Is the Male Brain Going to be Replaced by the Female Brain?

Now, that’s a thought that certainly raises comments and concerns. So much so, that 760 comments were recorded on The Atlantic magazine website as on June 22^nd for the tantalizing article “The End of Men” by Hanna Rosin. 

This is a rather lengthy article discussing the social upheaval of role reversal as men have lost their jobs to declining industries exported elsewhere and then further decimated by a global economic downturn.

Women by comparison are fairing much better with many advancing in former male occupations.  However, a higher female presence in the workforce does not always translated to higher salaries and economic security.

Rosin examines the phenomenon of the female majority and the “cultural consequences of role reversal.” The cultural shift is evident as —

• U.S. women are the majority of the workforce
• Women managers are becoming the majority
• Three women graduated college for every two men

Rosin asks a question that has never been able to be posed before.

“What if modern postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?”

As stated in earlier posts, the male’s general tendency is to be a left brain processor and the female’s general tendency is to be a right brain processor. However each gender has access to both processing skills but will favor or adapt to one over the other.  Even when either gender utilizes different neural pathways for brain processing, both the male and female brains can arrive at the same end point.

Both the industrial and early technological social structures have relied on the logical, linear, analytical skills of general left brain processing. 

The cultural shift that is currently taking place is looking to the right brain skills of global thinking, creative problem solving and empathetic views (see Daniel H. Pink’s  A Whole New Mind – Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future.

What this means for the male left brain processor is not so much that it will be replaced but it can be eclipsed by the right brain processing skills that the female brain is more attuned to.

Therefore, Rosin’s postindustrial society may be better suited to women, but men who adapt by adding their right brain skills to the mix are still players and maybe even better players.

by Joyce Hansen