There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. ~ Leonard Cohen
To be fair, let me just say this from the start: I think there is a lot of misunderstanding between both the sexes. Men understand women about as much as women understand men.
If the weekend I spent with the room full of women and the men I listened to on the panel are any indication, a bit of enlightenment is a good thing for all parties involved.
The woman who started these programs, Alison Armstrong, has a mission to create peace between the sexes through understanding. If we understood the way each of us process information and approach life, if we better understood the choices we make and the instinctual natures we are run by, maybe we have a chance at compassion toward one another and a chance at succeeding in partnership.
I could get behind this mission. And because we don't get this kind of information in school, and by the time we learn it in relationships it's too late, I figured, I need to get on board. Now.
I need to let the light in.
So, I spent the weekend with around 40 other women learning about men. There was a bit of resistance at first to go at all. I'm not in a relationship. Where would I practice this stuff? Isn't it a waste of time and money if everything I learned had nowhere to be applied?
But I realized I didn't go for men. I went for me.
Not too long ago, I had to give some constructive criticism to a male client of mine. I've not had much practice with this but a lot of money was on the line which would impact both of us and I didn't want us to be hurt by his oversight. The feedback was straight forward, direct, and maybe a bit overkill (because I tend to repeat myself sometimes, unnecessarily). I didn't think much of it because it needed to be said, but it was the beginning of our working relationship.
After some time passed in our relationship, he told me, "I have to admit, when I first started working with you, I was a little scared of you. I didn't know if I we would be able to work together."
Scared of me? What?
Another woman, recently, in an email to a client, referred to me as a "Barracuda".
Strangely, this was the same nick name another man gave me that I met at a business event.
What? They don't even know each other. Where are these people getting this from?
But obviously there is something in my behavior they are seeing that I am not.
So I had to ask myself: If I'm not seeing myself clearly here, what else am I not seeing? What other behavior might I be putting out there or believing unconsciously that I am not aware of? And how does it impact others?
This is what I went to find out.
This is what I can say about what I discovered: Learning about men is like learning a different language. They think differently, process information differently, formulate opinions differently, are motivated differently and do life very differently than women.
We tend to understand others as we understand ourselves. In other words, if we wouldn't do it that way, why would they?
The take away I got from this weekend is just how different we are and the reasons that make us so. Here are a few things I learned:
In the hunter and gatherer days, men had to be single focused. They were going for the kill so that they could feed their family. They learned what they needed to from the hunt.
Because of this single focus, interrupting a man is a form of disrespect. They are singularly focused and when they are interrupted, it throws them off course.
Women, on the other hand, learned everything from their babies. If one thing didn't work, they would try something else. And they would keep trying until they found a solution. That's why so many women fill these self-help workshops. We will try everything!
Women were born with the ability to multi-task and don't have the same response to being interrupted. Chances are she already has 10 things going. What's another on her plate?
Men's motivation is productivity. They don't feel satisfied until they produce a result. If they lose their ability to produce a result, they feel unsafe.
For women, it's connection. In hunter and gatherer days, their survival was based on connection. If they are not connecting, they feel unsafe.
For men, everything is based on fact. Men formulate their opinions based on factual data. They don't act from their feelings and they don't trust people that let their feelings run away with them. An honorable man will do the right thing despite how he "feels" about it.
For women, everything is based on feelings. A woman's feelings are to her what a man's opinions are to him. Invalidating a man's opinions feels the same to him as a man invalidating a woman's feelings.
So, you can see when a woman is feeling insecure and wants to connect with her man, she might start talking about her feelings. She will "process". This is how she connects in relationships.
Men, on the other hand are listening for the point. If there doesn't appear to be a point, they are listening for the problem. They are listening to get to the solution. Produce a result.
You can see where there is a disconnect.
Also, men are warriors and they have communication styles like warriors. They conceal their feelings, weaknesses and strengths. This is their natural instinctual behavior for survival. So when they don't ask a lot of questions, it's a matter of respect. They are respecting our privacy.
Women are always going for the connection. We want to know and share everything.
Men have a strong sense of themselves. Other people's opinion of them rarely, if at all, matter. They will always consider the source of the opinion before they take it seriously.
Women, by contrast, are run by this "Internalized Perfect Women Syndrome", an inner critic that is on duty 24/7 telling her that her best isn't good enough. She should show up at the gym more often, pay more attention to her children, lose another 10 pounds, call the relatives more often, etc. Other people's opinion will only exacerbate her already stringent standards. Think instinctual behavior. If she isn't liked, she will not be provided for by a man or be welcome in community with other women. She will keep trying for perfection.
In other words, what I discovered at this workshop is that men and women do life quite differently.
Obviously, these are generalizations. I've seen many of the traits in men that could be considered feminine and many traits in women that could be considered masculine. To make it easier, they talked in terms of gender but they were really talking about masculine and feminine.
Also, the workshop went on for the whole weekend which means they went quite a bit more in depth than I have here, covering MUCH MORE information. After breaking down the differences between the sexes, women were given tools on how to communicate more effectively using new language they termed "Menglish".
The best part happened at the end of the workshop, where they had a panel of men come in and answer questions for the women. They had not been a part of the workshop but were volunteered by past participants.
Without being coached all of the men validated everything we had learned about them the entire weekend.
Some women in the room were surprised by the depth of honesty and vulnerability these men were willing to share. It was like the room lit up and women were seeing men for the first time.
For me it was enough that the mystery was unveiled, that there was no battle to do, no worthiness to prove, that men were really on our side. I just haven't understood them.
From having spent years building up layers trying to defend against being hurt, judged or rejected by a man, it was enough for me just to put down my sword.
There is beauty, here.
NOTE: The workshop I attended was called "Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women". If anyone is interested in attending this workshop, or learning more about it, CLICK HERE
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