Template:Thinking

Another widespread but baseless claim often made today is that men are linear thinkers while women are not. Variations on this idea include that men are more rigid thinkers, that women are more capable of thinking outside of the box or that the male brain is more specialised.

These claims include the notion that men are unable to alter their thought processes to match a changing situation and are less able to think of novel solutions to problems.

These claims tend to ignore the fact that men are responsible for the overwhelming majority of innovation, invention and problem solving, today and throughout history and form the vast majority of people who work in unstructured work environents (eg, police) or who solve problems for a living (eg, engineers). Women tend to choose occupations where the tasks are more structured and clearly defined (as well as generally being cleaner and safer).

Claims relating to women thinking outside of the box are in fact nonsensical. One can only think outside of the box relative to those thinking inside of the box. As such, if we consider that men and women in general think differently then each group will tend to think outside of the box relative to the other. This is in fact a corollary to the notion that diversity in opinions on solving a problem can lead to better outcomes.

Claims about male thinking usually go on to claim that women will lead in the 21st century and that this is reflected in increasing female participation in the labour force. Interestingly while female labour participation rates increased from the 1970s they peaked around 2000 and have been steadily declining since that time