The Way I See It - 200 thousand words and counting
The Way I See It
by Doug Dickerson
Staff Writer
December 6, 2006
London’s Daily Mail carried a news story last week that affirmed what many of us men have suspected for a long time. In my own defense, this is not a sexist observation, merely the reporting of scientific data. Women really do talk more than men.
According to the research, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman talking up to 20, 000 words in a day – 13,000 more than the average man.
I did the math on this. I am married with two daughters, so in my house I am daily out-spoken 60,000 words to 7,000. Here at the office, there are seven women who daily chime in for 140,000 words, which brings to a grand total of 200,000 words a day I am subjected to.
As I age, the more I have come to long for and appreciate quiet places. I suppose the study has helped me to understand the reasons why these longings for quiet places is at times so strong. When the wife and girls load up to go to the Mall or some place, and ask out of courtesy if I want to go, I politely decline and bask in the rare moment of quietness.
In her book, “Inside the Female Mind,” by Dr. Luan Brizendine, she says that the inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men. Dr. Brizendine writes that women devote more brain cells to talking than men. And if that is not enough, the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals, which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high. So, I am around ten women a day who are tripping out on a total of around 200 thousand words, give or take a few. And the more they speak, the better they feel.
In addition, Dr. Brizendine says the differences can be traced back to the womb, where the sex hormone testosterone moulds the developing brain cell. The areas responsible for communication, emotion and memory are all pared back in the unborn baby boy. The result is that boys and men chat less than their female counterparts and struggle to express their emotions to the same extent. “Women,” says Dr. Brizendine, “have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion while men have a small country road.”On the superhighway of women expressing themselves, I have been steamrolled.
According to the research I also discovered that there are advantages for men being the strong silent types. It seems, according to Dr. Brizendine, that testosterone reduces the section of the brain involved in hearing, allowing men to become “deaf” to the most logical arguments put forth by wives and girlfriends. So when my wife says, “Why don’t you listen to me?” I can tell her that not only did I not hear her, I am in fact genetically not wired to hear anything she says. It’s not my fault.
The study also says that what the male brain may lack in conversation and emotion, it more than makes up for with its ability to think about sex. Dr. Brizendine says that the brain’s “sex processor” — the area responsible for sexual thoughts — is twice as big in men than in women, perhaps explaining why men are stereotyped as having sex on the mind. Or, to put it another way, men have an international airport dealing with thoughts about sex, where women “have an airfield nearby that lands small and private planes.” Naturally, you know what is going to happen when a man’s country road ability to communicate with an international airport size ability to think about sex collides with a woman’s superhighway ability to communicate with her airfield ability to think about sex. It is the prescription for a crash landing!
Finally, Dr. Brizendine says, “Girls arrive already wired as girls, and boys arrive already wired as boys. Their brains are different by the time they’re born, and their brains are what drive their impulses, values and their very reality.”
The many wonderful differences that exist between us is what makes life at home and work so entertaining, if I don’t say so myself.
©Summerville Journal-Scene 2006
by Doug Dickerson
Staff Writer
December 6, 2006
London’s Daily Mail carried a news story last week that affirmed what many of us men have suspected for a long time. In my own defense, this is not a sexist observation, merely the reporting of scientific data. Women really do talk more than men.
According to the research, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman talking up to 20, 000 words in a day – 13,000 more than the average man.
I did the math on this. I am married with two daughters, so in my house I am daily out-spoken 60,000 words to 7,000. Here at the office, there are seven women who daily chime in for 140,000 words, which brings to a grand total of 200,000 words a day I am subjected to.
As I age, the more I have come to long for and appreciate quiet places. I suppose the study has helped me to understand the reasons why these longings for quiet places is at times so strong. When the wife and girls load up to go to the Mall or some place, and ask out of courtesy if I want to go, I politely decline and bask in the rare moment of quietness.
In her book, “Inside the Female Mind,” by Dr. Luan Brizendine, she says that the inherent differences between the male and female brain explain why women are naturally more talkative than men. Dr. Brizendine writes that women devote more brain cells to talking than men. And if that is not enough, the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals, which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high. So, I am around ten women a day who are tripping out on a total of around 200 thousand words, give or take a few. And the more they speak, the better they feel.
In addition, Dr. Brizendine says the differences can be traced back to the womb, where the sex hormone testosterone moulds the developing brain cell. The areas responsible for communication, emotion and memory are all pared back in the unborn baby boy. The result is that boys and men chat less than their female counterparts and struggle to express their emotions to the same extent. “Women,” says Dr. Brizendine, “have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion while men have a small country road.”On the superhighway of women expressing themselves, I have been steamrolled.
According to the research I also discovered that there are advantages for men being the strong silent types. It seems, according to Dr. Brizendine, that testosterone reduces the section of the brain involved in hearing, allowing men to become “deaf” to the most logical arguments put forth by wives and girlfriends. So when my wife says, “Why don’t you listen to me?” I can tell her that not only did I not hear her, I am in fact genetically not wired to hear anything she says. It’s not my fault.
The study also says that what the male brain may lack in conversation and emotion, it more than makes up for with its ability to think about sex. Dr. Brizendine says that the brain’s “sex processor” — the area responsible for sexual thoughts — is twice as big in men than in women, perhaps explaining why men are stereotyped as having sex on the mind. Or, to put it another way, men have an international airport dealing with thoughts about sex, where women “have an airfield nearby that lands small and private planes.” Naturally, you know what is going to happen when a man’s country road ability to communicate with an international airport size ability to think about sex collides with a woman’s superhighway ability to communicate with her airfield ability to think about sex. It is the prescription for a crash landing!
Finally, Dr. Brizendine says, “Girls arrive already wired as girls, and boys arrive already wired as boys. Their brains are different by the time they’re born, and their brains are what drive their impulses, values and their very reality.”
The many wonderful differences that exist between us is what makes life at home and work so entertaining, if I don’t say so myself.
©Summerville Journal-Scene 2006
posted by Doug Dickerson | 11:11 AM
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