Who's Right...Men Or Women?

Blog # 10

Who's Right... Men or Women?

There is a very funny joke I heard recently that is not only hilarious but also instructive to how we may perceive our reality. Here goes... If a man is alone in the woods, says something and a women isn't around to hear him; will he still be wrong?

This joke shows us the natural conflict of opposing values between men and women. There really is a difference in how each gender views the world. Occasionally, men and women have opposing viewpoints, right? Haha, of course they do. They call it 'The Battle of the Sexes.'

We could substitute the man and the women in this joke and still get the same result. A big difference is that the men usually don't voice their opinions as much as women do, so it may seem that men don't make women out to be wrong as often as women make their men wrong. Wrong! Men think that women's thoughts and feelings are not as logical and rational as men's. But women know that that way of thinking is wrong!

A man’s women folk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit

and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin

to pity. His most gaudy sayings and doings seldom deceive them; they see the

actual man within, and know him for a shallow and pathetic fellow.

—H. L. Mencken

Men, by nature and inherent temperaments are more likely to be thinkers. Most men have experienced the results of voicing their perceived rational opinions to their women and many times this has hurt their woman's feelings. It turns out that their rational opinion wasn't appropriate to the woman's feelings. Then the man has to go through the arduous process of reconciliation. I have gone through that so many times that I have learned to keep my mouth shut as much as possible. I have found that it is the only logical thing to do.

Women by their nature and inherent temperaments are run by their feelings. Their emotions seem to be much more accessible than a man's. Feelings and emotions can trump thinking and reason any day of the week, so women can usually ultimately win a verbal battle over their men, even if the man was correct in their thinking. Human beings are emotional creatures and are ruled by their emotions. Every choice we make is a result of an internal emotional hierarchy of values.

Women could be called the superior sex by the fact that their emotions are much more influential in their actions than men. After all, we already stated that human beings are emotional beings. But there is a caveat in thinking this way. So many of our emotions have been shown to be written in our genetics. That could be interpreted that our emotions are there without any choice. Our responses are also without choice. We could be living on a pre-scripted autopilot pathway. That could be good in some situations and very bad in others.

Without mastering our emotions, the very essence of the human condition, we are merely slaves to the whims and fancies of external circumstance. As a result we can rationalize that we are victimized by our external circumstances. It can become easy to blame someone else or something else for our current condition, like it’s my spouse’s fault every time we get into a fight. That doesn't bode well for relationships.

I have an idea that the phrase ‘weaker sex’ was coined by some woman

to disarm the man she was preparing to overwhelm.

—Ogden Nash

Men, the so called weaker sex, don't have the emotional capacities of women but they do have something that is a key element of being human. Like I mentioned, most men by nature are more thinking or rational than are women. It is rational thought that can help one to gain control over our emotions if they are not getting the results we are looking for.

The escalations of emotions when there is conflict can only be thwarted when cool heads prevail. Logic and reason have to step in and put out the fire sometimes. Men should be able to perform this task better than women just because of their internal capabilities.

So who is right, men or women? I think that is probably not the best way to look at our divisions. I believe that the union of a man and a women working together in harmony is the best we can achieve in this life. After all, it takes these two to create another human being. That is a bit more than symbolic in my opinion.