I agree in general, but with a slightly different take on the reasons why. In speaking with my wife, for years there would be minor but frustrating arguments, in which I was at fault, for not understanding. And for years, I tried, but didn’t get it. I finally explained to her that I was willing to understand, but I had to be TOLD in words, that I wasn’t getting the hints and clues.
And she was flabbergasted! For her, growing up, she was always taught how to listen to the subtext, or to know what was expected from hints that flew riiiight over my head. And when she interacted with other women, the majority of the time, they DID pick up on these things. We male ape types just assume everything is fine unless you tell us!
So yeah, they’re much better at reading us than we are at reading them. But it doesn’t help that they have different expectations on how communication should work. Now I still have to own up to my gaffs and flaws, but she is responsible for communicating in words as well. Much better for all.
Mrs Piper and I have often had discussions about certain issues, actions of men and actions fo women, through the lens of what we call “boy world” and “girl world”.
“Boy world” is how guys react to particular issues, inter-personal relations, etc.
“Girl world” is how gals react to those same issues, inter-personal relations, etc.
More than once, Mrs Piper has ended a discussion by saying “Boy world is much simpler.”
This, along with what other people have said.
The non-dominant class always knows more about the dominant class than vice versa. In the US, black people know more about whites than vice versa. Because it is necessary information, to stay safe, to not incur humiliation, violence, or whatever. Similar is true for women vis a vis men. Whites and men can blithely ignore how the other half thinks.
Also true that women tend to have (and to need) a lot more social skills than men do. Probably innately. The world is designed for men to succeed in, not women. Probably if women were the dominant class men would have to pay a lot more careful attention to how to do this “sensitive social dynamics of the group” thing.
There’s also the issue where men are socialized to be less open with their emotions that women, and less introspective about those emotions. I believe that, the more in tune you are with your own emotions, the easier it is to see them in others (unless your own emotions get too intense and they are all you can see). It seems to me that reading body language has a lot to do with modeling how the person would feel if they were using the same body language. And having an idea of your emotions gives someone a lot of insight.
That said, I do think this is one of those things that is seeming to become less true. Guys are being allowed to be more empathetic, which deals with what I said. Women are being treated more and more as equals, which helps with some of the other stuff. And we’re just generally starting to not be so strictly gender segregated in how the different genders are socialized.
Still, to some degree, women are socialized as the peacemaker, who must to be aware of both her own emotions and those of others, while men are still to some degree socialized to bury their emotions.
Such bullshit.
The great humourist Dave Barry has written a number of articles and, indeed, an entire book (Dave Barry’s Guide to Guys) on the subject. The truth of the above, and hence the truth of the OP, is well illustrated by a little parody he constructed. As near as I can remember, it goes something like this.
A guy is out on a date with his steady girlfriend, and she happens to mention that as of this date they had been seeing each other for six months. The guy lapses into a thoughtful silence. The girl carries on a long internal monologue with herself, wondering if he’s feeling pressured or confined, if he has doubts about where the relationship is going, if he has qualms about marriage and raising a family. What the guy is actually thinking is this: six months! Six months means it’s been that long since I had the transmission fixed, and this thing is still shifting like a goddam garbage truck. I’m taking it in tomorrow and giving those thieving bastards a piece of my mind!
These things are a spectrum. Some would say women are slightly more observant, are more complex, are more emotionally aware or have friends who give more meaningful feedback about their situation. These things are not always true, but I would agree with the claim in very general terms.
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.
In other words, she didn’t catch your subtle clues that you weren’t getting it, but had to be TOLD, in words, that you weren’t getting it. Maybe men and women both use subtle clues, but they’re just different subtle clues.
Another factor: Most media is created by men. You can learn about how men think by watching movies made by men, or listen to songs written by them, or read books by men, and so on. You can also learn about women by consuming art produced by women… but there isn’t as much of it.
Boy world is dependent on girl world, IME. If women weren’t responsible for the whole socio-emotional parts of family life, both within the immediate family and in the family’s interactions with others, boy world couldn’t function, or would be lacking in things that are valued.
Me when women friends would tell me how something made them feel: “yeah, I understand what you mean.”
Me when someone tells me a woman has been trying all afternoon to get me to notice her: “What are you talking about? I haven’t seen her do anything.”
Why then wouldn’t the boys be equally worried that their girlfriends came to their sports event to look at other boys?
Yeah I agree thats part of it.
But I think many women oversimplify men. And when things happen like a guy in a relationship with an attractive girl doesn’t want to have sex with her anymore, she can’t figure out why because shes been told that men are obsessed with sex for example when its more nuanced than that.
Well, for one thing, we’re all socialized to think that boys who like to look at other girls besides their girlfriend are just normal healthy males, while girls who like to look at other boys besides their boyfriend are sluts.
When you stop to think about it, though, you notice that the guy is also having a long internal monologue with himself, which is cognitively and emotionally significant.
He’s thinking about something that’s emotionally important to him—namely, the functioning of his car transmission—even though it hasn’t been explicitly brought to his attention. He’s focusing on his dissatisfaction with the situation, he’s feeling anger, and he’s planning the ways he’s going to express his anger and his dissatisfaction to prompt a resolution.
Being emotionally invested in the functioning of his car transmission is something that most men are encouraged to consider normal and properly “manly”. Being emotionally invested in empathizing with his girlfriend’s thoughts and feelings, when she doesn’t explicitly demand his attention to them, is not.
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 (with a subtext of finding the petty flimsy superficial dumb mentality of women to be rather beneath their notice), implies that they’re properly masculine and non-wussyish.
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.
No argument from me.
Besides, I’m too busy looking at the offensive lines’ butts.
Totally agree with this.
???
“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.”