Men Decide And Women Evaluate

Men are more judgemental than women, and women are more open-minded than men. Or is it that women are more unsure of themselves, while men are more decisive? Or even that men are dominant and women submissive?

Polish researchers did a study that attempted to explain the differences between the way men and women think.

They took 113 people and asked them to categorize objects. For example, tomato as fruit or vegetable. The options were “partially”, “fully”, or “not at all.”

The results found that women were 23 percent more likely to choose the option of “partially.”

Headlines in the news are being awfully sexist about the way they report this. “Women are more open-minded,” “Women make fairer decisions,” or men are “more judgemental.”

All of this is shaping up to look like women are “better” at decision making but different is not necessarily better. All it really tells us is that women see more shades of grey, while men see things in terms of black and white. And both of these could be useful in different situations. And it also doesn’t mean that men can’t be open-minded and women don’t always know exactly what they think.

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that Polish culture may not necessarily translate to the rest of the world. Plus, (and here comes my feminist rant for this morning), women are often conditioned to be demure and submissive, whereas men are conditioned to be assertive and decisive. These results, of only about 100 people, may simply be evidence of how men and women are conditioned to think and behave differently. The only way we would know for sure is to study a much larger number of people and from various different cultural backgrounds.

Don’t get me wrong, these results may be telling us that men and women intrinsically think differently. But even then there are always going to be men and women who don’t think in stereotypical ways. It’s a good start, but until more research is done and we can separate out the cultural and gender conditioning I certainly won’t be using this to explain the behaviour of anyone I know — we are all individuals, after all.

Contact the author here: mack@morningquickie.com