Men can’t help it; I hịnk a nine iron for this one-.

Blame their biology

In an ideal world men would be women. They would be home-makers and child-minders, cooks and
cleaners, unabashed by wearing an apron. They would even use those ‘baby-changing stations’ that now
forlornly decorate public toilets in airports and motorway service areas.

Which is not say the new man does not exist. You see him toting the baby on his back, or filleting the
kiwi fruit

For his partner’s supper. However, the new man’s most The differences are visible in brain-scans. When
a man salient characteristic is his rarity. If he had feathers, he does a crossword puzzle, only the left side
of his brain is would be an endangered species. Active, but a woman’s brain lights up like Blackpool. She

Uses both sides of her brain while she solves the clues.

2 And what is true of verbal challenges is true to much So, are men just behaving badly? Or is there
another of life. Studies show that, in general, the male’s brain is reason why they shy away from the
iron? Ironing a shirt focused while hers is more integrated. Does not call for extraordinary skill, and men
living on 6 their own manage it perfectly well, so why do they shrink

From the duty when they are married? Last year an experiment was set up to test Fisher’s

Findings. Six men and six women were challenged to

3 complete a series of tasks in a limited time. They had to ‘Men are more susceptible to boredom,’ says
Professor wash up, brew coffee, make toast and scrambled eggs, Marvin Zuckerman, an expert on
neurotransmitters. What iron a shirt and take a phone message. The result was a happens when you
don’t get variation stimulation? What walkover for the women. Happens when there is nothing
changing, nothing novel? 7 It’s an unpleasant feeling. Not quite anxiety or depression,

Dissatisfaction. Men are more impatient and, when they’re Kevin and Lisa finally declared their
experiment a failure. Bored, they find different ways to express their boredom.’ When Kevin went back
to work it was as though a burden had been lifted, he was so chirpy.’ Lisa says.

4 Kevin feels he is back doing what he should be. We get Except, of course, for the problem of serotonin.
Lt all on much better now I’m at work because I come home became routine, mundane, boring. You start
to feel: “ did and I’m satisfied for the day. I’ve done my work, I’ve that yesterday, so why should I do it
again today?” And done a good job,’ he says. So you can be a new man, then you start to think, “Well, I
won’t do it today. I’m not if that is what you want – but only by undergoing a sex bothered today.” And
then it just deteriorates from there.’ Change. Easier, perhaps, to wear an unironed shirt?

A The female's brain is architecturally designed to do several things at once, whereas the male brain is
more focused, more compartmentalised, more built to do one thing after another,' says Helen Fisher, an
anthropologist who is also studying the brain. And, of cOurse, the home is a place where you need to do
a lot of things all at once - like clean the loo, answer the telephone, defrost the peas, feed the dog,
change the baby and iron the shirts."
B Biology, that's why. The culprit is a neurotransmitter called serotonin. We all have it in our brains, but
men have less of it, and the less serotonin you have the more impatient and impulsive you are. Serotonin
acts as a braking system on our impulses. It placates. It permits us to endure routine and boredom. And
men are serotonin-challenged.

E Take Kevin Beck and Lisa Bates. They fell in love. They married. Each was on their second marriage and
each had two children and, because Lisa was on a fast-track career, they agreed that Kevin would be the
house-husband. I've always looked after myself, he says, 'and I thought that I could manage. I'm pretty
tidy so I thought the house would be as neat and tidy as I want it. I thought it should be a breeze.'

F And it is not just multitasking. Studies also show that from early childhood males have a greater
tolerance for dirt. They do not see the stains on a bath or the dust on the bookshelves. Males also have a
different sense of smell. He does not detect many of the pheromone-related odours (smelly socks,
sweaty shirts) of which women are acutely aware. He sees sweetness and order where she sees filth and
decay.

C All surveys of household responsibilities show that men are stubbornly resistant to their new role as
house-husbands, though interestingly the newer the relationship the more pliant he is. But once he has
his boots firmly under her table he becomes the old brute once again only two per cent of men in stable
relationships help with the washing and ironing.

D It's not hard to imagine - there's no financial reward and there's certainly no glamour; there's precious
little job satisfaction and not much to look forward to from one day to the next except more of the same.
But the role of the housewife is different today and, more importantly, so are society's attitudes towards
it.

G However, as men cannot be women we have had to settle for the next best thing: the 'new man'. His
specifications were dreamt up by feminists who rigorously refuse to recognise any innate differences of
aptitude or attitude between the sexes.

H The house got messier as Kevin's low boredom threshold rebelled. Blouses got burnt instead of ironed
as his brain strayed in search of diversions. However it was not only serotonin that was crippling Kevin's
good intentions. The brains of the male and female are organised in different ways, and this organisation
is not an accident of upbringing or culture - it is hard-wired into the cells from conception.