Prior to the Industrial Revolution, fertility was the highest premium factor in existence (Holliday).  Reproduction could not have ensued without willing females who would stay home and take care of their offspring.  Women’s roles in civilization back then was not meant to be seen as sexist.  Their roles were to stay at home, take care of the house, and care for their children.  This was not dictated by male prejudice; it was dictated by the needs of society (Holliday).  People these days look back on the pre-war days and discuss how sexist it was that women were obligated to stay at home since their husbands were off at war.  Women back then did not question their roles and neither did the women who were in power, such as queens.  The queens still believed women had a certain place in civilization and that was at home with the children.  The gender roles that were played by men and women were necessary for society to continue (Holliday).

For centuries, the divide among men and women concerning their roles in society and overall differences have been a controversial topic.  Mental, physical, and emotional variances between the two sexes have been debated as being factually accurate or more opinionated.  Diane Halpern PhD, ex-president of the American Psychological Association, believed all of the discussion about the mental differences were biased. She stated, “It seemed clear that any between-sex differences in thinking abilities were due to socialization practices, artifacts and mistakes in the research, and bias and prejudice. ... After reviewing a pile of journal articles that stood several feet high and numerous books and book chapters that dwarfed the stack of journal articles … [she] changed [her] mind.” (Goldman).   The brain of men and women differentiate in the sense of information processing and the ability to interpret the given information.  Men’s brains are more adept at organizing certain information in working situations than women’s brains (Goldman).  Males also have a greater brain volume than females which contributes to their greater physical strength as well, “The male advantage in reaction time as well as in temporal processing are highly correlated with their greater cognitive capacity.” (Puts).  The variances in the volume of the gender’s brains is not accidental, men’s skulls are perfectly adept to encapsulate the larger brain volume (Burnett).  However, women obtain a greater set of skills in fine motor movements and dexterity; this evidence relates to the physical differences between men and women as well.  Women tend to have smaller and thinner hands than men which contributes to their advanced skills in small hand and finger movements.  They are better able to manipulate small items with more attention to detail than men.  Women’s brains incorporate a more emotional outlook on situations than the brains of men.  Researchers have conducted multiple brain scans and one in particular focused on 68 regions in the male and female brain.  This research greatly contributed to more data being collected about the variances in the brains of men and women.  Such an in-depth, careful study of several brain regions gave way to a new world of information regarding the way each gender’s brain processes information. Women tend to have a thicker cerebral cortex than their male counterparts which results in women having greater cognitive and general intelligence (Price).  Behind all of the countless studies and research experiments lie factual evidence proving the variances in men and women’s mental, physical, and emotional distinctions. 

Cognitive differences exist between men and women.  The cognitive abilities differences between the sexes include perception, attention, memory, motor skills, language, visual processing, spatial processing, and executive functions (Upadhayay).  Males obtain advantages in spatial processing, working memory, and mathematical capabilities while women outperform males in verbal fluency, perceptual speed, accuracy, and fine motor skills (Upadhayay).  Data was collected from a study that was conducted on 21 males and 21 females who were healthy volunteers.  The age range began at 19 years old and was capped off at 37 years old.  Four cognitive function assessments were given to the male and female volunteers: attentional, perceptional, executive, and working memory.  Attentional tasks were performed by assessing visual reaction time.  The perceptual tasks incorporated fast counting as a method of observation.  Executive tasks were assessed by the Erisken Flanker Test and the Stroop Test and the memory tasks were performed by photo memory (Upadhayay).  The comparison of cognitive function in males and females exhibited significant differences.  Men performed more poorly in attentional tasks than women.  For far too long, psychologists took for granted that male and female brains were in fact fundamentally different (Curry).  Men and women can surpass each other in various mental abilities, “Men are significantly better than women at mental rotation, particularly in three dimensions.” (Sorby).  Sheryl Sorby who is a professor of engineering education at Ohio State University recognized that she had poor spatial skills.  She realized this while she was becoming a professor in a male-dominated subject.  Sorby identified she could not discern a two-dimensional item and transfer it into a three-dimensional item.  This is when she came to the realization that researchers who have studied the mental variances in the brains of men and women were accurate in their verdicts.  Cognitive dissimilarities amongst the genders does not make one lesser than the other, it simply implies each sex acquires a unique ability in one aspect or another.    

A more palpable and upfront variance between men and women is their diversity in their physical aspects.  While women have a greater body fat percentage than men, men are over 30% stronger than women, especially in their upper bodies (Miller).  Men are on average 40% heavier than women and have 60% more total lean muscle (Puts).  The reasoning behind the higher body fat percentage in women is the way the fat is spread out and placed on a woman’s body.  Women tend to have greater fat in their breasts and buttocks which contributes to the greater body fat percentage.  While it may be seen as sexist to say men are stronger than women, it is scientifically proven men are physically stronger and larger than women.  Men are favored by speed of limb movement, reaction time, aiming, and many other physical aspects, “Men are larger, stronger, faster, and more physically aggressive than women – and the degree of sexual dimorphism in these traits rivals that of species with intense male contests” (Puts).  Motor coordination, finger dexterity, and manual dexterity all favor women over men.  Manual dexterity includes the ability to design and implement a task.  This means women are more adroit at small movements involving the fingers and hands.  Developed dexterity includes the ability to manipulate objects skillfully and quickly.  This could also be the result of men’s hands being larger than women’s hands.  Measurable differences have been tested to prove the male dominance in the physical aspects between men and women.  Speed, resilience, and endurance are a few calculable sex differences.  Men do subdue women in the physical sense because of the tests that have been done to prove the significant differences in the measurements of arm span and vertical jumps.

Basel researchers designed an experiment to determine the ways men and women process emotions.  Emotional processing variates between men and women which is also linked to sex variation in memory and brain activity (Gregoire).  The test involved images of emotional content that were shown to the 3,400 test participants.  Women found the images more emotionally stimulating than the men (Gregoire).  The men and women were then exposed to imagery that was considered emotionally neutral, and the genders responded correspondingly.  After the images were presented to the participants, they completed a memory test.  Females were able to recall more of the images shown than the men.  Dr. Annette Milnik explained, “This would suggest that gender-dependent differences in emotional processing and memory are due to different mechanisms.” (Gregoire).  Further investigation brought up a possible elucidation as to why women could recollect more of the images, and especially the negative images.  Women could possibly be better prepared to react to negative stimuli.  Another explanation was also formed; women are expected to be more emotional, therefore they express more emotions (Gregoire).  Milnik stated women are more predisposed to develop depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder which are all connected to emotional dysregulation.  This study does corroborate that women are in fact more emotional than men.  However, this could correlate to the fact that women are frequently perceived as the more emotional gender.

Sexism and gender roles will continually be a topic many talk about.  Men and women should be seen as equivalent in society but they will not ever be literally equal.  Dedicated feminists like to believe that women are capable of being the exact same as a male.  However, this is incredibly inaccurate and impossible considering the psychological variances between the two.  In the workplace, the two genders should have the same salary if they have the same job title.  Men and women may differ in their abilities to perform certain tasks, but this should not change the amount they get paid if they have the same job.  Humans are a very diverse species and one human is not like any other human; so why should everyone be considered equal mentally, physically, and emotionally?  The diversity among people in this world is what makes it a beautiful place.  One person should not have to be precisely like another to be seen as equal in society.  Everyone has their differences; hair color, eye color, skin color, favorite music genre, favorite animal, but this does not make one better than the other.  Men can excel in different skills than women and women can excel in different skills than men.  One is not greater than the other.  Mentally, physically, and emotionally different but equal in humanity. 
