Feminism, focusing on the rights of women, the differences between men Essay

Feminism, focusing on the rights of women, the differences between men and women - Essay Example For long, the discourse on masculinism and feminism, their differences and commonalities included, have either centred around sexism or on the politically correct narrative of equality of men and women. The differences between the males and the females are chiefly studied as physiological and psychological. The physical differences between men and women, for example, weight, shape, size, and anatomy, are tangible and measurable. Due to their characteristic physical attributes men exhibit ‘greater functionality’ and ‘more survival value’ than women. (Conner, 2000). The psychological differences, though, more subtle and difficult to describe, have an important bearing on forming and maintaining of relationships. Psychologists, like Freud, accepting the male as the norm, inadvertently committed the mistake of fashioning the female model with the male cloth (Gilligan, 1987). The differences in physical characteristics, the psychological and thinking patterns, are reinforced by the fact, that 78 genes have been identified that differentiate women from men (bbc.co.uk, 2003), while women have four times as many brain cells as men (Connors, 2000). The greater number of brain cells enable women, to understand, consider, and tackle multiple problems at once, while men, with linear and sequential perspective, prefer to solve them one at a time (Connors, 2000). Various studies have shown that the male and female perceptions start taking shape early in life. As a group, finding their way out of a maze, boys exhibited, by improvising a formal and hegemonic chain of command. Using scouts they maintained a respectable difference from each other. Teenage girls on the other hand, when confronted with the problem, resorted to ‘collective intelligence’ and generated a feeling of ‘togetherness’ to find the way out (Gilligan, 1987). It is also observed that the attitude of boys and girls, toward