The 200 grams

VenusAndMars

In one of my daughter's Amar Chitra Kathas titled "Tales of Shiva", there is a story where Shiva curses his wife Parvathi to be born as a fisher woman on earth because she gets distracted/bored with his sermons on the "ultimate truth" and "knowledge".  The story goes on that he misses her in his abode, so comes over as a fisherman, woos and marries her again.

My knee-jerk reaction to this story is that it was written by a man of yore who was most likely a chauvenist.  And I suspect that if a woman had come up with a parallel story, Parvathi would have cursed Shiva for boring her to death with philosophy, while her latest born, Murugan was languishing in his self-made exile at Palani or her elder Ganesha did not get his fill of mothagams for the day.

But during calmer times, I realize that such gender differences in thought processes do exist.  Had this post been in an open blog site such as the erstwhile Alchemy, I am sure I would have gotten sizeable flak !  So, I disclaim that I write from my observations of myself, and it may or may not be generalized to women or men as a whole.

I suspect there IS a definite difference between the way men and women think (the Venus-Mars thing). (Or at least between women who are not "childfree" by choice and men). There are times when I notice it with Arunn and myself.  Arunn has infinite concentration when it comes to any kind of rational thought, for example, he can discuss for hours, some particular research problem or a new software tool, and so on.  I, however find my concentration wavering after say 10 minutes to banal stuff like "I wonder what the kid is doing", or "I need to get dinner rolling soon", and "boy, I need to pick up vegetables for tomorrow", and I have to consciously come back to the profundity that existed before the mundane cropped up.

It does seem true, at least in my case, that priorities have undergone (suffered?) an astronomical shift after childbirth.  I have been in my current job for seven years (has it been THAT long?) and I can make out the difference between the kind of commitment I had towards it before and now.  Not that the joy is any less.  I still love the challenge of coming up with novel ideas given topical constraints.  I miss the adrenalin rush when there is no looming deadline.  Yet, my mode of work has shifted quite a bit.   I simply cannot sit at my computer for more than an hour without the thought of my kid cropping in -"wonder what she is doing at the neighbors", "I hope she does not wet the bed", "I need to get her lunch going". etc.   And this is from a woman, who would sit in front of the computer for 16 hours at a stretch during deadlines, five years ago.  I think this could be the reason there are fewer female Nobel laureates than male.

Not that I regret.  I would much rather let go of one extra proposal/deadline than let my little one go without her evening Bournvita, even though one-less bournvita would do her no harm. While I can understand the sentiments of "childfree" people, I can certainly never relate to it.  But I mention this point merely to wonder if it is a gender thing.  If the dad were the primary care-giver, would he be as obsessed about her stomach and other (mostly biological) banalties as I am?  

Perhaps it is just me, and truly ambitious women (who are not childfree by choice) would have the same kind of concentration and thought process as men, and the 200 g weight difference between the male and female brain is merely an anatomic distinction with no functional implications.