Differences between men + women are obvious in both physiological and psychological aspects. Personality differences between Men and Women are not as obvious as biological differences because psychological differences in men and women are probably caused by biological differences. The historic interpretation of these differences has often led to prejudice and discrimination against women.

To fulfill different biological roles, it is obvious that women and men must be biologically different. It also has been assumed, that women and men have to be psychologically different to fulfill these different roles in the family and in society.




For years, the case has been made that males have greater ability in mathematics while females have greater ability in language and verbal skills. While this is somewhat true, and is based on biological differences in the brain, the differences in ability are often exaggerated.

During times of scientific and industrial revolution (which the past several hundred years have been) males have been deemed "more intelligent" than females because of their greater knowledge of world affairs and their skill in science and industry. We now know that although there is a very small biological difference in visual-spatial ability, the real reason that girls were deemed "less intelligent" was that they were not allowed to gain knowledge or skill in world affairs, science and industry.

What can we say?

Men and women are different, plain and simple. The two genders act differently, look different, and think differently, so we shouldn't pretend that they are the same. There are obvious biological differences between men and women, and many argue that the many evident psychological differences might just be caused by the biological differences. Yet, many others still argue that all psychological differences between the sexes lie in upbringing. Who is correct? Well, nobody's positive, but there's good evidence for both sides. Read on to find out more!

Society, Men, and Women

What are some things people think about when the subject of men vs. women come up? Well, for example, many say that women have more common sense, but men are smarter overall, and many also say that all women are opposed to aggressive gameplay, such as football, and that men are just simply better at it and stronger. Well, while it is shown that men do usually score better on tests involving spacial skills, etc, most of these assumptions are just plain wrong.


Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Nagy Jacklin conducted a study in 1974 that suggested no noticeable difference in overall cognitive ability. Girls exhibited very minor superiority in verbal skills, and boys exhibited very minor superiority in visual-spatial skills. Mathematics, however, were more complex.

Girls learn basic language before boys do. They speak their first words about half a month (on average) before boys do. They learn more vocabulary quicker, and they generally pronounce words better than boys. High School girls seem to be superior to boys in spelling, reading comprehension, vocabulary, punctuation and in solving analogies. Many more boys than girls have reading problems throughout all ages of development, ranging from simple problems to severe disabilities. However, boys seem to catch up to girls in language skills at about the age that they go to college.
test your personality!
click here!


Mathematics are, as said above, more complex. Contrary to popular belief, males are not better than females at math. Females actually show superiority during elementary school in computational ability. Males do, however, excel in mathematical problem solving ability. The perceived mathematical inferiority of females is often based on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is administered to high school juniors and seniors. The SAT's math section is mostly mathematical problem solving, which accounts for the difference in scores by gender (twice as many boys than girls receive scores of 500 or more).

So, the perceived differences in intelligence between girls and boys are true, but not on the same scale as most people believe. The actual differences are very small, and may largely reflect sociocultural expectations and environmental influences rather than actual biological differences. These differences are getting smaller, and we must remember that there are always exceptions to this "rule." There will always be great women physicists and great men playwrights.

Males apparently excel in visual-spatial abilities. Beginning in adolescence, boys usually outperform girls on tests of spatial ability which assess skills such as mentally rotating figures in space and finding figures embedded within larger designs.


Although Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Nagy Jacklin concluded that there are no cognitive differences between males and females, they did conclude there is quite a difference in aggressive behavior, with males showing more aggression than females. This was a showing well established in all cultures where aggression had been studied, actually. Their study involved the play of children at about 4.5 years old. In the play, boys engaged in much more aggressive rough-and-tumble play, such as wrestling or other forms of fighting, than girls.

Additionally, it is shown that both men and women equally are involved in child abuse, but men are far more often involved in the aggressive portions. Women report being more guilty, and feel more stress over danger to themselves than males. Yet, the overall effect is not always as large as common stereotypes may suggest. Ann Frodi and her colleagues (1977) found that females are more likely to act agressively under some circumstances than others.

Males, for example, are generally more likely than females to report physical aggression in their behavior, intentions, and dreams. Males do not feel guilty about aggressive behavior, but females do tend to feel anxious or guilty about behaving aggressively. These feelings do lead to the inhibition of aggression. Consequently, females behave just as aggressively as males when they think that their behavior is justified. They need to be able to explain to themsleves why they did what they did.

Females also tend to empathize with a victim of theirs. They put themselves in their place, and feel the difficulty of being in that situation and consequently cannot bring themselves to be aggressive upon them. However, when the victim is anonymous, gender differences in aggression tend to decrease. Anonymity may prevent females from empathizing with their victims.


Webpage by Aaron Zafran and Dave Zawitz
Last Updated October 24th, 1997