http://underwire.msn.com/underwire/social/hiwire/89hiwire.asp
Here's a section of the article by Elizabeth Crane:
<blockquote>
Blame science
It could be hormonal. After all, testosterone is what makes males men. If you change your chemical balance, you can see things differently. An acquaintance going through a gender reassignment (that's the polite way of saying “He's becoming a She”) claims that men don't understand how a woman's mind works until they've "overdosed on estrogen." S/he characterized male thinking as "walking a straight line: an idea comes to you, you follow it step by step ... like an arrow, till you reach your conclusion."
Female thinking, on the other hand, is like a washing-machine spin cycle: "a thought comes in, you spin it around and around ... and [when it stops] some gem falls out the bottom of the whirlpool." While this kind of insight is valuable, it is unfortunately not possible to administer estrogen therapy to every testosterone-poisoned individual. Men will have to continue to behave like men. They can't help it.
A recent study at UCLA suggests that women and men respond to threatening situations differently because of the hormone oxytocin, a chemical released in the brain, triggered by stress, which exerts a calming influence. Both men and women have oxytocin, but female estrogen enhances its effects, male androgens diminish it. So there's even more chemical evidence that men are violent, aggressive, and obnoxious by nature. Even men's inability to ask for directions when traveling and "lost" is being explained away by science. A small preliminary study on the differences in inner ear functions between men and women revealed that women had better spatial and directional faculties; the men tended to believe the information their eyes received instead of that transmitted by their inner ear and brain. This either means that women are better at directions, or that men are easily fooled. Or both.
When questioned about the cultural myth of men-not-asking-for-directions, men responded mostly in the "it's weak to admit you don't know" vein. One particularly paranoid individual postulated that not asking for directions was a survival skill from the caveman days: If you were outside of your part of the forest and you asked for directions you were giving away that you were an outsider. You'd be dead meat. How this can be interpreted to explain current male behavior is anybody's guess.
Women are not immune to being perceived by our gender stereotypes, but we have good reasons for what we do. For instance, why do women go to the bathroom in pairs?
There is safety in numbers. In a potentially unsafe situation you're less likely to be attacked if you're not alone.
To talk about the men you left at the bar. And to allow the guys to talk about you.
You might need to borrow a tampon/some blush/an aspirin off someone, and it's easier to ask someone you know.
To have someone to chat with while you wait in line for a stall.
And because we wouldn't dream of bringing a book.
</blockquote>
Sidenote: On a serious note - anyone have access to that UCLA study quoted above? Sounds pertinent to discussions of "chemical cocktail" and the reactions to stress as applies to women! I'm looking - but if anyone else finds something first - please start a thread on it!
Peace,
Lori
