"Is not a problem that a woman have smaller brain than a man ? "  Comedian Sach Baron Cohen asks this question in his new movie, "Borat" -engaging a group of veteran feminists in the process- but, weirdly enough, the cartoonish Kazakh's query is based in scientific fact.
Turns out the satirist's cousin is renowned British psychopathology professor Simon Baron Cohen, who literally wrote the book on it: "The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain."
The scholarly Baron Cohen is one of the leaders of the scientific trend of gender-specific studies, devoted to the proposition that men and women are different. Really different. Right down to their individual brain cells.
"People assume that men and women are interchangeable, and that's just not so," says Dr. Marianne Legato, founder of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University and author of the 2005 book "Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget."
According to Legato, the medial community needs to know a lot more about how men and women work, from their brain chemistry to their vital organs, in order to better treat them. in centuries past, men were almost always the subject of medial research (women were merely seen as "small men"), but more recently, the pendulum has swung the other way.
These days, studies devoted exclusively to women's health are far more common - "and we felt men deserved unique attention," says Legato, "so we separated them from women."
In her book, the Columbia professor explores the chemistry of male and female brains - and, using up-to-the-minute medial research, reinforces some cherished "Men Are From Mars" stereotypes:
- Women remember better even things that happen really a long time ago.
- Men are better at map-reading. They also get turned on a lot easier.
- Women thrive on talking and spending time in groups; men like to do things on their own.
But all this isn't quite simple as it sounds. For example: A woman's brain is, in fact, about ten percent smaller than a man's , even when factoring in physical size difference - but it also has a lot more going on, neuron-connection-wise. In other words , writes Legato, "women get more brain bang for the buck."
Thanks to Stone Age wiring, women also have a far greater capacity for understanding speech and body language, and have "elepantine" memories, especially when it comes to negative experiences.
Looking at primitive societies explains why this is so, says Legato: Women spent much of their time in domestic communities, talking with other women and children. And having a good memory for for which situations are perilous makes sense when you're a caretaker - whereas "if a man has perfect recall of how scared he felt during the last mammoth hunt, he'll be far less enthusiastic about going out this time," Legato writes.
But women's language-heavy brains can work against them when it comes to modern-day-relationships, says the professor.
"Did you ever see a baby who's exausted at the end of the day, and he can't stop crying, and his face is purple? Many women talk themselves to that state. They're exausted and they continue to talk. It's important to say your piece.... and then, be quiet."
Men have a much better approach to arguing with a mate, she says: When in doubt , just shut up.
Where Legato thinks men are getting the short end of the stick is when it comes to medical treatment, which is part of the reason she dedicated herself to founding Columbia's groundbreaking gender-specific medical organization.
The NY Post