It all makes sense...NOW!

My cousin wrote this column for BYU. She is amazing! I hope she doesn't mind me copying this onto my blog, but I thought people would like to read it... I know it looks long, but trust me- you'll LOVE it- especially if you're a woman!



Sorry, did you say something?

Submitted by Natali Wyson on Tuesday, 6 October 2009

I think there is little dispute over the fact that men and women are physiologically different … At least I hope there is little dispute over this fact. However, these differences tend to go even deeper than we often realize. The other day in my Political Economy of Women class, we were discussing such physiological differences and my teacher presented some rather clarifying research. Before I get into this research, let me discuss why I find this to be so “clarifying.” Before getting engaged, I did quite a bit of dating. And though I found every guy to be extremely different, I definitely noticed similarities, even with my now fiancé. For example, the other week I went with my fiancé to his friends’ house where they were watching an away football game. During a more dull part of the game, I asked my fiancé a question pertaining to a subject I can’t remember (bear in mind I was sitting right next to him and I definitely do not have a soft, quiet voice). My fiancé did not react to my question in even the slightest bit. No more than two seconds later, one of his male friends asked a question and he instantly responded. I was, to say the least, irritated. But this was certainly not the first of these types of experiences. My fiancé’s defense was, as usual, “Natali, I honestly did not hear you.”

I have also had similar experiences with male professors who will present a question, to which I will give an answer, at a very audible level, and will be completely ignored. Then a couple seconds later, a male member of the class will repeat my exact answer and receive instant credit and acknowledgment from the professor. Now for all of those other women out there who feel their boyfriends/fiancés/husbands/professors don’t listen to them, I hope this research will shed some light on the matter.

Now, I couldn’t find the exact study cited by my professor but there are variations of it circulating the Internet. Basically, this study found that males process female voices and male voices in different areas of the brain. The female voice is processed in the more complicated area dealing with music and noise whereas the male voices are processed in the same area as sight and language. Now what does this say about men and their listening capabilities? Well just as with music and background noise, men need to actually tune themselves in to hearing and processing the female voice. They have to make a conscious decision to listen to women. However, this also seems to mean that men can train themselves to listen to women. So I still have hope that my fiancé will be able to start hearing me, unless he is purposefully blocking me out — as we sometimes do with background noise — in which case, he and I have much bigger issues to deal with ☺.