Lecture 6 - Introduction To Gender

This weeks lecture was all about gender differences. We started off by discussing ways in which to impress an woman, this included thoughts such as: cuddling her, kissing her and buying her nice things. The truth is that every woman has a deep desire not only to be appreciated, but to be re-assured and reminded continually by anyone that she is loved, meaning that it is more harder to impress and woman that it would be to impress a man (only because they are much more simple :)


VIVA LA DIFFERENCE :D

We then moved on to talk about impressing a man. Ruth had already practically got it in a nutshell: 1) Show up naked and 2) Bring food. Because of the dramatic difference between both genders advertisers have to target each of them differently. Women's adverts tend to have a story to them or be more complicated, whereas men's adverts are simple and easy to read.

It has also be proven that woman prefer ads that are much more detailed and appreciate fine distinctions such as 4 different variations of the same product. For example: cleansing wipes, face wipes for oily skin, wipes for sensitive skin and exfoliating wipes.

Brain Differences
Nadeau, R (1997) believes that males and females are not only different in the hormones that drive them, but they are also different in the way they think. The brains of men and women are actually wired differently. He states that:

"The human brain, like the human body, is sexed, and differences in the sex-specific human brain condition a wide range of behaviors that we typically associate with maleness or femaleness"
Typically; men and women process information differently because of "differences in a portion of the brain called the splenium, which is much larger in women than in men, and has more brain-wave activity.Studies have shown that problem solving tasks in female brains are handled by both hemispheres, while the male brain only uses one hemisphere" (Nadeau, R 1997).

To put this to the test we split into two groups: Males and females and were shown a picture of a room. We looked at this for a set amount of time and when it was turned off each group had to write as many things about the room as they could remember. As predicted; the girls remembered more, and were more detailed about what the remember in comparison to the males in the group.

As both genders do have brain differences, and have different reactions to advertisement. Charity adverts are a brilliant example of this, as they are aimed at both genders but have distinct reactions to them.



Personally; this advert made me feel guilty and touched but as we all knows these kinds of shenanigans go on in society we appreciate that the charity are making us feel guilty to get our money, even if its not necessarily our fault. However a males perspective on this may be that all charity adverts are the same and if they want something they should just outwardly ask instead of juxtaposing a situation.