Size doesn’t matter since men misuse advantage

Monday, August 18, 1997

DISCOVERY:

Extra brain cells used for seduction, vanityBy Maureen Dowd

My male friends tell me that I generalize too much about men.
That’s so true. It’s one of the flaws of women, generally.

A new study has found that men have an average of 4 billion more
brain cells than women.

The Danish researchers who discovered men had about 23 billion
and women, 19 billion, were confused about what men do with all
their extra neurons.

"It’s the part of the brain that has to do with abstract
thinking, with fantasizing, with speech … higher brain function,"
Dr. Bente Pakkenberg, a female neurologist who examined the brains
of 94 adult corpses, told The Washington Times. "There was a 16
percent difference in the count ­ almost 4 billion fewer nerve
cells in women than in men. That really surprised me." (And those
men were dead!)

I can remember a time when this information would have alarmed
me. But that was before I got to know men so well. Now I am serene
in the knowledge that even if they are Big Brains and we are Little
Brains, they will squander that advantage.

Here in Hollywood, a place run largely by men, TV and movie
executives use all that higher brain capacity devising ingenious
ways to pay stars more and more millions to perform less and less
original material.

Back in Washington, a town largely run by men, they use all that
edge in thinking and speaking to show that they are emotionally
unsuited to hold high office. They lie and plot and scheme with
laughable ineptness to overthrow each other and scratch each
other’s eyes out. They pout and weep and leak to reporters. They
close down the government, hold up flood relief and block
ambassadorial nominations over personal slights and petty
rivalries.

On Wall Street, the testosterone center of American finance, the
stock market behaves like an irrationally exuberant or unexuberant
Victorian lady, full of whims and inconsistencies ­ sometimes
bustling about, overwrought with joy, and then, at the merest hint
of a change or problem, getting the vapors and collapsing on the
fainting couch, fluttering her lacy handkerchief.

It is discouraging that not only are women’s magazines all about
making men happy, men’s magazines are all about making men
happy.

But looking for clues to what’s bubbling around in those
overstocked cerebella, I peruse the literature of the other
gender.

The September issue of Men’s Fitness offers "10 Hot Tips for
Great Sex" and "Swinging Spots to Let Your Hair Down." (No. 2: the
hot tub at the Cliff Lodge, Snowbird, Utah. No. 10: the
Indianapolis 500.)

The August Men’s Health advises, "Train for Great Sex." ("Three
new positions for making love ­ and more important, how to
pull them off without injuring yourself.")

GQ’s August issue touts "Marathon Sex: Pace Is Everything." The
September Details offers "The Secrets of Seduction: Women Reveal
What Makes Them Say Yes."(Technique No. 6: "Encourage her to order
more food. If you tell a woman to get dessert you have a very good
chance of seeing her naked.")

So men are splurging about 2, 2.5 billion of those neurons on
seduction techniques and sex fantasies. The rest they spend
obsessing about tighter abs, Web sites, thinning hair, stock tips
and better gear ­ the sport-ute bike, cross-training socks,
graphite clubs, Lycra cycling gloves, Fila Metal Flake Slides and
the Leatherman Super Tool ­ which can do anything from fixing
landing gear to removing a fishhook from somebody’s head.

The August Men’s Health has a feature called "Grill of Your
Dreams: Sleek machines that let you broil, smoke, sear ­ and
scare the neighbors," and another about how to properly outfit
yourself to fly-fish. ("It’s not that you necessarily need all the
stuff ­ you can catch plenty of fish with an $89
blue-light-special fly-fishing outfit ­ but owning and
appreciating good equipment is a big part of what makes fly-fishing
so much fun.")

By my calculation, all this narcissistic nonsense brings their
brain cell count down to 14 or 15 billion, which puts us ahead. And
there’s worse news, guys. Dr. Pakkenberg muses that "maybe we’ll
find it’s much more important how they are connected than how many
there are." Get it? Generally speaking, size doesn’t matter.