Jeannette Lofas, CSW
Joan MacMillan, MSC, MFCC

Brain Differences In The Male
During the first few weeks in the uterus, all human fetuses are essentially the same. Then, six weeks after conception, the male fetus receives a massive bath of testosterone, and the male brain is forever changed.
(Moir, Anne Ph.D. and David Jessel, BrainSex, Bantam. Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. NY, NY 1)

The effect of the male hormonal brain-bath is to narrow the corpus cal-losum, which is the switching mechanism between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Thus, the male brain architecture is, to a large extent, the source of the task-oriented, one-thing-at-a-time, unilateral, focused thinking that we associate with the male way of being. He is linear, and so communicates in a linear way — A, B, C. You are wrong if you miss D.

Brain Differences In The Female
In the female fetus, the corpus callosum remains constant and considerably wider than in the male. This wider passageway allows greater transmission of data between the brain hemispheres. Not only can she process left brain logic, but she also has easy access to the right brain: seat of intuition, emotions, and imagination.
Her bilateral thinking allows her a special skill in knowing the related-ness of people and things. She is less linear, and more circular in her thinking. She may jump from A to B to L, driving most men crazy. Her circular communication is difficult for the male brain to process.

Babies
Baby Boy and Girl Twins Show us the Dissimilarities
Fran and Jim Johnston had been through it all. They had been married more than 10 years, all the while trying to conceive a child. They finally consulted with a fertility expert which resulted in the birth of twins — a boy, Stephen, and a girl, Sally. Believing that every person, regardless of sex, could do anything, Fran and Jim agreed to raise the babies with no sexual stereotyping.

Within days of taking the children home from the hospital, both Fran and Jim noticed the differences. Baby Stephen spent hours watching the crib “bumpers,” cloths of different textures and colors, while baby Sally spent most of her time sleeping. When she was awake and being held, Sally would gaze in the direction of her parents’ faces as they talked to her. She would be very still and express obvious pleasure in the tender touches of her parents. When Stephen was being held, after a short time, his eyes would wander in the direction of other sounds.

Studies have verified the Johnston’s observations. From birth, girls are more sensitive to touch than are boys, and are less tolerant of noise, pain, and discomfort. Boy babies are more wakeful, and show more interest in objects and in sounds other than the human voice. Repeated research shows that from the earliest years, girls talk more than boys.

It Continues in Nursery School — Girls Relate, Boys Relate and Push
In linguistic studies of nursery school boys and girls, 100 percent of the girls’ noises were relationship noises through conversation and language. Only 68 percent of the boys’ noises were relationship directed. The remaining 32 percent reflected male themes of pushing, shoving, and jostling each other. The noises sounded like, “brrr,” “bam,” and “bang.”
(Kohn, Robert, “Patterns of Hemisphere Specialization in Preschoolers,” Neuro Psychologia, Vol. 12)


When She Starts to Tell Him What to Do — The Four-Year-Old’s Tea Party
A little girl asks a little boy to have a tea party with her. She shows him to a little table with carefully set toy tea cups. He reluctantly obeys, putting down his truck, picking the tea cup.
She says, “Let’s pretend I am the Mommy, you are the Daddy. Do you want cream or lemon?
Sugar? Two lumps or one? No, take your tea cup and hold it like this, not like that.”
The boy looks perplexed and uncomfortable. The little girl instructs, “Now pass me the cakes.”
The little boy reaches down, grabs his truck and hits her with it.


 
 
 

In working with stepfamilies for over three decades, I find that once we finish the stepfamily work so many couples are struggling with conflicts that relate to gender differences.
"He doesn't listen to me...
"She talks and talks. "
This clip between Archie Bunker and Edith tells the story.
In the way only the two of them could. E N J O Y

Let us know your comments by contacting us at stepfamilyfoundation@gmail.com

More to come :)

He's OK, She's OK, The Mysteries Of Gender At Work

This is your book and our book. Our dream is that you tell us about your stories, concerns, complaints, questions to enlighten and expose the mysteries, misgivings and consequences of gender differences at work.


INTRODUCTION
 
In working with step-families for decades, I found that once the stepfamily issues were resolved, the conundrum of gender reared its confounding head. This led to my first gender book, “He’s OK, She’s OK: Honoring the Differences Between Men and Women,” published in 1995.
 
This, in turn, led me to “He’s Ok, She's Ok at Work.”
 
This book is about gender differences at work
And it is about YOU... it is an interactive book…
We tell you of the differences and delights and you tell us your story. Your experiences, comments, complaints, concerns.
 
It is generally agreed that men and women bring different talents to the office: men are better at some things. Women are better at others.
But just exactly what are these talents?
 
 
But before we begin it is important to note that these characteristics do not pertain to ALL but to an overwhelming 80% of males and females.
 
Jeannette Lofas has been working in the world of men years before women's liberation.  Her career in broadcast news began when only a few women were "on air."  To achieve/survive she learned to speak & think in "male."
 
After all, the crew was all male, the other reporters where all male, the bosses were male.  Female values did not exist and if a women's way of looking at something was put forward, or even suggested, it was disparaged.  With a "what the hell are you talking about."
 
As a result her lifelong quest for managing the differences between men and women then began.
 
The Line & The Circle
Once upon a time there was a Line and a Circle,
And Line was strong and thick and powerful, and going.And
Circle was a pool, warm and wet, and waiting.
 
Circle said to Line, “What’s wrong with you? You always go straight, never looking to the right or the left.

Being a line must be very boring.” Line said to Circle, “What’s wrong with you? You go nowhere,
 
You have no direction. You go ’round and ’round. You never go anywhere, except back to where you began.”
 
Gathering the News, Jeannette:
 
As a reporter, working exclusively with men, I began to know that often they did not see an event the way I did. “Gathering the news,” I slowly realized that men and I covered a story very differently. In local television news, a classic story is the coverage of a fire.
 
When the men covered a fire story, they’d go to the burning building and film the reporter standing in front of it, saying something like, “Here on 70th and Main we are at a twenty story building, valued at approximately 50 million dollars. So far, two firemen have been hospitalized and four occupants have been found dead.”
 
I would film the fire story differently. For example, we would film the burning building, but open with a tight shot of a fireman carrying an old lady down a ladder from a window, lovingly, big and gentle, sweet and strong. We would see her face and the fireman’s face. I would narrate. “Mrs. Land had lived here for 20 years. She is a grandmother of six and is well-known for her chocolate chip cookies.”
 
My stories were most often about relationships. I gathered the news in terms of people, while the men most often looked at the story in terms of facts and logic; how much, how tall, how many. Of course I included the facts, but always after we got to know the people.
 
When the news director saw my first fire story, it was already on the air. After the piece, he came and looked at me, lambasting, “What was that? Old lady, chocolate chip cookies?..”
 
The next day, the boss heard from the station owner’s wife that she liked the piece and liked me. So he called me into his office, saying, “Well, whatever the hell you are doing out there — just go do it!”
 
He’s OK, She’s OK at The Office explores the innate architecture of men and women. It is about their biological differences, which are substantiated by scientific studies. Our intent is to honor the mysteries and celebrate the differences and how those differences inform their personalities, styles and interactions in the office 80%.

You can also click here to download Part 1 of: He's OK, She's OK, The Mysteries Of Gender At Work.


Please share this with your friends and email us at stepfamilyfoundation@gmail.com

Thank You.

Respectfully,

Jeannette Lofas, PhD, LCSW