Quote:
Originally Posted by SecretMethod70
Well, obviously I respect that you have that opinion, but my own life experiences with women have proved to me that, ultimately, women and men are equally complicated, equally difficult to understand, and require the exact same level of communication. Perhaps going into a relationship a man and woman may have different "worlds," but my point is that we choose whether or not to uphold that or break it down. When communication transcends male vs female, it leads to understanding and defining one another as people, and allows us to discover that we're really not as different as we tend to think.
Women are just as capable of being slobs, or liking sex, as men are. Throughout history, people have traditionally placed women on pedestals and highlighted differences. As insane as it sounds for us to hear him say it, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims that women are highly respected in Iran, he actually believes this. Oppressive cultures that require women to cover themselves up often do so because of misguided views regarding the power, mystery, and purity of womanhood. Claiming that women are cleaner, more courteous, more sensitive, or any of those other things strikes me as a slightly less offensive, more Western version of these same types of attitudes. Women in the West, because of the "differences" that we are taught as truths, are often afraid to vocalize their sexual fantasies and desires to their partner, because even in the West, women are not supposed to be as kinky or as sexual as men are. Not long ago, the president of Harvard essentially claimed that women were less involved in math and sciences because they're simply not designed that way. Here, again, we have this attitude that men and women "think differently."
We create our own truths and our own realities. We choose the nature of our relationships. We can continue to base our communication on preconceived notions about how we're "different," or we can move beyond that and learn to respect one another as individuals who are all equally capable of being clean, messy, sexual, caring, indifferent, or any other quality.
Anyway, glad to know we have similar tastes in music
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Ya know, I really hate to do this, but....
I gotta toss in the age card. Sorry, dude.
We're not all that 'complicated'. We are, in many ways, different-masculine to feminine as Ono put it. F'rinstance...
Men will never EVER experience monthly cramps and hormonal fluctuations. They won't even get them if their transexual. Men have a higher concentration of testosterone than women-that's a fact. And testosterone helps the libido, or lack thereof. Hormones affect behavior. Physiologically, the female brain is different in size, weight and distribution of function than the male brain.
Your 'experience' is defined as, well...your experience, which is Ono, school, mom and friends. At the risk of sounding like the female version of a pig, I have had more than my fair share of lovers (hate that word, really) and most of my friends, including two of my very best friends, are male. One is a sports freak, not very wordy; the other is a hopeless romantic who couldn't tell a Pittsburgh Steeler from a NASCAR Chevy. But they are both very very male. My one female best bud is more female than I am in many ways(I don't have anything in common with the mall-hopping soccer-mom types, which she is not).
My point? We are very different in many ways, not just culturally based. There are commonalities, yes, but if everything was common, you'd be dating a guy. But you're not and you're not because of the differences between you and yours, despite what you have 'in common'(including answering similarly, which you did because of the attractions that got you where you are now, not because everyone is not different).
Communication is great and very important, but it's not the be-all, end-all. As I said before, 'acceptance' matters and that includes the possible acceptance that there will always be inherent differences that no amount of open dialogue is going to change. Sometimes, things just
are nods to Shani