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Tea Break Minutes is a podcast specially created for all the white collar workers out there. Each episode has a theme and it usually revolves around the office. The main purpose is to allow the white collar workers to look at the different quarters in the office with a sense of humor and at the same time, learn some useful knowledge.

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Are you facing difficulties and frustration working with the opposite gender in the office?
Are you dying to find out why they behave as they do?
We have the answers to all your queries right here!

History of gender differences

Since ancient times, gender differences have already occurred. Such physical or biological differences are important in the survival of our species as it allows us to specialize in defined roles (Geary, 2009).

Back in the prehistoric times, women were given more nurturing roles like looking after the dwellings and children while men were the hunters in charge of protecting and bringing food back.Hence, due to the environmental predisposition, the biological makeup for men and women evolved over the years in order to create better adaptation to the environment (Darwin, 1998).

However, with the changing society today and the move towards an egalitarian society, such well-defined roles and differences between the respective gender that we inherite from our ancestors can provide more hindrance than help for us. Take for example your case, it could especially affect your working experience in several aspects.

Strength and endurance

For those of you who work in an environment which may occasionally require the use of physical strength, you may be aware of the disparity between the genders. Conflict may then arise due to the lack of understanding between the genders as women may not be as fast and efficient as the men in terms of the use of physical strength.

The main reason is due to the fact that women only have about 55- 58 percent of the upper body strength of men and on average, are only 80 percent as strong as a man of identical weight (Costa & Guthrie, 1994). The difference of body fat and muscle proportion could be seen in diagram 1.

Such a difference have occurrence early in life. Children by the age of three were found to display difference in their physical ability. Boys were found to be able to throw a ball that covers greater distances than girls (Levin, 1988). This phenomenon might be explained by the concept of natural selection; men who have better physique would become better hunters and have higher rates of survival. This would then allow them to pass on such desirable and adaptive genes to the next generations (Darwin, 1998). As for women whose role revolves around being a caregiver, having a better physique would not affect or benfit them. Thus, there is not a need for the presence and passing down of such genes. This might then serve to explain why today, men would tend to outperform their female counterparts when working in an environment that requires the use of physical strength.

Aggressive and risk taking behaviour

When in a discussion, men may get heated up more easily and have a tendency to display more risk-taking behaviour. I believe most men would not understand why their female counterparts doesn’t seem to understand them and on the other hand, women about the behaviour of men in this aspect.

Actually, the truth of such behaviours has basis and can be explained in terms of evolution and natural selection too. Being aggressive among the male is considered as another adaptive trait for survival and procreation, which is then passed down through the generations (Darwin, 1998).

It is specific only to men as the excitatory hormone, testosterone, which is produced 20 times more in men than women, was found to be linked to aggressive and risk taking behaviour (Feinberg, 1996). This is furthur supported by a research where the results indicated that men who went through castration would have a decrease of aggressive and risk-taking behaviour. However, upon injection of the hormone testosterone, their level of aggressive and risk-taking behaviour returned to pre-castration period (Feinberg, 1996). Thus, just by the works of a single hormone, it can influence the respective gender in displaying vastly different types of behaviour.

Cognitive Performance

In your daily interactions with the opposite gender in the office, there would

have been times where you doubted each other's abilities. For men, you may not understand why your female counterparts may be unable to solve a simple maths question. For women, you may not understand why your male counterparts seem to have difficulty comprehending the meaning of your proposal. But do not be too quick in judging each other!

There is a possibility that men and women have different strengths in their cognitive abilities. Research has found that men actually do better in spatial tasks while women are at a better advantage when it comes to verbal tasks (Garett, 2003). Such phenomenon could be explained in terms of how the brain structure of men and women differs.

Women are able to process verbal tasks faster as they possess an additional language processing areas in the right hemisphere of their brain (Scannell & Burnett, 2009). Thus, they activate both hemispheres during language processing while men could only activate the main language processing language area located in their left hemisphere, as illustrated in diagram 2 (Sousa, 2005). Additionally, women also have a larger and thicker corpus callosum, which is responsible for more efficient transferring of information between the two hemispheres of the brain and allow more efficient processing of verbal tasks (Hellige, 2001).

On the other hand, men are better at spatial tasks because they have a larger inferior-parietal lobe or IPL in the left hemisphere of the brain. After accounting for the difference in brain size to body weight proportion, IPL was still found to be larger by 10% in size for men than women (Sabbatini, 1997). Many studies done on IPL size and spatial abilities also seem to suggest that there is a positive correlation between them, which may provide a plausible explanation why men tend to have better spatial abilities than women (Sabbatini, 1997).

Societal influence

I believed by now, doubts about gender differences being largely influenced only by our biological make-up may be starting to form up in your minds. After all, with the move towards an egalitarian society, gender roles appear to be changing (Sugar, 1993). It would not be difficult for you to find men who excel in verbal tasks and women who are good at spatial tasks today (Sabbatini, 1997).

This may highlight the fact that gender roles may be influenced by our environmental factors too! Since we were young, our parents may have taught us what we should or should not do as a girl or a boy (Leaper, Anderson & Sanderson, 1998). Girls may be made to play with dolls and encouraged in having a passive demeanor. For boys, they may be made to play with toy vehicles and taught to display more independent behaviours (Myers, 2008).

But, with the change of perspective now, parents are sending their daughters to school and to work after graduation. It is no longer necessary for females to pick up the sole role of a caregiver and males being the sole breadwinner (Myers, 2008).

Since environmental factors are able to influence the definition of our gender roles, there is a possibility that we could overcome any gender differences with ample practices (Lippa, 2005). There might even be a chance for us to surpass the other gender in it. Thus, environmental factors may serve to explain why the intensity of gender differences and conflicts faced by each individual may differ.

Diminishing gap of gender differences?

There is no denial that gender gap may be diminishing with the influence the environment is having on us now. But, we cannot overlook the influence of our biological make-up. Thus, it seems like gender differences would still be staying here for a long period of time. But hopefully, with your queries answered about the occurrence of gender differences, it may minimize the conflicts you have with the opposite gender in the office. Instead, it ought to enhance cooperation as you better understand how the opposite gender works, in turn raising work efficiency.