Why Men Don’t Listen.....
(and women can’t read maps.....)By Barbara & Allan Pease Paperback ed. Broadway Books, 2001.
That’s the title of a book my true love gave to me along with with a meaningful smile as if to say “Read this and you’ll know why you drive me crazy!”. And she was absolutely right. In no time at all I understood why I could never get away with anything. Why every low belly rumble, surreptitious breaking of wind (while praying for silence), and any covert scratching of my nether regions is instantly perceived and denounced. I saw why it is that every little white lie I’m foolish enough to attempt always produces the scornful comment “...., you’re such a lousy liar. I can read your face like a book. I always know, so why bother?” I also found out why I have a hard time doing more than one thing at a time, like listening to my Beloved when I’m relaxing over my morning tea reading my Herald Trib.
All in all, this book is a marvelously wise and funny piece of pop-psychology, which every man and woman living together should read. It might just release them from the real antagonisms that habit and familiarity can breed. If you can see with some humour why your partner is condemned by gender and a few million years of biological breeding to be a certain way; that it isn’t just sheer selfishness or unthinking perversity on their part that makes them behave in ways that seem designed to offend you, then I think there could be a lot more happy and longer lasting relationships around. After all people seldom change, but perceptions can and do.
The Way We Were......
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, men and women lived happily together and worked in harmony. The man would venture forth each day into a hostile and dangerous world to risk his life as a hunter to bring back food to his woman and their children, and he would defend them against savage animals or enemies. He developed the long distance if not tunnel vision along with the other necessary skills to do the job - and that was all that was expected of him. The rest of the time he could happily hang out, look at the stars and tell stories without fear or criticism. There was never any need for him to “analyze the relationship”and he wasn’t expected to put out the garbage or help change the diapers. The man was appreciated and the woman felt valued because her man would put his life on the line to care for his family. Her role was just as clear. Being the childbearer directed the way she would evolve and how her skills would become specialised to meet that role. She a much broader peripheral vision needed to monitor her immediate surroundings for signs of danger and have a highly tuned ability to sense small changes in the behaviour or appearance of children and adults. He was the lunch chaser, she was the nest defender and nurturer. Survival was difficult, but the relationship was easy. And this was the way it was for hundreds of thousands of years. But in the last 12,000 years things changed quite a bit.....
It isn’t so much that this book tells you things you didn’t already know, or even why certain things are the way they are. Anyone who has read Desmond Morris on the subject of the Naked Ape won’t be surprised by much here. But what this book does that is so valuable is to put it all in a context that is very easy for us to apply directly in our own relationships. For example, I am now much more understanding of various of my partners reactions to some of my habits, whereas before they may have seemed to me unreasonable, irrational and/or excessive. In turn I dare to hope that such manly ‘failings’ as I possess will be viewed in a similar understanding light....(Hey! A book like this works both ways, you know.....)
Are Men Congenitally Disadvantaged....?
Men and women getting on with one another, because they understand each other as a gender a bit better and can bring some humour to bear on the interaction is a great idea, but I can’t help wondering what the future holds in store for us? I mean, quite apart from their reproductory function and related embellishments, women seem so awesomely equipped, what with 360 degree radar, Mensa-level EQ and intuition honed to ESP-pitch.
We men are often being urged to lay down the shining Apollonian sword of intellect and logic and relate, feel not think. It’s an attractive prospect in many ways. Who of us hasn’t noticed how quickly and deeply women seem to understand and support each other and not envied that quality? It’s a nice idea but I don’t fancy our chances. We’d be as vulnerable as new born babes and not half as appealing. We’re just not sufficiently equipped and that ain’t going to change any time soon. Lay down logic and linear thinking, and what remains to us? Besides, I’ve noticed that a lot of women are no slouches at picking up the Sword of Logos as well as wielding a ferocious EQ ability honed over aeons. So where would that leave us? Uh-uh, I don’t think so. I may be a man but I’m not that stupid.
I don’t think it is that misogynists really hate women. I reckon they are just sensitive souls who don’t understand them, can’t bear to see them unhappy and feel so bad around them when they are upset (which seems to them a lot), simply because they just don’t know what to do about it. So they opt out altogether and avoid women like the plague. An excessive but understandable reaction. It’s hard for a man to retain equilibrium and stay engaged with a woman when she’s unhappy or dissatisfied as nothing seems to be right. On the other hand, who amongst us men has not basked in the sunshine of feminine approval when things do seem to go aright?
What’s in store for us?
The New Age concept that the polarities of masculine and feminine will find a new and more appropriate balance in the millennia to come is an attractive idea right enough but in all but the most superficial aspects it would have to take a few million years, based on results so far at any rate. The essential aspects of gender are wrapped deep in our limbic brains and it’s taken 5 million years to get us this far.
Of course the way the world is going we might find the old hunter gatherer talents might stand us in good stead and that would sort out our gender roles pretty much. Not so long ago an old Aboriginal friend from Australia’s Central Desert remarked to me, “yer know, we’ve learned a thing or two from you blokes, not all of it bad, but from what I can see of the mess you mob are making of things, I reckon we’re right to stick with the old ways. Don’t rightly know what you blokes’ll do tho’....“, he added giving me a quizzical but not unsympathetic look. It’s not hard to imagine a not-too-distant Mad Max future when his words may come back to haunt us.
But for now, since the essential aspects of the masculine and feminine are unlikely to change in any meaningful timeframe, this modest little book has a big message. Let’s accept that men and women are wired different and bring some humour and understanding to bear rather than taking it all so personally. A little space usually helps.
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Why Men Don’t Listen.....
And Women Can’t Read Maps”
How we’re different & what to do about it.
