So you are at that dinner party and you feel like you are carrying the conversation. As a woman, it’s the most natural thing to be entertaining others through verbal sparring and lively conversation. Your husband comments on how much at ease you were talking to his boss. Honestly, you didn’t think about it as it seemed like the most natural thing to do during the evening. The reason has to do with women having something more than men.

It’s true. The brains of men and women are wired differently. And no where is that more evident than when we talk about talking!

Most women love to talk. Most men think talk is overrated.

From an early age, we know that baby girls make more sounds and gestures than baby boys.

And as they age, girls tend to have bigger vocabularies than boys.

Truth is, women speak an average of 20,000 words a day–Men, 7000. That is a big difference. Researchers at the University of Maryland will tell you why.

They studied children and rats. Interestingly, male rats are more vocal than females. So what accounts for these differences in both humans and rats?

In female humans and male rats, the brain has higher levels of a protein called FOXP2. This protein is linked to verbal communication. The more we have, the more we talk!

So more FOXP2 accounts for our higher number of words. I’m not saying more is better, just that more means more….words that is. You decide about the better and give us women a break! Chatty Cathy is chatty for a reason!