Men are from Mars - Women are from Venus
Ok, Fish Report readers. Last week at the end of my blogpost about the recent Mars landing, I ended by suggesting my next blog in would be about the book entitled, “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”.
Gray's book, a guide to "understanding the opposite sex," was published in 1992. It became a phenomenon, selling 9.5 million copies and spinning off a string of sequels and even an advice website: marsvenus.com
My wife bought the book for Christmas back then, so I read the first couple chapters and gave up after the material seemed to be repeating itself. It was like the author took the first chapter and replicated it using different synonyms and sentence structures. Likely that was by design so the same message repeated multiple times would finally sink in. Needless to say, my wife clearly feels it hasn’t. But what do you expect from an engineer (me) and an art major (her).
Perhaps I was inspired by the above sculpture on my college campus entitled Orbits of Isaac by Michael Dunbar that supposedly makes a strong statement about the connection between engineering, design and the arts. Anyway, we’ve been happily married 46 years so something inspires us!
After googling the title of the book, a ton of anecdotal minutia came up, so I asked my wife to go through the material and pick those that seemed to apply to me. Here they are:
“Men need to remember that when women seem upset and talk about problems is not the time to offer solutions; instead she needs to be heard, and gradually she will feel better on her own.”
Women are like waves: their moods will shift, so ride the wave rather than holding her in one spot.
"Men want space while women want understanding.”
“Men mistakenly expect women to think, communicate, and react the way men do; women mistakenly expect men to feel, communicate, and respond the way women do.”
Ok, so here are the anecdotes that best apply to her:
“You’re always trying to fix your husbands, but what if he’s from another planet?”
"There is a rigid gender binary predetermined by our brain chemistry.”
"If we can understand our differences in a positive way and challenge our assumptions whenever we have a negative feeling, our relationships will be much better.”
Maybe I ought to dig out the book and start reading - and re-reading - and re-reading!
Since the holidays fall on Tuesdays this year, my blog will be put on hiatus until January 8th. Until then, Fish Report readers, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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