# Men are primitive. Women are complex. Origin of this reasoning? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 28, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051 "2004-11-28T23:20:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/41 "2004-11-30T22:04:20Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I’m actually surprised no one caught this: > > Males are ‘generally smarter’ than females? Nobody caught it because it never happened. You made that quote up. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/42 "2004-12-01T00:05:29Z")
here’s my two-fold take on the origins of this meme. the first is a rather freudian take. in general, a female orgasm is a much more difficult and complex thing than a male orgasm. men don’t have much more intense or much less intense orgasms, they don’t have multiple orgasms, and it is generally more difficult (an admittedly subjective term, but bear with me) to “get” a woman “off”. if you take the view that human sexual relations pervade all human relations, it is quite a short hop to believe that men are simple and women are complex. other than that, i believe it is a bit of social conditioning, going back as far as the concept of a wife goes. a common belief is that the most powerful person in the kingdom is not the king, but his chief advisor. when men dominate society outwardly, and that chief advisor is the wife, the way women gain social power is by manipulating men. thus, where men acted as the controlling members of society outside the home, women looked to control the men inside the home. this was their only means of having any say in the goings-on of society. thus, we have a lack of balance in manipulation in the heterosexual relationship, and the women, seeming more manipulative, get branded as complex. note: i just made both of these things up, but they do seem to have a ring of truth to them, don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/43 "2004-12-01T00:19:04Z")
Let’s face it: when it comes to this particular subject, the word “complex” is a euphamism for “moody” which is itself a euphamism for “on the rag.” The “complexity” of women derives from stereotypical attitudes about their emotional frailty and supposed susceptibility to all sorts of emotional distresses, not to mention the claimed montly alerations of mood (which actually the scientific jury is still out on the existence of for most normal women). ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/44 "2004-12-01T02:57:39Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > To answer the OP directly, I think its one of those urban (or pre-urban I suppose) myths, that women are more ‘complex’ and men are more ‘primitive’. You can find LOTS of examples of men being complex and women being primitive and vice versa. PEOPLE are both complex and simple, are both primitive and sophisticated…and are infinitely varied between these and other categories…and such variety crosses gender and ‘ethnic’ boundaries all the time defying anyone trying to categorize or pigeonhole people into neat little boxes. I think trying to shoehorn ANY large group of hominids into any one category like this is an excersize in fantasy. I hope you’re right. But I’d like to see you try to sell a publisher on _that_ as the basis for a pop psychology book. My concern is that if enough people believe a myth, then it might as well be true, because the rest of us are probably just going to have to live with it. Example: “complex” men are “unmanly.” (Case in point: John Kerry, who in reality is probably less complex AND less unmanly than his opponents portrayed him. The man lost, the myth won.) ---
**Author:** ![cuauhtemoc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cuauhtemoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuauhtemoc)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/45 "2004-12-01T19:59:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > In any case, the “men simple, women complicated” theme in my experience is invoked at least as much by men as by women. If I were cynical, I might think that there was some strategy in this: a man who says that women are too complex for men to understand is a man who has just excused himself from having to try to understand them. This is an excellent insight into why a man might declare that women are more complex than men. But why might a man insist that men are simple and uncomplicated? I believe it is often a defense mechanism. If I convince you that I don’t have any complex feelings or thoughts, you won’t try to find out what they are, and I won’t have to share them with you. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/46 "2004-12-01T20:20:31Z")
Men also feel social pressures: • to be decisive and assertive • to be a doer, not a thinker or a dreamer • to be more physical than emotional or intellectual …all of which are basically “simple” (or even “primitive”) characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/47 "2004-12-01T21:41:08Z")
> [@pokey](#): > > I think Joseph Campbell could do a special about this Yeah, if he hadn’t died in 1987 … ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/48 "2004-12-01T21:48:45Z")
> [@Ramanujan](#): > > men … don’t have multiple orgasms Not true. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/49 "2004-12-01T21:52:44Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Nobody caught it because it never happened. You made that quote up. I didnt make it up Rick, that how I read it (and still read it btw). I appologize for putting my interperatation in quotes…that was a mistake. -XT ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/50 "2004-12-01T22:35:09Z")
The originally saying was, “Men are rational, women are irrational” ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051/51 "2004-12-02T02:38:39Z")
See I think it’s just a crock. Men can be and are just as complex as women. However, men are not encouraged to show that complexity on the surface (at least around where I live). The perception moulds the action which reinforces the stereotype. Take my father for example. On the surface he looks very much like every other beer-drinking, football watching suburbanite husband in middle age. His requests and overt needs are simple. Thus, we would assume he himself to be a simple creature. This is not so. He treats me as something between a son, a friend, and a psychiatrist so I see a side others don’t. He worries about deep issues, thinks about his own emotions and the emotions of others, often can go too far in overanalyzing a situation for hidden meanings. This is not a simple beast driven by simple passions. I would say men, if stripped of sentience, would indeed be simple creatures driven by simple impulses. However, we were given brains that cut just as deep as a woman’s, a brain that can think just as hard as a woman… and a heart that can get just as tangled up in complicated relationships. The human animal can never be categorized as simple. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/men-are-primitive-women-are-complex-origin-of-this-reasoning/277051.md?page=2)