More than a few times, I've encountered men who think that women are, in some significant way, more imaginative than men. Why do they think that? Where does this belief come from?
Perhaps we should consider the character of the man who states women are more imaginative than men. I think you'll find that this man is an escapist. This isn't someone who values pure reason, nor the scientific method. His prerogative is feeling good. And what better way is there to feel good than the imagination? An artistic display of bright colors, smiling cartoons of happy, silly animals, music, crystal healing, astral bodies, magic, angels, faeries, elves, psychic abilities, this stuff runs on imagination, and it makes people feel good.
This kind of man finds that women are more tolerant and accepting of the things he uses to escape reality. He might let a lady friend, Brenda, in on his esoteric, new age insights, and she finds his view completely fascinating and attractive. But later this same man will share his spiritual views with one of his more skeptical male friends, Freddy, and to his displeasure he finds Freddy coldly shoots down his weakly reasoned spiritual views. He thinks to himself, "the reason Brenda accepted my views was because she is more imaginative. Poor Freddy just isn't imaginative enough!"
Imagination can sometimes be used as a way to escape harsh truths, inconvenient facts and the pain of empirical uncertainty, and this is mostly the extent of a feminine persons relationship to imagination.
It's my contention that women, generally speaking, and feminine men, place a greater demand on imagination. This is different than actually being imaginative, obviously.
The feminine is more reliant on sensual and emotional oriented imagination, in the same way they are more reliant on shiny, colorful ornaments and any stimulant that puts them in their desired mood.
The masculine, on the other hand, is often more inclined to limit itself to laws, rules, facts and logic. This does not mean they are less imaginative, in fact, their imagination soars to amazing feats of technological and theoretical innovation. This is why almost all men are the inventors of this world. Their imagination has great depth and dimension. Man is not less imaginative than woman, the difference here is that he doesn't use his imagination to escape, but to discover and create. The feminine is looking to escape, hide, and to consume, and so naturally a feminine person is going to give off the illusion that they are more in tune with the imagination.
They are really just more inclined to live in a fantasy. And men who want to live in fantasy will see great virtue in the feminine, to their souls peril.