Male/Female Differences

There's an interesting three minutes in this talk by Helen Fisher on the differences between male and female brain functioning. It's between 10 and 13 minutes into this talk that she give a nice, succinct simplification--unavoidably an oversimplification, but a really good snapshot regardless.

In my language, I've said that some people have a temperamental or biological propensity towards "doing" certain levels and abilities more easily. And in general, women are better at Appreciation while having to work harder at valuing Purpose while men are better at Purpose, having to work harder at valuing Appreciation. So we communicate and Understand in typically different manners (generally speaking). The largely male influence on meditation traditions has often influenced our understanding of mindfulness away from mindful appreciation, webbed mindfulness, connected mindfulness, social mindfulness. It seems that the American influences on meditation--towards social action, female influences including women in leadership roles, and psychological applications all bring meditation "off the mountain" so to speak, pragmatically demystifying much of what is possible.