All posts tagged: gender relations

Why Can’t My Husband Find the Ketchup?

Men and women see the world differently. This isn’t my opinion; it’s a strongly supported scientific hypothesis. Men and women perceive space and the items in it differently. I wrote an article about it. I think about it all the time for my work. But for some reason I never applied my ivory tower notions to my household.  Why does my husband have to lean into the refrigerator hunting the ketchup? It’s been on the same door shelf position in all 11 of our households over the years. It isn’t rocket science. The man memorizes the URLs of hundreds of routers and switches and techie stuff for his work. But he can’t reliably find the ketchup.  It just isn’t his fault. Evolutionary psychology tells us that men learn large territories and routes through them, while women learn smaller areas in greater detail. Back in the day, men were hunting the big game over days of effort. Women were taking care of every other detail of life, including feeding themselves and their families using their detailed …