Do Techie Women Have Male Brains?

Fri Nov 17, 2006 11:53PM EST

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I've considered myself to be the empathizing type. It's easy for me to relate to people, care for them, and I even try to be considerate of their feelings, but after taking the Empathizing-Systemizing Test, I'm not so sure anymore. I came across an article that claimed women in technical careers have "male brains." An ongoing study at EQSQ, an online personality testing site, noticed that female test takers with technical jobs score above average on their systemizing quotient test.

There's a theory that people with systemizing brains are driven to “analyze, understand, predict, control and construct rule-based systems," while those with an empathizing brain identify another person's emotions and thoughts, then respond with an appropriate emotion. The controversy lies in the male and female categorizing. The reason the systemizing brain is considered male is because most men score high in systemizing tests, while women score higher in empathizing tests. That doesn't mean women cannot be systematic or that men cannot have empathy.

I got a very low score as an empathizer and an above-average score as a systemizer, which surprised me because I thought I would be a lot more balanced. Perhaps working in the tech industry has made me more systematic and less caring of how people feel.

Any techie women in the house? What do you say about these tests? Could they be true? Take the test, and share your results with me.

Comments on Do Techie Women Have Male Brains?

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  • 1 Posted by junebug21_98 on Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:09AM EST Report Abuse

    Gina, I got a very high score as a systemizer and a low one as an empathizer. So, doesn't that mean I should be good at keeping my home and workspace organized? Sigh, now I have no excuse! Maybe this is the problem: it's much more fun to try to determine the most efficient way to organize things than it is to actually do it. I don't work in the tech industry, I'm a school teacher. (To be fair, I am on the district technology committee.) I think I'm better at understanding kids than that part of the test shows. Anyway, it's a fun test and maybe will help people make better choices.

  • 2 Posted by curly_paws on Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:31AM EST Report Abuse

    Hi Gina, I got a score of 68 as a systemizer and 58 as an empathizer. I'm an analyst at work and I'm pretty interested in computing. Having said that, with things like cars I really couldn't care how they work - so I guess I'm just a funny mixture :o).

  • 3 Posted by ytech_ginahughes on Sat Nov 18, 2006 7:51AM EST Report Abuse

    Thanks guys, mine was so off balance. I scored an 80 as a systemizer and 45 as a empathizer. Hmmmm. I might have to retake it to make sure.

  • 4 Posted by dani_cat_99 on Sat Nov 18, 2006 1:14PM EST Report Abuse

    I took the EQ/SQ my score was EQ 49 vsSQ 30 Guess I should be working in social work instead of business Dani

  • 5 Posted by junebug21_98 on Sat Nov 18, 2006 4:13PM EST Report Abuse

    Gina, your scores may be uneven but they are c@#$% together than mine. Mine were: SQ74vsEQ15. So I'm way off. Like I said before, I don't think it's all that accurate in the EQ part for me.

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