Late last month researchers said they had gathered some data that suggest men and women listen differently. In a study of 10 men and 10 women, brain scans showed that, when listening, males used the left sides of their brains. That’s the region long associated with understanding language. Females in the study used both sides.
What’s it all mean? Joseph Lariat, an assistant radiology professor at Indiana State University of Medicine — whose finding were presented at the Radiological Society of North American’s annual meeting — had a comment or two on that.
First, other studies have suggested females can handle listening to two conversations at once. And, second, his own research doesn’t necessarily mean women are better listeners. It could simply be harder for them. Apparently they need to use more of their brains than men to do the same task.
Anyone listening? ’Cause them well may be fightin’ words.
Lariat hopes that’s not the case. He’s not looking to fan that fire known as The Battle of the Sexes. He just wants people to realize men and women may process language differently.
Although this is all very preliminary, Lariat’s study might help doctors who are treating stroke victims and patients with loss of speech. Physicians may be able to better understand how men’s and women’s brains are different.
The study also, I can’t help but notice, offers one more bit of evidence that appears to support the belief that: Male and female he created them.
“He” being God.
“Male” and “female” being Adam and Eve.
“Male” and “female” being all of us.
Sometimes in all that monkey business of debating evolution, we get distracted. If, as the Church teaches, the authors of the Bible use a variety of styles — some to be taken literally, some not — then what can matter is not necessarily the story itself. The details. But the truth the story presents.
Such as: There is a God who created everything. This God created humanity, our “first parents,” male and female.
Those parents sinned. (Don’t we all?)
Their sin caused all sorts of problems. (As do ours.)
Never mind the names in the story. Never mind the description of the garden. Never mind the idea of a fruit tree or a snake. Yes, the details tell the story but they are not the story.
The real story — the truth — is God, creation, humans, sin.
And what we need to pause and examine a little more closely in that truth is the creation of two similar, but distinct, forms of human beings. Guys and gals. They aren’t identical. Not then. Not now.
You know this. I know this. It seems pretty safe to really globalize here and surmise that every human being has known this. Boys aren’t “built” like girls. Girls aren’t “built” like boys.
Even pre-science humanity had that figured out. But now science continues to note that even those parts we have in common, we don’t always use in the same manner.
Our differences are more than skin deep.
Which is why, trying to make both sexes walk in lockstep is never, ever, going to work. Forgive me as I make another sweeping statement: Throughout most of history, in most cultures, males have dominated. Yes, the hand that rocks the cradle and all that, but by and large it’s been a man’s world.
They have received preferences and opportunities not offered to females. In the not too distant past in Western civilization, women — and children — were pretty much considered property.
Or could be, legally.
That’s still the case in some places in the world today.
So the changes — truly, the advancements — taking place in recent decades are a blessing. More frequently women are being allowed to use their God-given talents in areas that before were Men Only. Or Men Almost Only.
But as that happens, society tends to forget the truth in the story of creation. It tends to dismiss that story itself. And creation. And God.
When it does those things, as it does those things, it finds itself susceptible to two mistakes. It declares either:
1. Men and women are exactly the same; or
2. Women are better than men.
’Taint so. Not just because the Church rightly teaches that God created us male and female. But because, well, either of those positions is not reality.
Thank God. Thank our Creator that he made us male and female, giving each gender particular strengths which, when shared with the other gender, make for one mighty fine species. One that mirrors his own image.
Then, too, that dual design has made the world an interesting place. A mighty interesting place.
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Bill Dodds’ latest books are Your One-Stop Guide to How Saints Are Made and Your One-Stop Guide to the Mass (Servant Publications); and 1440 Reasons to Quit Smoking: One for Every Minute of the Day and What You Don't Know About Retirement: A Funny Retirement Quiz (Meadowbrook Press). His website is http://www.BillDodds.com. You can email him at BillDodds@BillDodds.com.
