women
Rao Vemuri<br>Normal<br>Rao Vemuri<br>2002-03-31T15:11:00Z<br>2002-03-31T15:12:00Z<br>300<br>1711<br>University of California<br>14<br>2101<br>9.2720
Why are Women Different?
V. Vemuri, Pleasanton, CA
In the box office hit, Missamma, the poet sings: "women mean it<br>different." More often than not, men do not understand what<br>"they" mean and why "they" do what "they" do.<br>World's folklore is full of anecdotal tales about the misinterpretations men<br>give to what women do. Take driving! We categorically dismiss them with one<br>phrase, "women drivers!" Don't be too quick. If you ever get lost,<br>with a map in your hand, chances are it is the woman in the passenger seat who<br>will successfully navigate you out of the mess.
Many scientists (men and women) have been wondering why women are different.<br>Finally we have a hypothesis from a woman scientist. Writing in the September<br>1992 issue of Scientific American, Doreen Kimura, (agreeing with psychology<br>professor Christina Williams of Barnard College), says that women are different<br>because they are built different. But, every man knows where and how they are<br>built different; that is the reason for all this attraction bit. Then Prof.<br>Williams might say, "I do not mean what you thought I meant."
To a psychologist, a person is the "mind stuff," not the body and<br>its curves. The learned professor says that a woman's brain is built<br>differently. She adds quickly that it is neither inferior nor superior to a<br>man's brain; it is just different, that's all. Say, if one is like the IBM PC,<br>the other is like the Apple Macintosh, if you understand what I mean by this<br>computer metaphor. Then why are men's brains built so they are good at reading<br>road maps? Prof. Williams says that men are good at reading maps simply because<br>it was men who created the first maps in the first place. (It is like blaming<br>the lefties for not being able to adapt themselves in a predominantly<br>right-handed world.) Had a woman drawn the first road map, she would have used<br>pictographic information such as landmarks rather than geometric information<br>like East, West, latitude, longitude, and so on.
rvemuri@ucdavis.edu
Monday the 11th, Decemberr 1995