One of the most common narratives portrayed in the media involves the clumsy husband or boyfriend who forgot his partner's birthday, or their anniversary, or even Valentine's Day. He flails frantically in an attempt to mask his lack of preparation, lest his partner discover how poor he is at remembering crucial and symbolic milestones. Whether or not he succeeds, hilarity generally ensues, and the stereotype of the careless, insensitive male is further cemented in popular culture. Indeed, the general population expresses the belief that women have better memories than men, and it is difficult to say whether this recurring theme in entertainment is a product of this belief, or whether it is the influence that has led to the widespread belief that women are better at remembering (Knox 1; Loftus et al. 19). In any case, research has shown that this universal notion can only be partially validated; While women are generally superior when it comes to long-term memory and aspects of short-term memory such as multitasking and remembering faces, men excel in other areas that require equally high short-term memory capacity (" Sex differences in memory"; Knox 3; Short-term memory (STM) is defined by Revlin as the system that facilitates the successful performance of "moment-to-moment" activities, such as mentally retaining shopping lists and remembering numbers by telephone (119). As the name suggests, STM describes the compartment of the human mind that can only hold a certain amount of information - about 7 unrelated items - for about 18 seconds at a time (Revlin 120-125 is referring to the mechanical component of the STM). which is not about memorization as “working memory…center of paper…Works Cited by the Association for Psychological Science.”“Sexual Differences in Memory: Women Are Better than Men at Remembering” Events newspapers." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, February 21, 2008. .Baddeley, A.D. “Working Memory: An Overview.” Working Memory and Education (2006): 1- 31. Knox, Richard, et al. "Gender-Based Short-Term Memory." Pennsylvania: Penn State University (2007). Loftus, Elizabeth F., et al. "Who remembers what? Gender differences in memory." Michigan Quarterly Review 26 (1987): 64-85. Revlin, Russell. "Short-term memory and working memory." Cognition: theory and practice. New York, NY: Worth Publishers, 2013. 118-149 Print.Speck, Oliver, et al. "Gender differences in the functional organization of the brain for working memory". 11.11 (2000): 2581-2585.