Where does "women's intuition" fit into the evolutionary process?

Answer 1

My (male) chancellor at school believed this:

1) The developing embryo reaches a stage where it is decided whether it will be male or female.

2) At this point, the male embryo secretes a chemical which "kills" part of its brain.

3) Thus the female brain retains something that the male brain is missing and this is where "intuition" comes from.

This sounds a bit sexist somehow; but coming from a man it was very interesting and since then I have heard the same idea elsewhere:

"Every brain begins as a female brain. It only becomes male eight weeks after conception, when excess testosterone shrinks the communications center, reduces the hearing cortex, and makes the part of the brain that processes sex twice as large."(1)

I would say the role of this in evolution would be linked to the way (historically) that each of the sexes need to observe and communicate in order to survive.

Answer 2

Women (mothers) spend a lot of time trying to understand people who don't speak. This requires us to have a certain familiarity with nonverbal communication and an ability to anticipate the needs of another person. Over time, this requirement also gave us the ability to sense someone else's feelings and thoughts better than most men who need more concrete thinking and more linear thinking to hunt, build etc. For the most part, intuition isn't intuition but merely reading another person without either party realizing it. More and more there is less of a difference in the way men and women think as men need the intuition and ability to read people in business and women need the concrete hunting skills to suceed alongside those men. Makes for a fun jab at the spouse though.

Answer 3

hi
i suppose that if you take it back to around the cave-man era - then the women would have been left to look after the fires, children, collect water etc etc etc and so would have to "tune in" a lot more to the wider world - you know - when she did the washing the baby could get eaten, so her senses became hightened to pick up on what was going on around her - or maybe her man did (get eaten) and somehow she had to just "know" that he wasn't coming back... where as men - they tend to be much more sigularly focused - i suppose using the same analogoy he would have just concentrated on the hunt - and nature even provides women with more cones in the eye for better perifiral (sp!) vision - men do not have the same amount. the same is true today of men - give them a shopping list and send them to the supermarket - they are fab they get everthing crossed off and they have suceeded! let a women loose in a shop and its a whoe different ball game - thinking of everything at the time of shopping, "whats for dinner, did i return "so&so's" call, do we need fruit? blah blah blah.. we are all the same us humans - we just come in 2 models.. Men & Women !! ;-)
hth
xx

Answer 4

Men's brains are more compartmentalized; emotions are processed separately from empirical data. Women's brains are more globalized and highly connected; therefore, they are able to take in raw data and organize it in a way that men do not tend to do. This is what's known as "women's intution"-- that ability to make sense of what the brain perceives in a way that makes it seem like women have some magical "sixth sense". Perhaps this ability to put seemingly disparate information together served as an early warning system, alerting our ancient ancestors to danger back in the caveman days, thus increasing our species' chances of survival.

Answer 5

1. Women don't talk to communicate.
2. Women don't reveal anything when they talk.
3. Women don't believe in any ideology.
4. Women wait until men fail, then say, "I told you so."
5. Women don't believe men have any common sense.
6. Women usually win arguments by keeping quiet.

It's a women's world.

Answer 6

I thank Presley for allowing me to copy The developing embryo reaches a stage where it is decided whether it will be male or female. Women intuition allows for one less question. example: x-why--------why-why--x-x--which marks the spot Isn't that female logic?

my wife gave me permission to be humorous.-ha

Answer 7

'Women's intuition' doesn't exist. Like psychic powers, or telekinesis. Sure, a lot of people will tell me I'm wrong - but no one has ever been able to prove it. So as far as science is concerned, it's an urban legend.

Answer 8

The idea of "Female choice"

Females make a large investment in offspring, so it benefits them to be choosy and intuitive about male behavior (how faithful he is, etc)

Answer 9

Who said it did! I don't see any connection. We all have intuition. Women use it more .

Answer 10

I would assume it's valuable for protecting their young - although I'm not sure how the mother's magical abilities to always find the kids missing shoe fits in :)