How does gender affect human behaviour?

For thousands of years, men and women have been working and living harmoniously in the world. They rely on and complement each other to survive. In the past, men hunted animals while women gathered wild fruits as food. Today, a man may work outside while a woman takes the role as a housewife. We cannot imagine what life would be like if there was only one gender( only males or females) in the world. Obviously, there is lots of differences between males and females behaviour. Human beings behaviour is determined largely by their gender. The notion that males behave more powerfully than females seems to have already been taken for granted. It is true, and can be indicated in human beings sex origin. When the male is going to have sex with the female, erection occurs on the males sex organthe penis becomes large and hard quickly, which is a symbol of the males power. However, the change in the females sex organ seems to be slight. Besides, when we look at males and females bodies, we can see that the construction of a mans body tends to be indomitabletough figure and strong muscles, while that of a woman seems to be weak and delicateround bottom, breast and S-shaped curve. Thus, males gain comparatively more strength than females, which accounts for the difference in males and females social division of labour. Males take a predominant role in strehgth-taking work. In Ihanzu everyday life, a man may spend most his time farming, while his wife does a little farm work and allocates a large proportion of her time to cooking, weaving, washing, and so on. During dry seasons, men have an important communal activity building houses or matembe. While men are sparing no effort making the bricks, building the walls or erecting the roof, women are busy with brewing beer and fetching water which need less strength but a lot of carefulness and patience. In addition, lets look at the two objects which can be found in almost every Ihanzu familythe bow and the grinding stone. The bow is used by men when they hunt. It is fierce and hot, quite literally-virile and masculine (Todd Sanders 1965). The grind stone is used by women, which includes permance, endurance, and domescity (Todd Sanders 1965). By contrasting these two symbolic objects of men and women, we can conclude that men are good at doing manual work which needs lots of strength, while women are not, and this is true not only in Ihanzu but in other parts of the world as well. Throughout the history of the world, whenever there is a war, men are always going to the front line as soldiers, and, in contrast, most women are left at home, worried about their husbands life. Why are men always serving as soldiers, not women? This seems to account that men tend to behave powerfully while women do not. Another difference in human behaviour resulted from gender difference lies in initiative. When a man is having sex with a woman, the man enters the woman and on top of the woman, leading an active role, while the woman is beneath the man, leading a passive role. Not only in sex, but also in many other aspects can we find that sometimes males behave more actively while females are a little passive. For example, when Ihanzus are holding rainmaking rites, it is required that the male rain goes first, followed by the female rain; when Ihanzus are doing farmwork, it is always

that a man cleans the bush first and later his wife comes to farm the cleared land; when a man marries a woman , the man first builds a house and then puts his wife in it. Similar situations are countless. Looking at the world today, we can find that the number of men accounts for a large proportion in the number of politicians, bankers, businessmen and experts while womens ratio is comparatively lower. It is more common that we may find women serving as nurses, teachers, shop assistants and so on. This indicates that males behave predominantly and initiatively in the entire society while females take a passive role. Because of males powerfulness and initiative, men seems to be more aggressive and ambiguous. In contrast, due to the passiveness of females, women can easily tolerate and commiserate others. This is why there is more fightings and competitions that occurs among men and more merciful behaviours that are indicated by women. Based on a third difference in human behaviour led by gender, men seem to behave hotly while women behave cooly. We may easily find such scenes in our life: when having dinner, males like to tumble down the sink and talk loudly while females just drink a little and whisper with each other; when a man is absorbed in numorous meetings and conversations with his colleagues, a woman may be doing housework alone; even with a best same-sex friend, a man may beat the friend when he feels he is annoyed by his friend and after a few minutes, he my give his friend a passionate hug when he feels his friend is so good, but this situation rarely happens among women. Generally speaking, males are passionate, emotional and easy to get excited while females seem more quiet, easy to calm down. We can find such hot or cold behaviour has something to do with human beings sexuality. As for males, semen stores most of their energy and support them. At the same time, males have strong muscles and hairy skin. These features of males help them better store energy and heat. However, womens sex organ produces more estrogen, and they have less muscle and hair, which makes them store less energy and easily feel cold. Besides, in Ihanzus eyes, female bodies, for their part, are doubly cool both for their excess waters and for their relative lack blood (which is thought to pass through the patriline and is associated with masculinity)(Todd Sanders 1965). While Im saying human behaviour is determined largely by gender, there is one thing I need to point out that gender is not the only determinant of human beings behaviour. Throughout the world, there are males who behave like females and be considered effeminate. In Brazil, there are even some transgendered prostitutes, who like to be attractive to men and be penetrated by them. Also, even purely women can sometimes behave like a real man. Ihanzu women is just an example. In everyday life, they always behave gently and quiet, serving the important role of housewife. However, when rain rites comes, rebellion happens. Women dance lewdly and sing obscene and sexual songs, with a generally aggressive and violent manner(Todd Sanders). These interesting things illustrate that human behaviour is not entirely determined by gender. It can be affected by many other factors like time, the environment and so on. To conclude, I should say that males and females behaviours are usually different according to the gender difference. Males tend to behave powerfully, initiatively, and

hotly while females tend to behave gently, passively and coldy. References: Todd Sanders.1965. Beyond Bodies:rainmaking and sense making inTanzania Don Kulick.1998. Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes