WHY DO WOMEN TALK MORE THAN MEN DO, BUT CAN’T READ MAPS AS WELL AS MEN?

Why do women talk more than men do?

While all human brains consist of the same material—about 40 percent gray matter and 60 percent white matter—the brain of a man is significantly different from that of a woman. From studies conducted using intelligence tests, it has been determined that men use nearly seven times more gray matter than women do, whereas women use nine times more white matter than men do.

The main functions of gray matter seem to lie in the disciplines of spatial awareness, including map-reading, mathematics and problem-solving, whereas white matter connects the processing centers of the brain and is important in the use of language, emotional thinking and the ability to do more than one thing at once.

Because women use more white brain matter, they tend to be better communicators. In fact, the female brain has a greater number of areas associated with communication than the male brain does, which explains why women tend to use language as an emotional rapport-building device whereas men use language to exchange information and solve problems. On average, a woman says 7,000 words per day while a man says only 2,000.

The two hemispheres of the female brain are also linked more effectively than those of the male brain, and they’re more closely connected, which explains how women are better able to multitask than men, who generally have to concentrate on one job at a time. This greater connectivity in the female brain is also thought to be the reason for socalled women’s intuition.

These differences are thought to have been brought about by the social roles adopted by men and women in our ancestors’ time. Men, for instance, would go out hunting, often tracking their prey for many days, which required problem-solving and navigation, whereas women needed to be more emotionally and linguistically attuned to protect their home and offspring. In fact, studies show that women with higher than average levels of the male hormone testosterone tend to be able to read maps more effectively than other women.