Our Gemara on Amud Beis uses interesting and graphic terminology to describe the two sides of an axe, and its halakhic implications:
It is taught in the mishna that even when it is permitted to chop wood on a Festival, one may not do so with an axe. Rav Ḥinnana bar Shelemya said in the name of Rav: They taught this prohibition only with regard to a case where one chops with its female side, i.e., the broad side of the axe, as was normally done. But if one chops with its male side, i.e., the narrow side, this is permitted because it is an unusual manner of chopping.
It is odd that the Gemara should use such evocative terms to describe an axe, which is reminiscent of male and female anatomy. After all, usually the Gemara uses euphemisms. For example, the Mishna Niddah (6:11) uses a euphemism for pubic hair in order to not be sexually explicit. The Gemara Pesachim 3a tells us that even the scripture uses the phrase, “an animal that is not pure” (Bereishis 7:8) instead of calling it tamey or impure.
Why does the Gemara here use non-euphemistic, explicit language? Indeed, Rambam and Shulkhan Arukh switch the words to narrow and broad, instead of male and female (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Rest on a Holiday 4:10, and Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 501:1.)
Since we say that even the ordinary words of Sages require study (Avodah Zara 19b) I’ll go out on a limb and try to come up with an explanation. Perhaps there is some lesson here about male and female roles. The axe’s broader side is used for chopping down the tree, while the narrower side is used for cutting the wood into smaller pieces for kindling or projects. Is it possible that the Gemara is hinting at an idea that women are good at broad, general thinking while men are better at specific details? (The idea that we learn an irrelevant side point from a rabbinic teaching is not far-fetched. This is a bona fide method of study. See Gemara Avoda Zara 53b, “מלתא אגב אורחא קא משמע לן”, as well as Bava Basra 98b for examples of this principle.)
But am I right? Here is what the research shows ( https://www.livescience.com/3808-men-women-differently.html )
The brain is made primarily of two different types of tissue, called gray matter and white matter. This new research reveals that men think more with their gray matter, and women think more with white. Researchers stressed that just because the two sexes think differently, this does not affect intellectual performance.
Psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine led the research along with colleagues from the University of New Mexico. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.
In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers.
The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.
Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation 
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