Successfully Speaking: Biological difference creates communication confusion

Located in Springfield, Jane Sanders has expertise in gender communication, presentation skills, meeting facilitation and small-business success.

Ah, the never-ending battle of the sexes. My book, "GenderSmart," explores communication differences between men and women, why they exist, and how to deal with them. Considering the unfailing interest in gender differences, I will devote my next several columns to this topic.

The biological differences between men and women are numerous. Doesn't it make sense that if we are built differently, inside and outside, that we would be programmed to communicate differently? Look at the plethora of physical variations between the sexes.

Men have fewer nerve endings, thicker skin and more body hair, better daytime vision, larger lungs, a thicker skull, and are 40 percent muscle and 15 percent fat.

Men are better at math and science (the gap is diminishing but still present); and men are better at thinking three-dimensionally.

Men have 50 percent stronger arms and stronger thumbs than women, and are 10 percent taller than women.

Women have less body hair, better nighttime vision, sweat glands more evenly distributed, more flexible joints, 23 percent muscle and 25 percent fat, an evenly distributed fat layer, a better oxygen supply to the brain, up to 40 percent more connectors in the brain, and a larger lower brain, which controls emotions.

Males' spatial talents develop at age 6, while spatial talents develop at age 13 in females. Women also have advanced cell growth in the verbal hemisphere at age 4, leading to better reading and writing skills.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, in the time of the caveman, men were primarily responsible for hunting, building and protecting. The biological differences listed support and reinforce those responsibilities. If men were out in all kinds of inclement weather hunting and building, they needed more protection. Thus fewer nerve endings, thicker skin and more hair.

As hunters, they needed to be able to see enemies coming, and to spot, chase and kill game. Therefore, better daytime vision was necessary and larger lungs were required to allow more oxygen into their systems. All temptation to tease put aside for the moment, the thicker skull feature probably made men more likely to survive if they received a blow to the head. (From a frying pan, several women in my workshops have suggested.) Men are taller, they have more muscle than fat, and stronger arms and thumbs sutiable for building and protecting.

Three-dimensional thinking has helped men with building, working with spaces and shapes, and with spatial relationships like figuring out the distance and trajectory when they're throwing a spear or using a slingshot. Reading maps and having a good sense of direction flows from this spatial-thinking difference, too.

Keep in mind once again, though, that these interpretations are generalities. The growing number of excellent women architects and physicists attests to this generality.

Biology and communication

What do these biological differences have to do with communication? These differences are deeply ingrained. They are part of our wiring and they are not going to go away.

Men are built to be physically stronger than women; they had to be in order to fulfill their responsibilities. They are accustomed to pushing their way through, so they seem more direct, aggressive and insensitive. Still today, men feel innately responsible for women's well-being and survival. That's why it drives so many men crazy when women cry.

Men are more left-brain oriented, using logic and reasoning more so than relationship and verbal skills. Overall, these physical differences exist because of hormonal differences most specifically testosterone and hormones rule everything.

Men produce some 10 times as much testosterone as most women do, and this chemical profoundly affects physique, behavior and mood.

Again, hundreds of thousands of years ago, women's primary responsibilities included pregnancy, childbirth and rearing children. The biological differences help support those responsibilities.

A larger corpus callosum, which is the connective tissue between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and a larger lower brain, where the emotions are based, are thought by some researchers to give women a leg up on relationship-building and communication skills.

A larger lower brain also helps explain why women feel and express emotion more readily, more visually and more verbally, than men. The difference in visible expression of emotion is one of the biggest trouble spots between men and women.

Women were (and generally still are) responsible for raising children. It takes not only nurturing relationships and communication to do that, but also attention to detail, intuition and more connection with emotion.

Keep in mind these are generalities; there will always be exceptions. And as you see, even our brains set us up for communication conflict and confusion.