Gender issues in the real world Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Gender issues in the real world - Research Paper Example In three decades, the field of feminist psychology has grown in leaps and bounds, including coming with many methodological innovations. Feminist psychology has been an all-encompassing endeavour drawing from various areas of psychology, intellectualism and also a wide spectrum of feminist views and perspectives (Marecek, 2001). So she sets out in her study to look at this area and this she does by conducting a very wide and impressive literature review, looking at publications, studies, reviews and documents that discuss the area of psychology and gender. The conclusion, according to the study, is that in the past three decades, there have been many approaches adopted in studying women. The first is the most traditional study of the differences between the genders, which looks at the attributes and characteristics of each of the genders. The second approach looks more at the contextual nature of gender, recognizing that gender differences do not occur in a vacuum but in a continuum that includes social relations, interactive processes and language which form the structure of relations between men and women. The third one views the psychology in a more cultural context and draws on how they work together. Psychology Today Magazine Article This article looks at the psychological study of the differences in brain functioning between men and women. It looks at the work done by pre-eminent researchers who have done a lot of work on the differences between the male brain and the female brain (Kanazawa, 2008). The article, which appears in web version of Psychology Today magazine shows that the major difference between the male and female brain is that whereas the male brain is more concerned with systemizing tendencies and mechanistic thinking while the female brain is more concerned with empathizing tendencies and mentalistic thinking. This therefore means that the male brain is more concerned with understanding how things work out and tries to figure out how a sys tem works and what rules determine how it will work. In contrast the female brain identifies with the other person’s emotions and thoughts and seeks out to understand them and how best to connect with his or her emotions. The article goes on to explain that the current versions of the male and female brains has been caused by the sexual evolution of the two â€Å"types† of brains, with the men’s brain development being more linked to competition and the need to be the provider and the hunter and gatherer with all the aggressive tendencies that is required by all these activities. The women’s brains on the other hand evolved with the different tasks of mothering and the need to bond and emotionally connect with infants who are unable to work and the need to link up emotionally with others and make friends and allies in new environments, which happens when they enter into marriage. The article finally shows how these evolved male and female brains manifest themselves in different ways, with the men often spending their time in relationships trying to figure out how their girlfriends work while the women are more concerned with the emotional side of the relationships and tend to try and relate with rather than figure out how their boyfriends’ brains work. Comparison of the Study and the Article