Movers and fixers

One more study says men are better at assembling. We look at the reasons

In an episode of the early 90s sitcom Full House, a father of twin boys cringes when he sees them play with a doll and tries to push ‘manly’ toys on them. The mother then asks if he has some prehistoric idea that boys shouldn’t play with dolls. Those ideas never go away. A recent study by Norwegian researchers on assembling IKEA furniture, found that men are faster at assembling things than women. The researchers wrote: “It appears like women need instructions to perform as well as men do without them.”

“Observations in many studies show that men are better and faster in assembling things than women especially when they are not given instructions. Men definitely have an edge over women in spatial memory and spatial reasoning skills,” says neurologist Dr Anil Peethambaran. “It could be due to the mental suggestion provided through toys by parents at a very young age like giving construction games like lego to boys while girls get Barbie dolls or soft toys that sing lullabies to play. The former stimulates the left brain better while the emotional toys like dolls activate the right brain.”

Dr Anil refers to another study on the structural difference between the male and female brain, where it was found that an area called Inferior Parietal Lobule (IPL) is significantly larger in men compared to women. The left IPL is concerned with mathematical ability, distinguishing right from left, time, speed and the ability to mentally rotate 3-D images in mind.

Right from childhood, boys are more inclined towards fixing things like a car or a plane, while girls prefer dressing up dolls, says actor Arjan Bajwa. “I think men are mechanically more hands-on than women. Men are natural go getters, whereas women are better at running a house. But in the present generation, women are getting there. If you can have women fighter pilots, the gap has definitely diminished.”

If you read the survey carefully, you will find that the results only say how faster the men have been at assembling than women, points out writer Madhuri Banerjee. “It doesn’t say who made it better. Women take longer in doing something but they do it really well. They would make it with precision. Men try and finish things fast because they want to win. Women want to do it better because they want to be appreciated.”