In a previous post, I discussed the emergence of a new paradigm of thinking and living and I advanced that this paradigm approaches a feminine way of being in the world. These divisions between masculine and feminine forms of existence are linked to the long human history. About 200,000 years ago we lived in the midst of Nature, before the invention of cities. Our urban world is less than 10,000 years old and therefore our behaviour is closely linked to our previous history of nomadic hunters and gatherers. Biological conditions of the two human genders stem from different intellectual abilities, behaviour, emotional particulars as well as a diverse relationship with the mystery of life and spirituality.

In pre-urban times, before private property and male dominance became the norm, the daily journeys built skills that defined the cultural roles that were consolidated later. Women, on account of this long history are more suited for a multi-dimensional perception of the world- with a focus on relationships, more attentive to the equitable distribution of resources for their caregiver status in the family and community; more compassionate and focused on the needs of each one, particularly those in fragile situations; more concerned with the care of living spaces and more qualified for intuitive intelligence and action, inspired by emotion and negotiation. Men, on the other hand, are better attuned to focusing their thoughts on the logical and objective world and hence are more aggressive in their actions, including being extremely competitive.  They are more apt to abstraction and spatial reasoning that enables them to conquer new spaces. These gender characteristics operate on an average and may be present in both men and women, but they are, of course, more visible in one sex, for biological and cultural constraints that are discussed below.

The hormonal and physical structure of women is tuned towards creation and the care of offspring. The final period of pregnancy reduces women's mobility, as does feeding and caring for small children. As women in prehistoric times became pregnant almost every year, it was normal for them to be homebound and also provide care to the older, disabled and sick people in the family. However, the hormonal and physical apparatus of men gives them more physical strength and also more aggressiveness on account of the presence of testosterone. The hunting activity, important for feeding their tribes, before the invention of agriculture and grazing, implied the conquest of territories and also their protection including preventing the weakest of the tribe from being exposed to the aggression of wild animals.

To illustrate these differences, from the numerous studies that compare male and female patterns, I will use the distinction made by David Bakan, in which men, on account of their physical strength, tend towards “strong action”, while women tend to a “relational action” arising from their reproductive capacity. LECOMPTE, in his book "Human Kindness" (2012), brings the study of Eagly and Crowly, testing them in real-life situations as well as the differences established by Bakan: the generous actions of men and women are as follows: Men are more capable of generous action in emergency situations and danger whilst women tend towards emotional support and practical care to people in distress situations.

From their presence in communities, women are historically known to harvest edible plants near their habitat, by selecting the larger grains, the tastiest roots, the sweetest fruits and more digestible food. It is to them and to their observations that we owe the discovery of agriculture. Likewise, they hunted and then domesticated small animals, and the more docile ones, paving the way for grazing. Men took on other roles requiring greater physical strength and are closely linked to processing technologies: the cutting of trees and the construction of shelters, the manufacture of tools for hunting and for leather treatment, bones, etc. and later, also metallurgy. These technologies, which involve force, require abstract calculations, from logical and mathematical fields, also developed by men.

Hormonal functions can also deduce reasons for the differences in skills and behaviours: women have a cyclical biology, with major hormonal ups and downs and a lot of flexibility to deal with physical changes as with the monthly hormonal cycle as well as pregnancy. Both cause significant changes in the body that comes back at least to the same state, post- menstruation or childbirth. These changes are caused by internal mysterious factors, which make women most perceptive of invisible changes; more physically resilient and more attentive to emotional shifts. Men have a simple, continuous biology, with hormonal changes j caused just by external, visible factors: particularly danger or sexual arousal. If a man should go through the colossal hormonal changes that women undergo every month, they would have a hard time adapting because they are not biologically capable of it.

Several female skills arise from the fact that women have historically spent most of the time amongst children, old and the infirm and the restricted space within the tribe whilst camping or moving. Men, on the other hand are habituated to moving in more remote areas and encountering danger situations. Research has shown that the female brain is more perceptive of details and emotions and is better able to multitask as well as focus on relationships and communication. Similarly, men have a greater ability to focus on tasks as well as higher spatial identification ability and capacity for abstractions, resulting from long hours in hunting activities involving waiting and silent observation- to study the behaviour of the prey and then act quickly and aggressively.

It is also due to their domestic presence that women involved themselves in cooking and the equitable distribution of food. Physical strength and testosterone resulted in men being more aggressive and also having the ability to handle strenuous activities. These allocations, favoured by biology and in existence since millennia ultimately define different brain abilities.

The kind of intelligence of each sex stems from their daily historical roles: women in a restricted world that demands many different tasks (taking care of offspring, food, agriculture and several manual activities like pottery and weaving), multidimensional reasoning and the capacity to perform different activities simultaneously. This reasoning is also very concrete and related to the experience of the here and now. Men, with the primary task of hunting in the open and being in the company of other men, have developed the ability to focus as well as comprehend abstract concepts and spatial reasoning and logic. For both men and women with regard to the tasks performed over those 200,000 years, the quality of planning was important. In women's tasks, the main planning was long-term with respect to survival and education of offspring, and for men it was short-term planning in carrying out immediate tasks, like the protection of offspring from the dangers posed by the surroundings.

Either by genetic inheritance, shaped by long history, or on account of biological and cultural factors, or perhaps cosmological reasons like opposite poles (yin and yang), men and women are very different. We see today an approximation of sex roles, in others words, more men developing their feminine skills and vice versa, without, however, losing their intrinsic characteristics. This movement is domestic and personal, but also collective and global and will influence the thinking, acting and building of more just, democratic and sustainable cities.

Male attributes without the opposition and the complement of feminine attributes lose out. The exaggerated masculine model of a predatory and competitive society focuses on things and in its operation is mainly interested in winning and accumulation. This imbalance becomes a threat today. The emergence of the feminine spirit integrates values ​​historically developed by women and will help men in nurturing their positive attributes of anchoring and protection forces and also appreciating creative female power and pregnancy. The combination of physical strength and the intensity of male action with female resistance and flexibility; the male ability to focus, with the natural female ability to be interdisciplinary; objectivity and logic  combined with intuition and emotion; the expansion of territories with their maintenance, and above all, the combination of a policy based on individual leadership combined with one based on the coordination of talent within a collective management, will build more balanced societies in which complementarities between the two genders will result in harmony in personal and collective development.