How Denying Difference Leads to Misguided Ideals of What Women & Men Should Be

Reading over my last post I found a doozy of a line:

"I see people holding the opposite sex to impossible standards. The idea of what a woman should be or a man should be becomes increasingly narrow. It is as though the fixation on the false idea of sameness has resulted in mass blindness, preventing people from recognizing the beauty in real women and men."


 What do I mean?


If we acknowledge that women and men feel differently, we can evaluate those differences. We can see that men really do have a tendency, say,  to judge women too much by their appearances alone. We can see that women really do tend, say,  to judge men by their status or power.


Once we recognize such a tendency, we can be on our guard against it.

In some ways I am lucky to be a man in culture so willing to criticize men. I am rarely allowed to forget the male tendency to fall for a younger woman, a woman with a good body, or just a pretty face. Whenever I feel attracted to a woman with any of these qualities I stop and ask myself, "Am I being 'typically male'?" Usually the answer is "yes." I'm on my guard. I think a little before acting and I'm better off for it.


Women in this regard aren't so lucky.  Because we live a culture where anyone who criticizes women is immediately labeled a "misogynist," most people wisely keep their mouths shut, even when criticism is due.   If more people just came out and said it, "Yes, a lot of women do have a tendency to go for men with power or status," maybe more women would stop and ask themselves, "Do I really like this guy? Or am I just drawn to him he's lead singer in the band?"
 
But fewer and fewer people are willing to admit that a lot of women have this problem. Instead, they retreat to the myth of sameness. They insist that women are attracted to a handsome face just as much as men are attracted to pretty one, that women are attracted to a sexy body just as much as men are, and even that men are attracted to status or power or success in a woman the same way women are attracted to such qualities in  men.

Pretend long enough that a problem doesn't exist, and a lot of people will believe it doesn't.

We end up with what we have today: many women who will not consider a man unless he has certain social or economic standing, a certain kind of power or status. When they cannot find a man with these qualities, they say, "All the good ones are married or gay," or they chalk it up to bad luck. It never occurs to them that they should reexamine their own standards and tastes because no one dares to question those standards and tastes anymore.


I'm not saying that men don't have their problems too. There are still plenty of guys out there who really want (or think they want) any woman with big breasts (real or not) and blonde hair (real or not). But we at least force such men to realize that they are being shallow and that they deserve the sort of women they wind up with.

Why Acknowledging Difference Matters

In my first post I said that the current, widespread denial of difference was making a lot of people miserable.

Strong words.  Does it really matter so much that so many people are pretending that women and men feel, think, and see the world alike?

In a word, Yes.

For one thing, the myth of sameness leaves young women unprepared for the reality of men. If a teenage girl starts dating actually believing that the boys she's going out with feel the same way she does about sex, she's going to be in for a rude awakening. Possibly she could be headed for real trouble.

And it's not fair to young men either. Imagine a teenage boy who's been brought up to actually believe that  woman will often make the first move, initiate sex, and expect no real commitment from him. That's going to be one disappointed boy. He's going think something must be the matter with him.

"But why aren't women coming up to me and leading me by the hand into their bedrooms the way they do on TV?" he'll ask himself. "Am I hideous? Does my breath stink? Am I saying something wrong?"

It's easy to laugh. But such disappointment can cause real pain to young men, especially when everyone around them keeps insisting that women feel basically the same as they do.

And young people aren't the only ones hurt by a lie.  I meet many adults who believe or claim to believe in the myth of sameness. 

I see women who hate men because they refuse to believe that men feel differently than they do about sex. 

I run into men who are full of hatred towards women because they refuse to accept that women want love and commitment.. As men, they can't get away with complaining the way women can, but inside they're seething.

Even more often I see people holding the opposite sex to impossible standards. The idea of what a woman should be or a man should be becomes increasingly narrow. It is as though the fixation on the false idea of sameness has resulted in mass blindness, preventing people from recognizing the beauty in real women and men. 

So yes, acknowledging difference between the feelings of women and men does matter. The lie of sameness is causing a great deal of pain.

Why I shouldn't be writing this blog, and why I am anyway

In general I am a non-political person, even apolitical. I cannot stand most political debates. Writing about politics tends to be even worse.  This is true not only of government politics, whether democrat or republican, but the politics of environment, race, class, religion, and sex, or what is nowadays called by the grammatical term, "gender."

If anything, "gender politics" is the worst of the bunch--absolutely unbearable. Whenever a feminist starts up about how we have been "socially conditioned" to believe this or that about women, or when member of the men's movement (if there can be said to be a "men's movement") says that men are "wired" to do this or that, usually in defense of despicable behavior, I stop listening. It's the same old argument.  It never leads anywhere. It's a big waste of time.

And yet I am starting a blog in defense of difference, the differences between women and men--differences  of desire, of thinking, of expectation, of ways of seeing.  I am entering the debate I loath. 

Why? Because we in the U.S. and Europe and increasingly other areas of the world are living in a culture that denies difference.  More and more, our writers, filmmakers, television and radio personalities, and just regular people are pretending that women and men feel the same about sex when we obviously don't.

That's another problem with this blog: I will often be pointing out the obvious, things that most people already know, if rarely admit.  I am afraid that the obvious will become very dull, very quickly. 

Still, I'm going to do it. I'm going to point out the many ways that women and men feel differently, post after post.  I'm going to point out again and again that the idea that we are the same is a lie. I am going to protest the lie of sameness because it is making so many people, women and men both, miserable.

I feel that I have to say these things because I hear almost no one saying them. I wish that someone else would. I'm a busy person. I have other things to be doing. I spend way too much time writing already. There is no way I will find the time or energy to say all that I have to say as clearly as it needs to be said.

If any of you out there know of anyone who is defending difference please, point him or her out to me.  I will stop posting immediately. I will become a devoted follower. I will be immensely relieved.

Until then, I'm writing in defense of difference.