Are men and women growing apart generally?

[Lifeisntbad]

Just had a chat with a friend about this. My male and female acquaintances sometimes (with some exceptions) seem so different in outlook that I wonder about this. Obviously they are different from each other as well.
In my immediate circle of 40 /50 somethings the women are generally resourceful independent sociable and open. Many (not all) of the men are depressed, with no enthusiasm, slightly isolated and in some cases a little bitter.
While in one way gender differences seem to be blurring which can only be a good thing, in other ways men and women seem increasingly on different paths, coming together perhaps for having children and then diverging again.

symphony I'm just as likely if not more likely to question men's statements as women's.
And all this crap about men leading with the head and women with the heart is just that. Anyone can see that in some situations men are absurdly sentimental, blubbering away over overpaid football teams and raging over arcane religious doctrines, while women are far more analytical and practical in that context. On some other things it can be the other way round sometimes but the crude stereotype is wrong.

I thought twice about posting but in the end I thought what the heck it may help someone - but it seems not

Male / female energy is not invented what do you think yin/yang is - and I said male ENERGY leads with the head.

Just because you do not understand what I am saying does not make it crap. Maybe an opportunity to educate yourself. And sometimes the things we most blast are actually what we need to learn.

Offred I'm sorry for your past. Your posts to me come across as being pretty negative towards men and to me it sounds like you are looking for justification to hang all that has been wrong with your life on them. Understandable but not going to help you in the long run. I will not engage any more

And I'm off this thread now

greenberet - I found your posts very interesting and thought provoking but i understand why not everyone would agree.

“Male / female energy is not invented what do you think yin/yang is?”

Er...invented also! Why the need to call it “Male” energy if not associated with the Male sex?

Don’t be daft. It may suit you to live in a fluffy all-is-balanced bubble so as not to have to deal with shit but this world is anything but balanced.

Rita why is it me being daft - I wish I did live in a fluffy bubble - infact this is how I described my married life - a bubble - I knew something was wrong I wanted to leave earlier before I knew about MN before I realised my marriage was seriously abusive before I knew about narcistic personalities and behaviour - I thought I was just unhappy - that there was something wrong with me. Somehow I didn't leave I think my DM died unexpectedly and this overshadowed everything for a while.

I have had plenty of shit to deal with - still have - I won't go into detail here my posts document it all.

But you are right the world is not balanced - maybe it is never meant to be - in trying to make everyone equal we are destroying ourselves but we cannot see it - men and women are not equal - some things can be more balanced but never completely equal as we are different.

If it was just about being equal it would be easy but it's not because there are so many different circumstances to take into account depending on every different situation.

As this thread has often talked about childcare why is it just not a standard that it is split 50/50 on divorce - this would make it easy everyone would know what is going to happen and what to expect - but it isn't because children's needs are different and men and women's needs and/ or capabilities are also different depending on the situation.

So just because it is right for some to be equal for others it is not and the only way of coming out of this is to respect that everyone is different, that people have different needs and capabilities and we work with what we have, we compromise and we work together to make it better for all - this way we all get more out of a situation not less or not the same because trying to be the same means someone is being hard done by whether it is men or women

As stated upthread, I don’t have a problem with men. I have a problem with sexism. That includes when my boys encounter sexism as well as when my girls do, because it’s sexism that I have an issue with, not men and boys.

This is the second time you have attempted to condescend and patronise me when I disagree with you.

It’s fine for you to believe in whatever you want but you also need to accept that other people are not going to agree with your beliefs or believe in them themselves, especially when what you believe is quite sexist, on a thread where people are talking about sexism.

Yes. A bit. Our needs are changing.

It seems like changes in social attitudes are much slower to take effect than changes in other areas. In the last couple of centuries we have seen massive changes to the material and legal status of women, but we still seem to be stuck with attitudes that were formed in the days when men were expected by the head of the household and women were expected to be barefoot and pregnant.

It's not really obvious what will happen once attitudes do catch up. Whether the sexes will reach a new accommodation or whether they will become alienated from each other.

Offred I am not meaning to condescend you or patronise you im sorry if you feel this way.

I am not expecting everyone to agree with me I have said this in my thread i know i often come from a different perspective that is not always grasped - everyone is entitled to their own opinion as am I.

My mistake is trying to help but i can see my help is not wanted.

My views are not sexist they are based on spiritual context where everything has a polar opposite - positive & negative, up down , ying yang, male female etc etc - one cannot exist without the other - they are not the same, they are different, they are not equal but they are just as significant as the other.

the longer we fight about which gender is what better? worse? the less we work/live together and the end result i doubt is happiness -

and the thread is not about sexism it is are men and women growing apart generally!

It isn’t that I don’t understand your point. You think people don’t understand your points all the time when it very often isn’t the case.

You are saying your spirituality is in part based on a belief that there are different types of energy, opposites of many kinds that work together to bring harmony. You are saying one example of that is male and female energy, which is an assertion that men and women are opposites which need to work together in harmony. Further to that you have gone into detail about what attributes male and female energy supposedly has

It is that saying male and female are in opposition to each other and that male is head and female is heart which is sexist.

What evidence is there for that? I mean beyond it being your own personal spiritual belief?

And why do you think others (me) need to join in with you in believing this? Why would you think it would be relevant to me at all? You’ve read what i’ve said on this thread... You’ve got it into your head somehow that I need your intervention because I am all messed up, which is quite frankly really quite creepy. I haven’t asked for any help and i’m quite happy how I am!

Also, I said people were talking about sexism on this thread. I didn’t say this thread is about sexism. The thread became a discussion about sexism because many posters felt sexism was a cause of ‘men and women growing apart’.

Greenberet - I understand what you're getting at but in my opinion, its a hugely simplistic view of the world based upon what's called Binary Thinking: everything is black/white good/bad male/female..you get the drift.
Humanity is far more complex and if you care to study a six month old baby boy and a six month old baby girl, you'll find that there are far more similarities than there are differences. In fact, the only difference is that one is male and one is female and on occasion, the female baby will begin using a babbling style of communication a little earlier than the baby boy.
So, if it isn't nature that's creating this male dominated binary universe, then it must be nurture.
And I rest my case.

Offred can you explain to me why this is sexist

It is that saying male and female are in opposition to each other and that male is head and female is heart which is sexist

Pallasathena - funny you are using 6 month old babies to make your point- I have boy/ girl twins and there were many differences between my two at this age - boy would not sleep, feed , had startle reflex cried a lot but also was smiley - girl content playing with her feet, didn't make much noise, happy on own but looked grumpy -

are you saying it's the mothers that create these men?

Do you even know what sexism is?

It is sexist because you are ascribing roles, abilities and attributes to people based solely on their sex when there is no credible evidence to support such an assertion.

My boy girl twins are very different from each other too, and my older children are different again. All my children are different from each other because they are different people.

Offred while some of the differences between men and women are obviously due to social conditioning, are you really saying you think they all are? Men have a near monopoly on homicidal violence across most cultures and while much of that violence may be due to conditioning do you think in the absence of that conditioning men and women would be the same in this respect? Men with high testosterone have higher rates of criminality which suggests some biological basis. None of this has any bearing on who should do what in relationships but you seem to insist that there is no evidence that all the myriad observed differences between the sexes are due to anything but nurture, which is quite a doctrinaire position.

I know what sexism is - I haven't prescribed any of it - its what I've read, listened to tried to educate myself in in an attempt to understand myself and others better.

Do you expect all your children to act exactly the same even though they are different - and only if they do this can they be equal - because this is what I am hearing - do you have to encourage one to do something that another one does automatically or do they all have equal set tasks that they just get on and do without you having to say anything?

Offred I'm sorry but I feel you have got stuck in a groove - I read that you are happier than you have ever been - but if you were able to unstick yourself you may be happier still.

Ah come off if greenberet, you’re just being daft now. You aren’t trying to persuade anyone to your spiritual POV, you’re trying to make one poster feel shit about themselves, and they’re not rising to it. It’s not kind of you.

And note, “I’m sorry you feel that way” is not an apology

Dogfish please note; ‘It is sexist because you are ascribing roles, abilities and attributes to people based solely on their sex when there is no credible evidence to support such an assertion.’

Reply was re greenberet’s male/female energy....

At no point have I said men and women are biologically the same.

Greenberet - no I expect them to act different from each other because they are all different.

Other people frequently expect them to conform to gender roles though...

It’s really great that you have found something that chimes with you and that you feel adds an extra element to your life BTW but I feel like you are assuming that people (me) who it doesn’t chime for just don’t really know about it...

I am aware of it, I understand what you are referring to when you say ‘spirituality’ now but spirituality is very broad, your personal spiritual beliefs are only one type of spirituality.

They are not beliefs I share and no that doesn’t mean I need to learn more about it and then I will see how I am going wrong in life...

Hersymphony - I can't MAKE anyone feel anything about themselves - how they feel about something I say is purely within them - otherwise everyone would feel the same from something I say. I may trigger off feelings within someone but then it is down to them to work out what is at the root of it.

What is an apology then hersymphony -

Offred if you expect your children to act differently because they are different I'm assuming you mean irrespective of their gender - why is this not the case then for all people regardless of their age - surely how they behave is down to them - anyone can challenge and question stereotypes and if it is significant enough to them would they not alter their behaviour

This is nothing to do with sexism but on how selfish people have become. Putting their own needs first -unable to compromise even if it's in the interests of a family, couple whatever. It just becomes more obvious once children come along.

Offred I mean you no ill will - I sense something from your posts from your tone, my beliefs are the underlying principles of spirituality - I haven't gone into detail because this is not the place. I have never said you are going wrong in life - we all do the best we can and I can sense that you do too - but there is another way of looking at things that's all I'm saying - and as I said I used to think it was all bollocks at one time

why is this not the case then for all people regardless of their age

I’m not sure why you would think it isn’t the case?

anyone can challenge and question stereotypes and if it is significant enough to them would they not alter their behaviour

The whole point is precisely that.

I sense something from your posts from your tone

Ok, sense whatever you sense but stop following me round places trying to intervene in my life. I haven’t asked for your input, I wouldn’t think you would have anything of worth for me particularly anyway as we are so very different. It is ok to be different you know? You don’t have to make everybody the same as you.

my beliefs are the underlying principles of spirituality

Spirituality is incredibly broad and incredibly personal. Your beliefs are what underlie your sense of spirituality. They are not the only type of spirituality there can be, they are not a superior or inferior type of spirituality. They are simply your personal sense of spirituality (and have links with Taoism, Buddhism etc).

but there is another way of looking at things that's all I'm saying - and as I said I used to think it was all bollocks at one time

I don’t see how this is even relevant to anything? It reminds me of when ppl said to me as a teen ‘when you grow up you will like the things I like’ which is quite rude.

This is nothing to do with sexism but on how selfish people have become. Putting their own needs first -unable to compromise even if it's in the interests of a family, couple whatever. It just becomes more obvious once children come along.

I didn’t really understand this initially because it was quite garbled and in the middle of a different point but are you saying you think men and women are growing apart because people generally have become more selfish?

If so, then I agree that there is definitely an element of that.

I am also a bit about why it took you a couple of days to, a couple of attempts at a spiritual intervention and a load of guff about energy in order to get there....