone get stronger. By playing constantly, they multiply their risks and simply give themselves too many opportunities to get hurt.

The implication of all this is that male and female (or boys and girls if you prefer) sporting programs should be differently designed in those teenage years. While boys might be encouraged to find their best sport and stick to it, girls probably should not: they should be encouraged to be athletic, of course, but in a much more varied manner.

The things we continue to find out, eh?

I’m afraid that this is one of the things that makes me really rather angry about those who would reject science. Those, that is, who keep insisting that there’s some problem with the current system of vaccinations. No, mercury in vaccines does not cause autism, no, the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. But not vaccinating children can indeed kill them:

A child has died from suspected diphtheria – the first fatality from the rare infection in Britain for 14 years, health chiefs disclosed yesterday.

The Health Protection Agency said diphtheria, which attacks the breathing system, was the “most likely” explanation for the death in London. The child had not been vaccinated.

The only reason the infection is indeed (thankfully) rare is that almost all children are indeed vaccinated against it. It’s fairly complex, three injection, one at two, one at three and one at four months. Then a booster before starting school and another between 16 and 18.

And the reason we go through all that effort is that it’s a great deal better than having to bury a child.

As more people reject the science, as more people fall for the woo woo stories about how children are damaged by vaccination then more children will die from these easily preventable diseases.

Grr.