Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (and I’m Adrift in Space)

Chel Owens

Gender and sex and such are hot topics, and have been for the past …few thousand years. What -you haven’t heard of Pompeii? Ancient Greece? Today may not be as ‘woke’ and original as people assume, but defining male and female is not a popular place to go.

Yet, there are lines. An obviously major category-maker is one’s sex-defining parts. I can’t use a urinal, and my husband can’t grow a baby.

Dangit.

The differences do not remain within those parameters; but, as I said, these are not recommended waters for sailing. And yet, we all behave as if those differences are in place and are perfectly acceptable. Why?

Could it be that there are female traits? Male traits?

Girls are better students; they’re people-pleasers so they want to be good for their teacher. They’re able to sit still for a task and give it greater detail. They plan well, multi-task well, and improve their appearance well. Girls are good at communication and feelings -including hurting those feelings.

Boys are good at logic and focus; they get the job done and move on. Genetically stronger and hairier, they’re often suited for manual labor. In fact, their mechanically-inclined brains make manual labors easy to complete as well. They’re more physical and less emotional -including a desire to punch it out over talk it over.

But, but, but …exceptions!!

Yes, there are. Ever the square peg in the round hole, I chafe against being placed into any category I appear to be in. I’m sure others feel the same way. However, I wonder if any of them are, like me, living and behaving exactly as our sex is expected to.

Maybe the gray areas have always been, and the female/male attributes are simply a result of gray clusters.

Maybe women do talk more, cry more, and do that excited hand thing when they meet a friend.

Maybe men do talk less, cry less, and shift uncomfortably when their wives do that excited hand thing when they meet.

Why are we so afraid to say so? Do any of you feel the way I do, out in space and ashamed to step into place? What’s so bad about being a woman? What’s so bad about being a man?

—————-

Here’s what I wrote this week:

Wednesday, January 8: “My Other Half,” a post about my husband.

Thursday, January 9: Throwback to “C.S.I.,” a cliché within an enigma within a trope.

Friday, January 10: Let y’all know the winner of the 53rd “Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest:” Matt Snyder. Congratulations!

Saturday, January 11: Announced the 54th Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest. The theme is The Bleak Midwinter. PLEASE ENTER!

Sunday, January 12: “The Threshold of Their Lives,” in response to Carrot Ranch’s prompt.

Monday, January 13: An inspirational quote by Richard G. Scott.

Tuesday, January 14: “How to Have Kids When You’re Crazy” over at The Bipolar Collaborative Blog.

Also ish: a groggy poem, titled, “Poem?”

Wednesdayish, January 15: Today.

I also posted on my motherhood site. I wrote “What C-Section Recovery is Like” and “Fluent Minecraft.”

 

©2020 Chelsea Owens; except, of course, for those copyrights owned by almighty Disney.

34 thoughts on “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (and I’m Adrift in Space)”

  1. My experience – though limited – as a teacher: Give a group of boys a ball and tell them to go out and play and they will spend 90% of the time passionately arguing about the rules; give a group of girls a ball and as soon as there’s a disagreement about the rules they go off and do something else.

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    2. As a longtime elementary teacher, this is spot on, Bruce. 😎 Things change as kids get older, though. I taught grades 2-6 for thirty-one years. I generally preferred the girls through about 4th grade. While 5th and 6th-grade boys can be extremely competitive and love to argue during their games, one redeeming value was that they could let things go better than the girls at that same age level once recess was over. The girls tended to hold onto a grudge much longer.

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      1. I taught secondary for over 30 years (secondary in New Zealand is age 13-18) – I agree with the holding of grudges! But I will say this re Chelsea’s observation: a male will spend hours making the window frame perfect in its angles, and the first thing the female seems to do is hang soft drapes over it to hide the perfection.

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  4. Personally, I think it’s absurd that we must classify ourselves as male or female instead of just claiming to be human. And then I started thinking of the words female and male, realized Fe is the chemical symbol for iron, and then thought female must mean an iron male, so, really, females are stronger so why would anyone not want to be a female? Of course, my daughter kept me up late because she kept losing her pacifiers all night, so I’m a bit sleep deprived and maybe a little crazy.

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  5. I think gender roles are less defined with each passing generation. The traditional and conventional have given way to more progressive, nonjudgmental attitudes concerning the expectations of women and men.

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      1. You’re probably right. I do think that women are more independent. But they definitely still struggle against a very patriarchal, misogynistic, sexist culture.

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        1. I feel we need to fix that mindset in a different way than by breaking men’s kneecaps (metaphorically speaking). There’s got to be a way to accept and applaud differences, not say they make one sex above the other.

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  6. I love the differences between men and women. I have many guy friends who I like to hang out with, but then I have female friends that I tend to share my thoughts/feelings with more. As you say, Chelsea, there are always exceptions.

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  7. I tend to think some things are hard wired (with variations, of course) while some things are encouraged and or pushed by the society you grow up in. Some typical female things I’m not very good at while my husband is and vice versa. I’m encouraged to see female super hero toys dressed in pretty clothing in the girl’s toy section and to see a young boy model on a box for a cleaning toy play set.

    We should be free to be us but also valued for our differences and strengths, too. When we start plopping people into cages, and threatening them to fall in line, that’s when I begin to check out. And I definitely don’t think men are more logical: a brief history of humankind can wipe that one off the table.

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  8. It’s a difficult question to answer. How much is genetic and how much is environment? Did we get ‘less’ of the female genes if we aren’t froo-froo and prefer to hang out with guys than silly women? If a man is sensitive and good with children, did he not get enough ‘maleness’ installed into his makeup? Sometimes it is genetic, but sometimes it’s how they grew up, the influences they had and even who and what they chose to be. So it can’t all be blamed on genetics. I think what we’re seeing today is that more people are recognizing that the discussion isn’t quite so clear cut as we once thought it was.

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    1. True! I will say that I allowed my boys to play with an assortment of toys and that they gravitated toward the ‘big toys’ while eschewing the ‘girl’ ones. They are older and get told what to like and do these days, so my social experimenting cannot be made anymore. 😊

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  9. It’s all a very fascinating topic. I took a Women’s US History class for my degree and the reasons for the differences were, of course, brought up a whole lot. Socialization was definitely a huge factor, but there were some things that it doesn’t account for.

    Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with either. It’s really only a problem when we force people to fit the holes or boxes we want them to be in. (And that’s just my 2¢)

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  10. The biggest problem I see is that one gender is considered better than another. Same with amount of money and color of skin.

    We need to embrace and notice differences but don’t let the differences blind us to sameness.

    Everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.

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  11. I’ve thought about this a lot in the Biblical sense, in that I’ve tried to figure out what God really says about gender, expectations, etc., and my thoughts are that it’s awfully easy to come to the conclusion that God made women to be inferior. Churches everywhere tend to agree with that sentiment, and I can’t help but think there’s got to be a way to interpret it differently; do I really want to believe that God gave someone a brain, reasoning, and feelings, but that He’ll always want women to be second? That the body represents failings in the creation of the soul?

    And, conversely, if he created women’s souls to be equal, why do people on earth treat people in women’s bodies as inferior? That women should not be valued? That they should be barred from certain jobs, achievements, or positions, especially within his own following?

    I think I’m now in that area where I’m not sure what God’s done/doing, but I try to believe that He created us all equally in His image, because otherwise it just seems evil. But, simultaneously, I really can’t come up with even a *single* reason to want to be female. Periods? Blegh. Weakness in general? Blegh. Internal genitalia? A mess and expensive. Baby cooking? Looks painful. Why make women *exist* in such a terrible condition when he could have done literally *anything* else?

    Anyway, that’s my thoughts, and I hope I don’t get banned for jumping straight into the religion nonsense.

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  12. I think men and women are different, but they are also the same.. same work, same pay.. They can both wear blue or pink who cares but there is a urinal and one falls pregnant.. That is for a reason but we are still equals..

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