ext_124728 ([identity profile] sarahmichigan.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] sarahmichigan 2005-06-15 10:39 am (UTC)

One person said: Women and men are more alike than they are different.

A second person said: If we're so alike, why do men have such a hard time figuring out what women are thinking?

A third person said: Because men are stupid.

A fourth person said: Wrong. Let's ask a different question, why don't LESBIANS understand what women are thinking.

This is when I chimed in. Basically, I was saying that the whole cultural idea that mean and women don't or can't understand one another is silly and overblown. If you know a few things about human nature, it's not that hard to figure out people's motivations or why they do what they do. I said I have a hard time, in general, understanding the motivations of people who are unlike me, but it has little to do with gender.

I do believe that some of our male/female differences are attributable to biology, evolution, pheremones, hormones, etc. I think that they're sometimes either misapplied or overblown, though. And I circle back to the idea that the differences (nesting, wandering, visual attractiveness, etc.) are much more influenced by individual differences than by gender.

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