Men and Women

by Jennifer Kelton

It’s interesting that men and women have approximately the same amount of cells in our bodies. To quote Wikipedia:

A human being is a multicellular eukaryote consisting of an estimated 100 trillion cells. It should be noted that there is no consensus on the actual number of cells in the human body; estimates vary widely. As a species, humans are primates and can be distinguished from other primates by their more highly evolved brains. Even though humans are multicellular animals, many of the basic life processes of human cells are basically the same as in simple unicellular eukaryotes such as yeast and even prokaryotes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_biology

As an experiment, I typed the keywords “men vs. women’s brains” into Google to see what I could find online. I was not surprised to find that there was a lot of information about the ever-battling sexes and not just from the scientists, equal rights activists, educators, etc., but also from regular men and women. All debated whose brain is bigger, smarter, more complex, more sex-driven and more efficient. There was even talk of male songbirds, whether a man’s or a woman’s brain runs hotter, who has more grey matter and who uses more words in a twenty four hour period.

Someone on allphilosophy.com states: “Many authors and researchers have said that men use fewer words per day than women. Depending on which study you believe (if any), the ‘word gap’ can be anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 words a day.” Personally, I like the “if any” comment thrown into the statement. This, to me, seems like a hard number to qualify. In the end, why should we care, and who did the counting? There are just too many variables in this statement – as there are in life.

In Men are from Mars and Women Are from Venus, John Grey points out the many differences between men and women – not that any of us really need a book to point this out, or do we? When I was a kid, I dreaded most of the school days that I walked home. You see, a boy who was a full-blown bully in my neighborhood would tackle me to the ground, take my shoes and would then proceed to throw them into the bushes as I tearfully looked on. In his case, was it too much testosterone, bad parenting or something else? I will never know, but I do know that none of the girls I grew up with would have ever thought to throw my shoes into the deep and over-grown green ivy. His bully behavior still – to this day remains in my mind without a shadow or a doubt – to be particularly boy, and let’s be brutally honest here, girls, do we truly want to go into the men’s locker room to see the reality behind locker room doors? Smelly socks, athletes’ feet and jockstraps? Personally, I’ve been told some pretty unimaginable things from a few of my guy friends as to what goes on in there behind closed doors.

Grey’s fifteen books on men and women have gone on to sell over thirty million during the past ten years and have been sold in over forty languages throughout the world. His books remain a constant seller on major book store shelves all over the world. The quest to figure out how men and women think and behave is big business, yet to this day the exact understanding as to how men and women tick still remains elusive.

The mysteries of men and women – some documented and some not – date back to the start of man and time. I would think the primitive woman sitting pregnant, hungry and cold in a dark, damp cave didn’t like the fact that her mate was out spreading his testosterone-filled seed with the other local babes. But, in the end, let’s all be glad our stud-like male ancestors did, or we may all be walking around with three legs, four arms and lot of extra hair on bodies. Hello, Sexy! So, while men and women may be so opposite on numerous levels, I think it is vital to remember that, yes, our cells are extraordinarily close to the same – since the beginning of mankind.

I was sitting at a bar the other night putting the final touches on this, and I decided to ask a handful of men what the first word was that came to mind when I said “men and women.”

Man number one said “couple.” Man number two said “controversy.” Man number three said “opposite,” and man number four said “sex.”

While I never did get the names of the four random men at the bar, I think they, together, summed it up well.