# "Women know men better than men know women" - true? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 11, 2021, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861 "2021-05-11T19:16:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/41 "2021-05-12T02:27:04Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > You beat me to it, dammit. ([But I found the link.](https://www.unige.ch/~gander/california/relation.html)) Ha! Thanks for finding that. It’s infinitely more eloquent than my feeble memory, besides exposing the inadequacies of my recollections! 😃 Well worth a read! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/42 "2021-05-12T02:37:53Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > The proverbial argument about what to have for dinner is another area like this. I still can’t figure out my wife on this issue. When I say I’m up for anything, I mean that. Burgers, pizza, Chinese food, sushi, pasta, whatever. It could be going out to eat, take out, or cooking at home. My wife will say the same thing, and then proceed to shoot down my first three or four suggestions. Anything BUT burgers. Anything BUT burgers or tacos. Anything BUT burgers or tacos or Chinese food. At that point I usually tell her “If you don’t pick something, the next thing I pick goes.” At that point she does eventually decide on something, because if she doesn’t she knows I’ll pick Little Caeser’s pizza, which I love but she hates. Try this: _Guess where I’m taking you to dinner tonight._ If she even cooperates and makes a guess, tell her she’s right. Then go there. Unless it’s Little Caesar’s. That stuff sucks. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/43 "2021-05-12T02:47:53Z")
Actually, I should have looked for a better link. The original piece ended where Roger asks his friend if Elaine ever owned a horse. Everything after that is someone else’s addition. [Here’s a better link.](http://www.csr.utexas.edu/personal/amy/joke7.html) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/44 "2021-05-12T02:52:31Z")
Thanks again! I urge everyone to read that article. It is a work of art! 🙂 Yeah, I’m a big fan of Dave Barry. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/45 "2021-05-12T03:14:40Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Unless it’s Little Caesar’s. That stuff sucks. Their deep dish is good. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/46 "2021-05-12T03:28:16Z")
How do they manage that? Do they make the crust with none of their dough? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/47 "2021-05-12T03:31:01Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > “Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls > Would scarcely get your feet wet. > Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.” > [@](#): > > Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, > Enwrought with golden and silver light, > The blue and the dim and the dark cloths > Of night and light and the half light, > I would spread the cloths under your feet: > But I, being poor, have only my dreams; > I have spread my dreams under your feet; > Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/48 "2021-05-12T03:39:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Thanks again! I urge everyone to read that article. It is a work of art! It is a hilarious article, and Barry is a very funny writer. But it illustrates perfectly what I was saying about men not really being “simpler”, or “clueless”, or incapable of understanding or feeling emotions. It’s just that the conventional definition of masculinity is very closely tied in with investing a lot of attention and emotion into things that are coded “masculine”, like car maintenance and random sports events on TV, and ignoring or dismissing things that are coded “feminine”, like what a woman is thinking or feeling. As Barry writes, > [@](#): > > […] when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of chips, turns on the tv and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czech players he never heard of. A tiny voice in his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he figures it’s better not to think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/49 "2021-05-12T03:55:17Z")
I agree with the claim but OTOH I would still say women don’t understand men as well as other men do, and women can overestimate how much they understand men. I remember watching the TV sitcom _Peep Show_ with a couple of female friends, and they asked me, quite earnestly, whether men actually have insecurities like the characters in the show (in the show you get to hear the two main characters’ inner thoughts). Yes, yes they do. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/50 "2021-05-12T04:32:12Z")
On a personal level, I understand women a _helluva_ lot more than I understand men. At least, I relate to women better. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/51 "2021-05-12T06:13:08Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I think the lower-class person always watches the upper-class person more than vice versa > [@Ulfreida](#): > > The non-dominant class always knows more about the dominant class than vice versa. I would phrase this more overtly as “the oppressed knows the oppressor better …” but otherwise this is my answer too. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/52 "2021-05-12T07:22:37Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It’s not that men are really intrinsically simpler or easier to understand than women. It’s that men are socialized to think that presenting themselves as unable to understand women, or having more interesting things to think about than the interior lives of women In the example given it also seems like the woman has completely disregarded aspects of the interior life of her partner. Is the emotional concern of the woman automatically of more worth than the emotional concern of the man? Seems pretty arrogant to assume that the long silence should be about her. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/53 "2021-05-12T07:55:19Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > There are various reasons that marriage on average improves men’s happiness more than women’s, and one of them is that married men get a partner who’s socialized to pay attention to how they feel and soothe their emotional upsets, while married women get a partner who’s socialized to ignore their feelings and trivialize their importance. > > The false self-deprecation of pretending that men are just naturally “simpler”, or naively unable to understand the superior complexity of women, is just patriarchal society’s way of sugarcoating this traditional offloading of emotional-labor responsibilities from men onto women. My wife and I have a saying we use with each other frequently, which touches on this point. ‘I’m so glad I’m gay’. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/54 "2021-05-12T08:11:21Z")
Agreed, the power discrepancy i a major part of the answer. In effect that is what Hegel called the ‘master-slave’ dialectic. It works with women and with non-white people: the consequences of not being able to read tiny signals are severe, so you learn to read them. But I feel that the phenomenon has multiple causes which strengthen each other. As mentioned by @Chronos, a lot of the media was historically created mainly by (white) men and thereby a lot of their viewpoint is represented and well-known (a related topic is the ‘male gaze’). I find it very interesting how this has changed in the last decade or so. We see a far more nuanced picture in female-produced media. Thirdly, @Kimstu and others pointed out that there is a socialization process at work which is reenforced by a patriarchal society. I have read varying reports whether there is also a innate component at work, but as far as I understand, this would at best be that the proportion of men who have more difficulty in empathizing is somewhat larger than among women, it is not a completely opposite issue. The experience of women suffering from autism shows that socialization is more important. Similarly the experience of non-whites shows that reading others is certainly not impossible for men. But I’d like to point out that the ‘knowledge’ of women about men is limited as well. Things which are not represented in media and relate to interaction of men amongst themselves tend to be ignored by women. This supports that a lot of the knowledge mentioned is due to media representation and power imbalance. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/55 "2021-05-12T08:32:10Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > ?? ? If we’re accepting the stereotype (which I don’t, but let’s go with it), the logic is something like this: If woman wants fries, she can’t simply order them. Perhaps she has her image in mind, or even her self-image–she doesn’t want to think of herself as the kind of person that would order something as unhealthy as fries. Nevertheless, she wants them. Of course, she can’t simply ask her partner to order fries for her–that would be too obvious. She can’t even ask if he wants to share an order. But she can ask if he was planning on ordering fries, even–or especially–if he wasn’t already planning on doing so. Even if the man gets the hint, he’s put in a bind. He can’t just order fries plus whatever he already wanted, because again that would be too obvious. He can’t even properly split the fries, because the woman really wanted the full order. He’s obligated to eat a few of the fries, to demonstrate that it was really his order, and that she is just snacking on a few, but essentially he has to do without a side dish. However, the fries have to remain on his plate. If the woman wants ketchup, she can ask the man if he usually has ketchup with his fries. If she wants salt, she can ask about his blood pressure. (As it happens, I know dudes that are just as obtuse and non-literal as the hypothetical woman here. But this is what **QuickSilver** and **JohnT** were getting at, I think.). ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/56 "2021-05-12T08:54:45Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > “Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls > Would scarcely get your feet wet. > Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.” “Strive, at all times, to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.” For those not in the know, have a look: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ey6ugTmCYMk/hqdefault.jpg "Deteriorata") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey6ugTmCYMk) ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/57 "2021-05-12T09:11:11Z")
Yes. I understand all that. My **???** was for this exchange: > [@JohnT](#): > > It means she wants to share, of course. Followed by QuickSilver disagreeing, but agreeing? It made no sense: > [@QuickSilver](#): > > No. It means she wants you to share your fries. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/58 "2021-05-12T09:19:59Z")
A literal person might ask the other if they’re getting fries, and if the answer is yes then suggest they get an order and split it. A less than literal person might ask that, with the expectation that the other person order the fries and then share them. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/59 "2021-05-12T09:44:32Z")
Authors of both fiction and nonfiction’s livelihoods depend on getting their characters accurately. We can dispense with women writers whose male characters are depicted by Fabio on the covers, and focus on women writers who sincerely want three-dimensional male characters. Virginia Woolf wasn’t interested in this but was still a great author. Doris Lessing’s _One off the Short List_ has a male who’s a sexually predatory creep, but still limned in greater depth than his cohorts would be later in the MeToo era. Edith Wharton understood the particulars of the male psyche, both good and sad, in _Ethan Fromme._ As far as how men angle for power and wield it, Hilary Mantel had a good read on it in _Wolf Hall,_ as has Peggy Noonan and Molly Ivins in current affairs. The point being that women are completely capable or gimlet-eyed insight into male behavior from its roots on up, but only if motivated to put in the effort. A bit more to it than “he likes sex and sportsball, and if he doesn’t get them he is angry.” ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2021, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861/60 "2021-05-12T12:48:09Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > A literal person might ask the other if they’re getting fries, and if the answer is yes then suggest they get an order and split it. A less than literal person might ask that, with the expectation that the other person order the fries and then share them. Oh thank god for you. Here I was starting to think (again) that I’m simply screaming into an empty void. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/women-know-men-better-than-men-know-women-true/941861.md?page=4)