Blissfully unaware within their respective self-contained biospheres, the tiny critters bask contentedly. Tiny, yes, but each organism grows rapidly as they race toward fulfillment of an unseen and unimagined destiny.

Suddenly, a mutagenic chemical floods one environment and induces significant changes in the creatures tissues, organs, and cells.

This initial exposure has just established identity for the rest of its life. Growth patterns, physical characteristics, and gender based personality traits will stem from the influence of the timely introduction of the potent substance at the proper moment.

In addition to the changes being wrought in the organs and bones, the neonates minuscule brain is directed in a different path than that of the other. Instead of multiple loci for information processing, certain lobes and structures are specialized for separate purposes, which will allow the adult being to concentrate fully on a task, pursuing and eliminating problems with single-minded ferocity.

Such tenaciousness provides fertile ground for inventiveness and improvisation.

Another area is enhanced, increasing the ability to visualize more effectively, in essence being able to manipulate an imaginary object as if it were real. Tweaking one little wrinkle in the gray matter confers a more effective "minds ear" that can hear musical notes though not played by any instrument.

Though the enhancements are beneficial they are not without cost. Other areas of the brain atrophy or fail to develop in significant ways. The specialized pieces work well but separately, not always associating important facts or observations promptly.

The second little being is spared the traumatic modifications produced by the chemical contact but undergoes transformations defined by other genetic cues.

The internal organs develop differently, some remaining nonfunctional until much later in the life cycle. Physically smaller than the first individual, this life form acquires other strengths and resistances.

Without the powerful mutagen, the brain loci don't undergo significant specialization. Incoming information is processed through multiple areas, and is stored in others. Instead of being directed to a specific area, input will be cross-referenced and widely disseminated. Multiple portions of the brain can work simultaneously on dissimilar tasks or problems, analyzing and ranking them as to importance. The neurons connecting the various portions of the brain proliferate greatly with the unexposed neonate ending up with 40% more cross channels.

With so much of the brain dedicated to communication, these individuals exhibit greater linguistic abilities, can discern emotional nuances and tonal clues, and can deduce correct conclusions from incomplete sets of seemingly unassociated facts.

A few weeks after conception, at the behest of a Y chromosome, testosterone floods the fetal tissues. Seven months later, a boy baby is born.

A few weeks after conception, with no Y chromosome, development continues in the fetal tissues. Seven months later, a girl baby is born.

This is so important that the first question asked about a newborn is gender.

So inherent are these brain differences that human physiology has evolved to supply males and females with separate sets of facts from identical experiences. Males see far. Females have wider peripheral vision. Men have superior night vision. Women can differentiate color hues. Females can distinguish between pitches and tonal variations. Males are better at concentrating on a single sound.

When processing information, men excel at memorizing and recalling organized lists or groups of related items. Women do extremely well at describing the big picture, relating chaotic experiences, or remembering random lists.

In general, during conversations within a single gendered setting, men use language to impart information, establish relative rank, or achieve dominance in a hierarchy. Males are prone to interruptions and, in asserting power, monopolizing a discussion while in all-female groups the time is, more or less, equally divided among the participants. Men tend to stay on topic or share related stories, while a woman will attempt to redirect the conversation to her personal issues. Women employ linguistics to impart personal opinions or advice, establish emotional rapport, and to achieve a communal identity. The rules change in mixed company.

Women suffer more from Alzheimers but recover more quickly and fully from stroke. Boy children are more apt to experience learning disabilities while girls are more prone to depression.

Men are better at reasoning. Women are unparalleled at intuitive decision-making. Men establish goals and teams more quickly while women are better at judging character and truthfulness.

Most research suggests that while men and women use far different methods to take tests and pursue goals, the end results tend to be statistically identical.

Many of the differences in the brain structure can be explained by tradition gender roles that were established in the infancy of mankind. The males, larger and more aggressive (another Y chromosomal trait) and less involved in childbirth and rearing, were the hunters. They roved plains, trekking far and wide to find their quarry, bring it down and return to their family groups quickly. They used distance navigation skills like the sun's course, a mountain range, riverbeds, or some other fairly permanent geological features to find their way.

The adult females, pregnant, nursing, or caring for toddlers, gathered plants, snared small animals, and maintain a stationary home for the storage of food. They used transitory structures like flowers, springs, stands of plants, or oddly shaped trees as landmarks to give directions to other women to untapped food sources.

Interestingly, as with the Inuit where gender roles are not traditionally imposed on children, girls and boys learn identical skills and exhibit far few differences in brain structure and function. Feminists cite this as proof that the brains of men and women are not "wired" differently, but are responding to learned functions imposed by the world around them. Another possibility exists, however.

The Inuit inhabit a profoundly inhospitable niche. They survived because their brains evolved a different mechanism to store skills and knowledge, one that retained the most chances of continued existence in that harsh environment, from early times. The ability to gather in a climate where gathering could occur only rarely would not have placed the same pressure on a people as the need to hunt and navigate. Sequestered groups of people may have evolved differently and according to their traditions, surroundings, and outward pressures.

Further evidence exists in studies where relative levels of testosterone were measured throughout pregnancy. Girl children, when exposed to higher than average amounts of androgens during early gestation, often became "tomboys" and had spatial skills equal to their male peers though completely female in all physical regards.

During a womans cycle, the levels of hormones fluctuate. Immediately before menstruation, when estrogen is most plentiful, women perform better at fine manual skills and verbal tasks. A week later, during menstruation, when the female hormone is lowest, they do better at spatial tasks that are usually easier for men. The same combination of hormones that triggers PMS can also energize a woman to single task ferocity.

No researcher suggests that one sex is smarter than the other. In most cases, the studies seem to imply that the methods of information processing are equally effective and merely compliment the abilities of the other. Though mens brains are bigger, women possess a higher proportion of grey matter, which contains neurons.

Other structures vary and, again, this is thought to be due to relative levels of testosterone and, to a lesser degree, additional male hormones. One of these is the amygdala, one of the emotion centers, that produces and responds to fear and anger. Sex-hormone receptors also exist in the hypothalamus and hippocampus, areas responsible for regulating multiple functions, including the body's clock, thermostat, mood, and memory.

There are significant differences in the way men and women think but do these equate to unequal achievement?

The available research says "no" - if each gender is permitted to use their particular strengths and innate abilities freely.

The Canadian Navy has been integrated for over ten years. Their data supports the notion that women juggle multiple tasks better while men excel at achieving primary goals. Since both abilities are of equal importance in today's military, opportunities for advancement are available for either gender. One commander, who had early reservations about females in the navy, remarked that the facility of women to multi-task has been an eye-opener.

In recent decades, the trend of western society has been to downplay the innate disparity in the genders. Political correctness preaches that men and women, though physically different, are identical in abilities and talents.

Scientific research that might upset this patently false rhetoric has been discouraged and funding withdrawn. This is shortsighted. If the differences are fundamental and not cosmetic or triggered by learning or societal expectations, then such research could bring great insight to medicine and education.

Organic brain diseases strike men and women completely differently and with unlike prognoses. Studying the structure and mechanisms and discovering the why could uncover treatments for those and mental disorders like schizophrenia and depression.

Presenting the information in the manner most likely to be absorbed could customize teaching slow learners. Understanding how the "normal" brain of a little girl varies from the "normal" brain of a little boy will facilitate lesson planning and provide additional specific achievement indicators, enabling educators to uncover problems or disabilities earlier.

From birth onward, males and females exhibit different traits and become aware of the diversity at an early age. Only when reaching some level of maturity do people try to minimize the dissimilarities and ignore the obvious advantages in an attempt to achieve the dubious goal of gender neutrality.

In a world where diversity of cultures and styles is embraced, it makes equal sense to acknowledge and appreciate the most basic difference of all. Gender.

Men and women are not the same and I, for one, am glad.

References:

P. Kunsmann, Gender, Status and Power in Discourse Behavior of Men an Women

C. Krupnick, Women and Men in the Classroom: Inequality and Its Remedies

ThirdAge.com, A Split of Skills: According to Sex

Communication Between Men and Women

Men vs Women Hidden Talents

PersonalMD, Female Brain Large In Language

Men, Women Differ In Emotional Memory

M. Ritter, Men's, Women's Brains Differ In Finding The Way

L. Tanner, Half Listening

C. Abraham, The Brain Is A Sex Organ (from The Globe and Mail)

J. R. Eaker MD, What Is She Thinking?

Mind and Brain

K. Sartori, MRIs Reveal Differences in Brains of Women and Men

K. Philiokoski, Why Men See Things Differently

The Domain of Linguistics, The Linguistic Society of America

      Lisa Binkley works within the medical industry and is the popular author of this health series in the Kudzu Monthly. She also serves as the fiction editor of this ezine, edits for the online sci-fi magazine Distant Worlds, and maintains her own site called Jolie Howard Fiction.
      As Lisa phrases it, "Woman, wife, worker, writer. We all wear many faces and fill our niches as best we can."

Image: "The Three Ages of Man," Titian (Tiziano Veccellio), 1513, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

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