Why girls don't play with boys?

Whether you believe that men and women are from different planets, one fact is true: men and women are different. Not purely in a physiological sense. If it were that easy, hoards of psychotherapists and couples counselors were losing out so much!!!

What can we make out of the following picture?

Apart from the fact that girls are slimmer and have a sense of fashion, one indisputable fact is that they are able to process many more different strings of information than men. I did not say "volume of information" intentionally, because that would be an obvious fallacy. However, when it comes to multitasking or handling different communication channels, women are simply better. Why? One of the explanations is that the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres (which is called corpus callosum) is larger in women's brain, hence there are more neurons that serve as connectors. Think about it in terms of bandwidth - the more bits your LAN cable can transport, the faster you can exchange data.

Apart from physiological differences, socialization plays a huge role in adoption of certain gender specific behaviors and ways of thinking. Deborah Tannen and Pat Heim are the leading experts in the field, and there is an amazing DVD with Pat Heim where she talks about those differences, beginning her analysis from the sandbox and advancing it all the way through to corporate boardrooms. One of the examples that she gives (that I particularly like) is that men are hunters while women are gatherers, therefore men are oriented towards the results and women are oriented at the process. Thus, when faced with the task of buying a pair of shoes, women are very comfortable, because they can spend hours in the process. Men panic because you can't kill the shoe!!!

It is so important to understand the fact that women think differently. In the workplace, a man would apply for a job because he believes that he has 50% of the required qualifications. A woman will not apply for the same job because she believes she is lacking 50% of the required qualifications. Think how much potential talent slips through our fingers. Small wonder more and more companies are aggressively pursuing campaigns to attract, recruit and develop females.

Finally, a bit of humor so that you feel better :)

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A SPANISH LESSON


Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. 

'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.' 
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.' 

A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?' 

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two 
groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation. 

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because: 

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic; 

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; 

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and 

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it. 

(THIS GETS BETTER!) 

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because: 

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on; 

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves; 

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and 

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model. 

The women won.