My brother, a medical doctor, says that I got my MD from Google University. He is not wrong.
I’m a theologian, not a doctor. But, like Pope St. John Paul II before me, I have been fascinated with God’s creation of male and female. In particular, as we have been exploring over these past few columns, the differences in the lived experience of being male or female and the questions around how much of that difference is due to how we were created and how much to the influences surrounding us.
And so, I have been googling a lot.
Here is what I have learned: while the architecture is similar, subtle but profound differences exist in the functioning of men’s and women’s brains. And while neurology can’t possibly explain every difference between persons, it does have a significant impact.
Early clues came in studies done by psychologist Herbert Landsell of persons with brain damage. The right brain controls visual and spatial functions, “big picture,” emotional and abstract thinking and recognition of shapes and patterns. Meanwhile, the left brain controls verbal and linguistic functions, details and practical and concrete thinking. Landsell discovered that men with right-sided brain damage did badly in tests related to spatial skills, abstract thinking and other functions related to the right brain. Likewise, men with left-sided brain damage struggled with language skills, concrete thinking, orderly sequencing and other left-brain skills. But strangely, women with the same types of damage did not struggle in the same ways. Numerous subsequent studies have confirmed Landsell’s findings.
Why would this be? Why would men and women respond differently to essentially identical brain damage?
This is why: in women, language and spatial skills are controlled by both sides of the brain, while in the male brain, each is limited to one hemisphere. So, when one side was damaged, the women could compensate, whereas the men could not.
Other differences have been found in emotional processing. One study found that, in functional MRI tests, women used different neural pathways to regulate emotion. Another found that women often show greater activity in the limbic system, where emotions are processed, indicating greater sensitivity to emotional stimuli. And a third study found that women tend to remember emotionally charged events better.
The most fascinating difference to me relates to the corpus callosum, the connector between the two halves of the brain. Multiple studies indicate that the corpus callosum in women’s brains is larger than in men’s brains and that, as a result, communication between the two hemispheres is easier for women. This would explain why we women tend to have an easier time accessing, identifying and discussing our emotions — because they more easily connect with our verbal centers. This is why studies consistently show that women can better identify other people’s emotions by reading the expressions on their faces.
Meanwhile, men’s brains are more specialized. With skills housed exclusively on one side and less interplay between the hemispheres, men’s brains are more compartmentalized. In the emotional sphere, this makes them less attuned to their feelings. It also makes it easier for them to focus and makes them less distracted by superfluous information.
Of course, as I have said in every installment of this series, these are only tendencies. There are so many other influences on our brains and our behavior. Every human person is unique, and none can be pigeonholed into a neat category.
There is so much more to this science. You can find a nice summary of much of the recent research here. Otherwise, Google is your friend.
But let’s take a minute here to discuss the “why.” Why did God make us with these differences? St. John Paul II wrote extensively about the concept of “complementarity” — the idea that men’s strengths tend to be women’s weaknesses and that women’s strengths tend to be men’s weaknesses. It’s a beautiful reminder that “no man is an island,” and we were created to go through life together, not alone.
Also, on a deeper level, think about this: these brains are housed in different bodies. Women’s bodies give birth. Men’s bodies do not. What do women need after having a baby? Well, the ability to read emotions without verbal cues would come in awfully handy when dealing with a child who can’t yet speak, wouldn’t it? Also, when a woman is focused on recovering from labor while providing for her baby, she is less able to fend for herself. So, she needs protection and provision. And what does the father of her child need when he is out hunting game with a spear so his family can eat? For starters, he needs higher muscle mass and more endurance and aggression. He needs a keen ability to strategize. And he doesn’t need to be distracted by superfluous information or have his feelings poking through and upsetting him. “We had a fight, and now I’m sad.”
“Wait a minute.” I can hear some of you now. “Babies? Are you saying women are only good for having babies?”
Of course not.
In primitive societies, male and female roles were well-defined. Women, with lower muscle mass and a tendency toward pregnancy, were not well equipped to protect the family, and men were not even slightly equipped to give birth.
But today, we live in a world with grocery stores, alarm systems and baby monitors. Parents have a lot more flexibility in how they structure their families’ lives. Different families work it out in different ways, based on their individual strengths and what they judge to be best in their own situations.
Pope St. John Paul II wrote extensively about the “feminine genius” and how women are uniquely gifted, particularly in the interpersonal realm. Maybe it’s the impact of estrogen on the brain, maybe it’s the easy communication between the hemispheres, or maybe it’s the way we process emotion. Whatever it is, he said that women overall have heightened interpersonal gifts to an extent that men overall do not tend to have.
Once again, this is not to say that all women score astronomically high on the EQ meter, or that all men are relational luddites. Individuals vary. Having encountered so many wonderful men in my life — family, friends, relationships — I know that men have their own beautiful gifts in relating to the people who are important to them. No man bashing here. Just saying, along with JPII, that women tend to have an extra bump when it comes to insight into the individual human person.
St. John Paul II was very clear that all areas of life need women’s gifts.
“Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future: leisure time, the quality of life, migration, social services, euthanasia, drugs, health care, the ecology, etc. In all these areas, a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable, for it will help to manifest the contradictions present when society is organized solely according to the criteria of efficiency and productivity, and it will force systems to be redesigned in a way which favors the processes of humanization which mark the civilization of love.” (St. John Paul II, Letter to Women, 1995)
The idea of complementarity is not bad. It does not and should not imply that women are less suited than men to public life or that women’s gifts are limited to the narrow sphere of the domestic. It simply says that men and women, each uniquely gifted, together can accomplish far more and bring about the Kingdom of God far more effectively than either can alone.
And I find that beautiful.
