Men may swear more and talk more, but in conversations between the sexes it is women who win out. Barbara Smith (16), Sinead Fagan (15) and Laura Daly (15), three students from Hartstown Community School in Blanchardstown, Dublin, tested 64 students in gender-balanced sample groups of four to examine gender communication as part of their project for the Esat Telecom Young Scientists Exhibition.
The testers found that the males swore three times as much as the females but that the females still controlled the conversation and were better at manipulating its direction. "They make more decisions, even though the males talk more than the females," said Laura Daly.
Anyone hoping that this finding represented an aberration in otherwise exemplary male behaviour would have been sorely disappointed by the male attitudes to marriage discovered by three students from Summerhill College, Athlone, Co Roscommon.
Brigina Crowe (15), Edel Lennon (16) and Michelle Ganly (16) questioned 150 young people between 15 and 17 about their attitudes to the institution. Twenty per cent of male respondents believed that women should not work outside the home, compared with 3 per cent of females.
Most disturbing of all, 39 per cent of males believed fidelity was not essential to a successful marriage, which could mean that there will be a lot of unhappy couples in Athlone in 10 years' time.
With men behaving in this way, it is hardly surprising that women are suffering from depression. Katherine Harkin (15) and Elaine Mears (15) conducted three surveys of the illness among adolescent males and females, including one of almost 600 young people.
"There's this myth that adolescents have moods, that they are just moody, when they may actually have personality problems, which could be dangerous, or even fatal," said Katherine Harkin.
The students found that depression peaked in exam years but there were major differences between the sexes, including higher levels of depression and low self-image among females.
Males had motivational problems and complained of boredom, which could go some way towards explaining that male propensity towards infidelity.