One of the most popular and common beliefs of our times is that women are better than men at performing many tasks at once. The notion that females have a unique gift for ‘multitasking’ has been constantly invoked by women in recent years, proof of their superior cognitive skills and innate, more holistic wisdom. It shows, literally, that they are not so narrow-minded. Likewise, this conceit has been deployed by many a lazy husband as an excuse not to pull his weight around the house: ‘You can’t expect me to look after the children and do the washing. We men are just not hard-wired that way.’
The tendency to comprehend male behaviour through feminine-tinted spectacles has created a consensus
If we are to believe new findings unveiled this week, however, neither the boasting nor the excuses are justified. According to a study undertaken in conjunction at two London universities, women are not in fact better at multitasking than men. It’s just that women appear less rude when doing it.
The findings emerge from a report by André Szameitat, deputy director of the Centre for Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at Brunel University, and Diana Szameitat, of City St George’s, University of London, a married couple who, as the Times reported, were inspired to combine their parallel academic careers with their own experiences of raising two children.
In the first part of their research, in a ten-minute exercise, a group of 41 men and 37 women were asked to follow a recipe, search lists for telephone numbers, match numbers and letters, and watch a slide-show of words appearing on different backgrounds, writing them down only when the background was red. During their ordeal, every 20 seconds, a recorded voice posed a question, such as: ‘Would you rather lose all of your money and valuables or all of the pictures you have ever taken, and why?’ The two groups performed similarly in all their tasks – except maintaining a conversation. Men failed to respond to 28 of per cent of the question, while with women it was just 12 per cent.
Furthermore, when a different group watched videos of the tasks being performed, they judged the men to be making less effort because they didn’t look alert or responsive. Writing in the journal Psychology Research, the pair call this a ‘reverse halo effect’ – once someone appears less interested or less visibly engaged in what they’re doing, observers are likely to conclude that they aren’t doing it well.
While we ought to congratulate the Szameitats on their research, which might help to dismantle one of the most tiresome conceits of our time, it does rather confirm something we’ve all known since the dawn of humanity: that men are generally more taciturn, less good at communicating and don’t like talking except when they have to. That is of course a generalisation, but generalisations and propensities are accepted as legitimate by scientists. Conversely, talk of human nature being ‘hard wired’ fails to account for the malleability of the human mind.
The findings should also give ballast to those like Jordan Peterson, who in recent years have voiced disquiet about the consequences of pathologising masculinity, a trend that has resulted in the demonisation of men and boys. For decades, as society has assumed a more feminine perspective on human relations – urging us all to be more compassionate, cooperative and open – formerly traditional masculine norms have increasingly come to be regarded as strange or abnormal.
The tendency to comprehend male behaviour through feminine-tinted spectacles has created a consensus which regards classic signs of it – not being inclined to speak, unwillingness to open up about one’s feelings, preferring machines to people – as ‘problematic’.
Traditionally masculine responses to testing situations, such as individual fortitude and stoicism, have been reinterpreted as repression and an unhealthy unwillingness to talk about their problems. This consensus has manifest itself in the ubiquitous talk today of ‘toxic masculinity’, a phrase which carries with it the implication that masculinity has not merely gone wrong, but that there was something wrong with it in the first place.
Yet much typical male behaviour is either neutral in its consequences or advantageous in its outcomes. As that feminist champion of masculine virtues, Camille Paglia, once provocatively put it: ‘If civilisation had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts.’ The dismissive cliché ‘toxic masculinity’ should be dispensed with. Extreme masculine behaviours should be accurately called rudeness, sexism or misogyny and dealt with as such.
What is more, the findings from this academic couple are a heartening reminder that women and men can be different and equal: ask each to perform an identical series of tasks, and one will do it with few complaints, garrulous self-congratulation or perhaps a passive, people-pleasing smile, the other in moody silence (or, if you like, with stoicism and fortitude). But they will both get it done in the end.
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