Battle of the Sexes

### Cold Open

From the second you're born, you're a unique individual. You'll make choices about your friends, your career, your relationships, where you live, and how you dress. But the one thing you don't get to choose is whether you were born male or female. And that flip of the genetic coin will play a huge role in determining how you think about, well, almost everything. Why do we assume stereotypical gender roles, like boys like blue or girls like pink? Is it because of the way we we're raised or does it have to do with the wiring of the brain? Guys, we've all been there, am I right? She'd rather shop till she drops, and you'd rather be doing pretty much anything else. But the question is, is there a biological reason for this?

### Questions

Are stereotypical gender roles determined by nurture or nature?

And in a head-to-head match-up of sheer brainpower, who wins?

## Games

### Game #1: President

A child's image is really a president.

Result: It's a picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Why? The photo was taken in 1880's. It was fashionable to wear dresses at that time when you we're very young. It proves that what we wear doesn't come from stereotypical gender roles. But in the different brains of two genders.

### Game #2: Color Swatch

You try and identify how many color shades in swatches there are.

Result: There are more than you think. There are 7 shades, in 7 swatches. Most volunteers end up saying three, four, or five. However, women preform better at this game because they see more degrees of color in orange and red spectrums.

Why: Being able to distinguish between the subtle and broader ranges of colors is good. They don't earn any points for this, though.

### Game #3: Triangle Spacial Time

Rearrange triangles to form a shape and choose between multiple choice answers

Result: Men preform better at this game.

Why: Studies show that men are better. That doesn't mean they're always right, though. They earn the first point, though. Men, as ancestors, needed to seek out the things they need to see and do, and go back home. This has evolved.

#### Mini-Game: Compass

Pick an option to get to the same place.

Result: Guys pick option 1, Women pick option 2.

Why: Because spatial reasoning helps men better follow directions like north, east, south and west.

### Game #4: Read The Instructions

Complete 10 tasks. Which gender is better at following directions.

Result: The males tend to have a competitive fire, which lends them in the win in extra credit. However, women read the entire list. The winner was the women in majority of cases.

What? If they had read the fine print at the bottom, they would have ignored at the 10 tasks and just signed their name at the bottom to complete the challenge.

Why: When men see competiton, it drives up their testosterone. But women also get estrogen, meaning they're not driven by testosterone.

The women get a point.

### Game #5: Excuse My Face

Memorize and match faces. Will a mall showdown prove that women are better?

Result: The women do better, making connections and proving why they are better, while the men make excuses. The women won with a 75% win rate.

Why: The male brain is simply not as adept.

While the women take the lead with 2 points, dudes need to tie up the score, or lose.

### Game #6: Stuff That Trunk!

Pack a car trunk that has just enough space for all the items. Will the memory advantage in women help them win, or will the men's spatial reasoning lead them to victory?

Result: Men win this challenge more, once again with a 75% win rate.

Why: Because the spatial relationships of men allow them to work with a lot of objects, the limited scope of memory for the women doesn't allow them to remember how to pack the trunk with so many items. Men can instantly see the spatial relationships.

We end the Battle of the Sexes in a tie.

## List of Experts

* Helen Fisher
* Apollo Robins