What gender is your brain?

05 Jul 2007
what gender is your brain?

Ways in which I've been told I'm quite male:
1. When I get home from work I can't cope with having a conversation straight away. I have to process the day first. If I was married it would be my partner going 'have you had a nice day at the office dear?' and I'd be the one grunting and pouring myself a drink. Actually, I've often thought it would be handy to have an old fashioned wife - someone who would know how to do things like make a cake or hem some trousers without having to look up instructions on the internet.
2. I really dislike it when people give non-specific warnings about an 'important conversation that's coming up', e.g. sending me an email saying 'there's an issue you need to know about, please phone me tomorrow night.' That's just wrong. Either tell me what the problem is so that I actually have time to prepare myself, or just phone me and talk about it. I quite like having the prep time, but I really don't like spending a day or 2 wondering what the 'serious issue' is going to be. Actually, I don't really know if this is a male trait, but someone once told me it was, and who am I to argue?
3. Although I have - I think - reasonably good interpersonal skills, in meetings I like to stick to the point. If we have a decision to make, I like to go straight to that decision without faffing around. Feel free to state your opinion, but please do it without unnecessary details or diversions. Tell me about your personal life/ existential philosophy/ detailed procedures for paying the cleaner AFTER the meeting, not during it. Meetings are for problem solving, not for sharing.

Since I'm definitely female, and am not feeling very sleepy tonight, I thought I'd see if I could find some kind of 'what gender is your brain' test. And indeed there is one on the BBC website. I'm pleased to report that my brain is on average female, but somewhat more masculine than the average woman's brain, if that makes sense. It seems to be masculine in very specific ways - I was better at a couple of tasks than the 'average' woman, but on one of the tests of maleness I scored an impressive 0 out of 20 - it appears I don't have any drive at all to systemise things. This is a bit of a relief I suppose, since one of the theories about autism is that it's an extreme version of the male tendency to systemise.