Feelings, functions, and the sexes

The basic contention of this article on male and female brains is that women pay attention to personal relationships and feelings, men to impersonal systems and functions—not much of a surprise. The author doesn’t do much with the claim except observe that women are sensitive, caring and empathetic, while men are clueless and incipiently autistic. The principle has other implications, however, some of which are not quite as PC.

For example, public life has to do with our dealings with people most of whom we don’t know well or at all. As a result, it is mostly a matter of the orderly functioning of impersonal and necessarily somewhat blind systems, like law, government and markets. If personal connections and concerns eclipse functional aspects the consequence is gross inefficiency and inequity brought on by an emphasis on special favors, manipulativeness on behalf of oneself and one’s friends, and general lack of concern for the public interest and overall justice. To the extent concerns rise above selfishness, what results is an attempt to extend the principle of special favors and immediate personal concern to everyone everywhere (i.e., to construct a universal nanny state).

Nanny states don’t work though, certainly not in the long run. While mothering is a very good thing, the Post Office and similar institutions are just not close enough to us to mother us. The Chinese have traditionally believed in the balance of yang and yin, the male and female principle, but also that feminine involvement in politics is a sign of the degeneration and approaching end of a dynasty. What this article suggests is that they may have been right.