An article titled "Men Enjoy Seeing Bad People Suffer" describes the following experiment:

The scientists scanned the brains of 16 men and 16 women after the volunteers played a game with what they thought were other volunteers, but who in fact were actors. The actors either played the game fairly or obviously cheated.

During the brain scans, each volunteer watched as the hands of a "fair" player and a cheater received a mild electrical shock. When it came to the fair-player, both men's and women's brains showed activation in pain-related areas, indicating that they empathized with that player's pain.

But for the cheater, while the women's brains still showed a response, men's brains showed virtually no specific reaction. Also, in another brain area associated with feelings of reward, men's brains showed a greater average response to the cheater's shock than to the fair player's shock, while women's brains did not….

Singer [the researcher], in an e-mail message, said the sex difference in results was a surprise and must be confirmed by larger studies.

Commentary on this article could go in a few different directions.  The very tone, word choice, and interpretive slant offered by the writer could alone fill a post.  Why is this crucial ability of men degraded as being merely a person enjoying the misfortune of others?  Why is the concept of justice never discussed?  Why on earth is this difference between men and women surprising to anyone?

I've written before about how empathy, while a beautiful and necessary trait in its place in personal relationships, can be a destructive force in society when it perverts justice.  This study illustrates well why this danger is more likely to come from women than from men.  For us women, our desire to nurture and help people is strong, and our empathy extends to everyone who is hurting, regardless of the person or situation.  This makes it difficult to watch others be punished (let alone do the punishing ourselves!)--even when the good of the larger group is at stake.  Justice is as good, right, beautiful, and necessary as empathy; but sometimes, as women, our strong empathy causes us to falter when it comes to fulfilling justice. 

Thankfully, since we need both empathy and justice, God created men differently.  Somehow, they're able to turn off their empathy when the situation calls for justice.  A friend once tried to explain this to me when he said, "You need men in leadership because they can do what has to be done.  Sometimes horrible things need to be done.  Men can do what they have to do and then move on."  I didn't fully understand this at the time, but I've seen many examples of this in life since.  Unfortunately, many women interpret this gift men have as cold-heartedness, not appreciating its necessity.  We don't understand how men do this, and we often secretly think compassion ought to reign over justice in a good society, despite the evidence to the contrary. 

Currently, there are few influences in our society praising this ability of men (besides 24, of course--may it live long and prosper).  Feminization is fashionable.  I wouldn't be surprised to find this study being used to prove that men are less than women and require some sort of therapy because of their excessive "enjoyment of another's misfortune," as the article puts it.  Men don't feel the same empathy as women towards those who have done wrong?  They love justice more than empathy?  Well then, there must be something wrong with them! 

Don't believe it for a minute, men.  Do what God has created you to do at the proper time, in the proper place, for the good of all.