Why Men should develop the feminine side of their nature

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
1

Split brain experiments by Prof Roger Perry have shown distinct differences of perception between the two hemispheres of the brain. Surgical separations of the cortex have shown that the left brain controls the motor reflexes of the right side of the body and is mentally attracted to analytical perceptions and evaluations of realty. The right brain controls the left side motor reflexes and is more attracted to intuitive perceptions of reality.

Broadly speaking we can say that the left brain deals with the physical or visible aspects of reality, while the right brain is concerned with the metaphysical or emotive aspects of reality. In practice one half of our psyche demands hard evidence in order to determine action and the other half tends to rely more on intuitive “hunches” and feelings to guide action…

Obviously we are all a mix of both halves of the psyche, but generally speaking, males are predominantly left brain/analytically oriented and attracted to mechanics. Females are more right brain/intuitively oriented and attracted to the arts.

This is not s to say that males cannot be more intuitive than they generally are or females become more analytically orientated. With conscious effort and plenty of practice both male and female can evoke the less actives side of their brain and end up more holistically balanced in their approach to life.

For instance, men who practice right brain drills and exercises have found to their surprise that they can evoke stronger nurturing feelings for their children and deeper insights into their wives psyches than previously. (Of course many men have discovered their female/artistic side naturally, without the need to take extra exercises)

Women are generally more conscious than men of the dual nature of the psyche, for they have endless opportunities in dealing with the practical aspects of everyday life, not including their schooling years, exercising their analytical half. But they too, with more practice can become more mechanically orientated and more balanced than they already are.

I personally have been practicing right brain drills and exercises for the past thirty years, and have developed a dual brain educational course for children. If there is any interest in this subject, I will be happy to describe some of the surprising results and explain some of the more effective exercises that can help in furthering dual brain development.

2

This is what I think.

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=143894

3

People are whole beings.

There is no male side to a female and there is no female side to a male. Whatever it is that you are doing you are doing as yourself.

Other than the concrete use of your body parts all sex related notions of behaviour are social constructs.

4

I wish those with their pride and eye on sex would quit trying to group us all into their sexual emphasis.

The only difference between men and women is women act like mothers and men act like fathers.

That’s what sexes are for.

Anything else is psych evaluation gone over board. Women can be mechanically inclined and men can be artistically inclined. Just because in our culture interior designers take on the role of being female or homosexual doesn’t mean it’s natural. Also, just because in our culture engineers take on the role of being male or profeminist/lesbian doesn’t mean it’s natural. It’s what follows after years of roleplaying done by religious indoctrination. It’s time men and women are treated equally.
Maybe, I’m just a rebel against being girly, but I’m sure I can scrounge up plenty a number of men who are rebels against being too manly. It’s freedom to be an individual person and freedom from being a categorized sex.

5

Lateral asymmetry is very real.

Further study of hemispheric asymmetry reveals that the right side is generally focused on the body and moving the body through the universe.

The primary interface between our body and the right side of the brain is what we know as the function of feeling.

Whereas the left side contains the abstract and linguistic centers usually employed in relating with things outside of us. The primary interface between our world and the left side of the brain is what we know as the function of thinking.

We project psychologically that the “entity” that is that left-brained thinking aparatus is the mind.

Likewise, the “entity” that is the right-brained feeling aparatus is the … soul.

Intuition occurs on both sides of the brain in the temporal lobe. Women’s intuition tends to be more about “bodies”, people, with a feeling implication, whereas “men’s” intuition tends to be more about things to think about, like science and religion.

Thus women may appear to be more concrete and men more abstract, but to conclude such from that can be misleading, as there is more to it than just that.

The reason, however, that women are historically more in touch with their feelings is because women are more in touch with their bodies than are men, in general.

The reason for this is that women’s bodies are more complex, and the onset of puberty effects them more wholly and systemically from a feeling perspective than men experience.

Child gestation creates a huge body transformance and relating closely with a child is major body “workout” that men just never experience.

Thus women, by nature, are more “reminded” through feeling of their body than are men, and so their right brain gets more “exercise” and is more developed than most men’s right brain because of it.

Men, who, traditionally, go “out” into the “world” and have to keep their thoughts and wits about them just to survive the ol’ saber-toothed tiger get their minds developed as a result.

Men have historically organized structures like armies and governments and corporations, and such takes much more thought than feeling.

Indeed, tests bear this out, that women are more feeling oriented and men are more thinking oriented by more than 60-40 even under the influence of this unisex society, and the difference would be much more pronounced if both genders were left to their natural devices.

6

I envy the capacity of contributors in these gender comparative discussions. I see nothing but a black void of sexual confusion and abuse. I think “to hell with our known gender systems, it can be destroyed.”

It’s too bad, because being raised by women made me quite in touch with my feminine side. Now I feel such a discipline as aburd.

Like silentsiloquoy, I believe that left and right brain thinking should be ripped away from the relevance of gender. But I also admit that these facts exist, that gender does have biological differences.

After all- we could point out similar biological differences when comparing ethnicities, couldn’t we? But we generally don’t because we consider ethnicity quite irrelevant to our learning.

I encourage the concept that MagnetMan is introducing here. Mainly the idea of a curriculum based on the real functions of the brain. Most education today hardly adopts any innovation at all. It’s just the same pattern that we assume people will pick it up if we draw a few arrows to the task.

It would be interesting to see schools that help people develop their minds- teaching them to literally shift thinking between right and left hemispheres. There seems to be something very philosophically correct in the way the brain functions. We need a continuous conjecture between cold analysis and empathy.

For example- who would think that drawing from different hands could induce different patterns of thought, so much that it may affect long-term attitudes you had on things. Or the idea that certain physical activities are important for your studying. How about visualization techniques in watching yourself pass the exam.

Oh no. I turned a positive thing to bleak again. I’m discouraged by the dominant schools still sheepishly toeing these clear and fleshed out discoveries.

7

After 4 decades of watching society change and society’s attitudes change toward gender roles, society is still confused and grasping at straws.There are femine and masculine tendencies, are they taught or genetic. I see both. I know fathers that make better mothers then the woman they have as a mother to their kids.

I think society will settle down eventually and accept that we all have masculine and feminine sides.

I have yet to see too many men that can change a loaded diaper without getting ill. Yet these same men can go kill animal butcher it and have no emotions. :astonished:
Odlly enough women have no problem doing either. The men that make better mothers can get queasy about diapers but, they do it.

Gender roles are changing but it will take time. Heck I have more tools then my husband I do the repairs around here while he works to earn money. I get tools from husband and son as gifts. I cook, clean and do most household chores regardless of sterogender. My sisters and mother would never think about doing the things I do, its unfeminine. My mother raised them, I was raised with my dad and two brothers. Hmmm. I do and am capable of both gender work roles. Now yes I prefer feminine roles over the male roles I do.

Except toilet cleaning that one sucks for both sides. I will avoid that chore for as long as possible but, since niether male in this house will ever do it I must. The thought of cleaning it must make them ill. Interesting enough I don’t believe they even notice I think they are blind when it comes to the use of it, which explains alot :laughing: :laughing: This might be one true gender chore besides diapers I honestly believe men would rather make a new bathroom then clean the old one :laughing: :laughing:

8

A good man does the job in front of him - whatever the gender designation, as does a good woman.

Please re-title: “Men should develop those skill areas previously mainly associated with the feminine.”

The devil’s in the details. Anyway - When you’ve got everyone pansying around worrying about their broken nails, who’s gonna take out the garbage…? Huh…? Huh…?

9

===========
I am interested in your belief. Please explain how and what kind of mental exercises you do. Thanks.

10

Our research station is situated in a rrural area of Nevada. Every time the septic tank gets root-bound, its the men who empty out four tons of piss and shit by the bucket load and put it to compost…Butr will admit, I do not clean the bathroom. :confused: :astonished: :unamused: #-o :laughing:

11

I tend to agree with Jenny… . As a [male] person involved in public speaking and as a musician, it is safe to say that I must at least be able to understand my ‘right’ side more readily than perhaps other males (in order to articulate ideas/express myself musically). I will say that because of that, I generally feel more complete/well-rouinded in obviously making fuller use of both halves of my Being than other men. I can tell when there is a disparity… . Conversely too, I’ve seen and dated women who are NOT in touch with their right-side but very little and behave like stereotypical males is social and sexual situations.

I think if one puts merit to Aristotle’s “know thyself” credo (which I happen to) then it is essential to at explore or uncover/discover both halves… .

…just my two pennies

12

there is positive aspects of both right and left side thinking. All people use both, because to use only one is not consistent with surviving. Some people just use one of the two more so than someone else.

Because we don’t live in hunter gatherer societies anymore, and because both genders do both tasks in todays world, both masculine and feminine traits can be useful.

13

There is now a body of increasing evidence that people who regularly practice right brain meditation techniques designed to control the incessent chatter of the analytical half of the psyche, almost invariably experience altered states of awarness that not only put them in closer touch with their feminine side, but which also include profound realizations that can only be described as spiritual. There is a greater sense of affection for mankind in general and they tend to want to clean up their own acts and behave more ethically than formerly.

This improved sense of awarness, in relationship not only to the self and to society as a whole, but also to the cosmos itself, seems to have a significant effect on the I.Q. a movement in mental accume that was previously thought improbable.

14

I’m wondering if there is a connection to the Limbic system, because it kind-of sounds like a similar area… . If so, maybe it’s about connecting with our ‘primal’ most fundamental or more importantly, the sentient part of our Being(?)

See below:

“The limbic system (Latin limbus: “arc”) includes the structures in the human brain involved in emotion, motivation, and emotional association with memory. The limbic system influences the formation of memory by integrating emotional states with stored memories of physical sensations (see emotional memory).”

Function
“The limbic system operates by influencing the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system. The limbic system is highly interconnected with a structure known as the nucleus accumbens, commonly called the brain’s pleasure center. The nucleus accumbens plays a role in sexual arousal and the “high” derived from certain recreational drugs. These responses are heavily modulated by dopaminergic projections from the limbic system. Rats with metal electrodes implanted into their nucleus accumbens will repeatedly press a lever which activates this region, and will do so in preference over food and water, eventually dying from exhaustion.”

“The limbic system is also tightly connected to the prefrontal cortex. Some scientists contend that this connection is related to the pleasure obtained from solving problems. To cure severe emotional disorders, this connection was sometimes surgically severed, a procedure of psychosurgery, called a prefrontal lobotomy (this is actually a misnomer). Patients who underwent this procedure often became passive and lacked all motivation.”

“There is circumstantial evidence that the limbic system also provides a custodial function for the maintenance of a healthy conscious state of mind.”

15

If you guys grab the toilet brush instead of the buckets maybe the women will get out there and do that septic job too. Try that, you guys clean toilets for awhile and then let the ladies clean the septic. I have done it. its nasty but, not horrific. Do you know what a toilet brush looks like? :laughing: :laughing: I have a feeling it will only take one time of changing and you all will be back to norm. Septic work is not personal like toilet work. :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

16

Yeah Kris I feel your pain :smiley: I live on the chickominy river and we all have septic tanks and, have become intimately familar with that process…did I say intimate!?!

Yikes!

17

Very interesting. Am not convesant with the full extent of Sperry’s split brain experiments. But it would seem from your input that the connection with the limbic system is significant. Thanks for the info, will include it when I get into another argument about the asymmetry of human consciousness.

Cheers :smiley:

18

MM,

You’re certainly welcome. BTW: It kinda bugs me- the whole men from mars women venus thing- and certainly realize that gender differences create perception differences and other language barriers, but the bottom line is we all want the same thing. Similarly, I’d rather think of this topic as not necessarily being in-touch with one’s feminine side, but rather in-touch with one’s Limbic system. Or better yet, in touch with one’s [complete] Being. (?)

I could stand corrected :confused:

…I know that’s a bit off-topic but had to purge :^o

“I want peace, love and understanding…” Terry Clark

19

Its Yin/Yang
An equal dynamic between the masculine and feminine principles.
Balance is everything.
Thats how the polarity of the atom itself radiates its energy…

20

…indeed.

“What you are not you cannot percieve to understand; it cannot communicate itself to you.”

“If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”

Maslow