Men and Women

What colour do you think the patch on the right is?

Most men would say either pink or orange or maybe pinkish orange. Women however would say it’s salmon colour (well a lot of them). If you are like me, you will think that salmon is the fish. But in fact it is also a shade of pink (probably called salmon because it is the same colour as the fish).

Do men and women see colours differently? Are there biological differences in how our eyes are formed, or how are brains are wired that causes the differences in how we see colours?

I think most people will agree that man and woman see colours differently. In fact not just colours, but other things as well (example: whether this shirt is crumpled or not). However it has been proven scientifically that there are absolutely no differences in the biological structure of our eyes, and how we attain vision (how our eyes are wired to the brain). Why then do women see salmon and I see pink?

Let me go some way back in time to provide a factual background understanding. In the 19^th century, scientists found out that native tribesmen have only words for black, white, red and maybe green. No matter where the tribes may be, North America, India, the Pacific, the results were similar. They would describe the colour of the sky as white or black (translated from their own language). It was first believed that these natives see the world differently, that their world was much less vibrant and less colourful that our world. The reason being that their ability in differentiating the colour spectrum was much less developed than ours due to their lack of practice (they have very limited artificial colouring like dye or paint). Therefore they couldn’t see certain colours in the extreme ranges thus the sky for them is black.

However in the early 20^th century, this theory was proven wrong. Through further testing, scientists found out that these natives have no problems differentiate colours. They could tell the difference between blue and black, even between navy blue and sky blue. Why then did they term the sky black? It was because they have no word for the colour blue. To them, blue was just a different shade of black. This might seem absurd to us; how could blue and black be the same colour, just different shades? We are taught to think this way because of our cultural conventions. For the natives, a whole chunk of the colour spectrum has just been lumped as one colour. They see no purpose in having to differentiate blue from black. 

Returning back to modern times, there are no biological differences in our eyes. The ability to differentiate colours is the same generally between both genders. Everybody, guy or girl, should be able to tell that the 2 colours below are different. However what differs is the vocabulary each individual possess to describe the each colour correctly. Guys would say both colours are just different shades of pink, while girls might be able to say one is carnation pink and the other is bubblegum pink. The differences in colour vocabulary reflect purely cultural developments, not biological ones.

Perhaps because women are brought up to appreciate colours more than guys (think clothes and flowers). Perhaps they are more exposed to the colour pink and its various shades. There can be many cultural reasons why they have a wider vocabulary for colours than men. Of course I am making a general statement. There are definitely exceptions. Some guys, perhaps a painter or a designer, can name every shade of every colour accurately. Some girls can’t even tell violet from blue. It depends largely on the individual’s cultural development. But generally, women  have a much wider vocabulary for colours.

So do men and women see colours differently? Well they do not see colours differently in the literal sense. In fact I think a better answer would be they “know” colours differently. Some men (most I would think) know salmon, carnation and bubblegum as pink, while some women know each individually. We see the exact same thing, can tell the differences as well as the other, but when presented with the colour alone, we have different terms for it. This concept can be used for other common contentious cases; like is the room messy? Or do I look fat? Perhaps this might help shed some light on some of the daily mysteries and help prevent some arguments along the way.