Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.  James 4:17

“My husband just doesn’t get it,” a wife complains.  Often she is right, and she has scientific evidence to back up her allegation.  Scientists using a modified MRI have taken pictures of both male and female brains that prove–Are you ready for this?–that women use both sides of their brains when they listen, and men use only one side.

As one woman responded upon hearing the news, “One more excuse to get away with what they’ve been doing for ages: not paying attention to us.”  OK, now men have an excuse, shallow as it may be.

Since Adam discovered Eve in the garden, people have known that men and women are different, but how different they are is still a matter of scientific discovery.  But we do know at the very time that social engineers have been trying to wipe out the distinctions between males and females, everything that researchers have been discovering about the human brain and how it functions flies in the face of the unisex emphasis.

We are different genetically.  Scientists are now talking about “male brains” and “female brains.”  Your chemistry determines how you think, and how you think determines how you behave.  And your chemistry is the result of having come from the drawing board of heaven as either uniquely male or female, not whether you played with dolls or cars when you were a baby, or whether your parents painted your room blue or pink.

But of all the differences that exist, none are more pronounced than how men and women communicate.  We know for a fact that the left side of the brains of prenatal female babies begins to develop sooner than the left side of their baby brothers.  And, as you probably suspect, it is the left side of the brain that primarily controls your speech – which means little girls talk sooner than little boys and a lot more for the rest of their lives.  The average woman uses 30,000 words a day while the average male uses about 20,000.  That means women can speak at an average of 60 miles an hour with bursts to 80 or 90 mph while men put along at about 40 miles an hour.

But now we know that it isn’t just the volume but how we listen and communicate that is different.  Women use both sides of their brains when they listen; men mostly the left side.

Does this give men a valid excuse for not listening when their wives talk?  Not for a minute – though it may explain why women tend to be intuitive and pick up on non-verbal signals which we men completely miss.  One of the most important things that men can do for women is to listen–not try to fix the problem, not try to watch TV or read the sports at the same time they listen with one ear, but to give complete and undivided attention to the one who is sharing her heart with you.

No man can really love his wife without meeting her needs, and one of the greatest of all our needs is to have someone who loves us really listen to us, giving us their complete and undivided attention.

Understanding sexual differences doesn’t provide an excuse for our failure but should underline the importance of knowing how communication to men and women means something entirely different.

It used to be that the context of communication between the sexes was, “He said, she said,” but now it’s “he heard, she heard.  No, he really didn’t hear, but she did.”

Chalk one up for scientific researching confirming what the Bible has said for centuries–men and women are different, and only by recognizing this can our deep needs be met.

Resource reading:  Philippians 2:1-4.