Reason vs Emotion

This is an excerpt from a submission written by Peter Zohrab on the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill.

IRRATIONAL WOMEN

It is no accident that Sue Bradford has proposed this irrational Bill. As the Neuroscience article "Sex differences in functional activation patterns revealed by increased emotion processing demands*" shows, men's and women's brains process emotional stimuli in different ways. It states:

"These findings suggest that men tend to modulate their reaction to stimuli, and engage in analysis and association, whereas women tend to draw more on primary emotional reference."

To put it simply, women have evolved to get emotional about things, and men have evolved to be rational. Sue Bradford's Bill is evidence that women would be better off at home, indulging their emotions on their children, leaving the men to make decisions -- e.g. about legislation -- outside the home that require rational thinking in the face of emotional stimuli.

*by Geoffrey B.C. Hall, Sandra F. Wittelson, Henry Szechtman and Claude
Nahmias, in Neuroreport Vol. 15 2004, pp 219-223.

There is undoubtedly more than a grain truth in the assertion that females draw more on emotional reference. We see it in voting preferences. But to react emotionally is not to be irrational. There needs to be a balance.

I am reminded of something I read today attributed to Stalin; "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Extreme rationality is as bad as extreme emotionality.