The Essential Difference

For my second book club I have been reading The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen. The book basically distinguishes the differences in the sexes brains by categorizing them into male brains being systemizing and female brains being empathinzing. Baron-Cohen explains that the male brain is generally wired to systemize things. They are more likely to place things in categories or distinguish how things work as a system. The male brain is likely to recall systems of numbers such as jersey numbers associated with a specific sports team they watch or maybe the players batting averages. The female brain is empathetic which means that it helps them to tune into the feelings of others and how to react appropriately to others emotions.
The reason I am writing about this is because after reading the book I started noticing the differences. For example, I was at my sister's softball game today and there were about five guys there cheering for her team. The guys were athletes at the school too. While my sister's team was at bat, the guys would poke fun of the other team's girls. Since they did not know the names of the girls on the other team, they would associate the girl and her number with a number that related to a basketball player's number in the NBA. For instance, they called one girl Paul Pierce because her number was 34 and that's the same number as Paul Pierce. They also used the names Michael Jordan and Lebron James. They were extremely amusing and kept the game entertaining while they cheered for the team while they were unconsciously exhibiting the typical systemizing brain that Baron-Cohen associates with males.
I myself have always played sports since I was a young girl and have been an Atlanta Braves fan as long as I can remember. I can tell you that at the baseball game I went to for my birthday last year Eric Hinske hit his first career homerun as a Brave. I could not tell you his number or anything like that. I can tell you the people I went with to see it and what I wore, but not what the final score was or the exact date. Typically a person that has a more systematic functioning brain probably would be able to recall more specific numbers about the game than someone like me with an empathic brain.
This book was one that I thoroughly enjoyed and really appreciated. I liked that the scientific facts were presented in a way that made it easy for me to understand and to follow. It was a book that made me interested in reading more about Autism. I am currently interviewing a friend who has a brother that has Aspergers and I am looking forward to finding out more about him after reading this book to see if it coincides with what Simon Baron-Cohen presents in The Essential Difference.