Attractions Oppose

It occurs to me today to debunk something.

So I cast my line out to see what I catch.

Viola. Not bad. I see a couple arguing in their car. How sad.

How intriguing.

You know how it’s generally accepted that men are the more thinking type and women are more feely?

That women are so much more in touch with their emotions than men, and that men are far too grounded in logic and rationality for their own inner balance and they really should learn to be more in touch with themselves?

Much of it, feminist propaganda. Rest of it backed by evidence. We tend to swallow it all anyway.

Let’s take a typical scenario. Couple driving down the highway to the wife’s cousin’s wedding. Husband at the wheel, he takes a wrong turn. Gets lost.

Cue fight begins.

Starts with her. That he should had stopped to ask for directions, that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he really ought to be wiser than this.

Or if you insist on being all feminist with me, we can let the husband start with some under-his-breath muttering and grumbling. Some would push further of course, at which point I lose my patience and commence lynching people.

That doesn’t really matter to our scenario here.

Anyway, husband now adopts a sarcastic tone in response to her accusatory one, saying that oh if someone hadn’t found it necessary to take so damn long chitchatting away at the last rest stop they’d be there by now.

She accuses him of accusing her. (Ironic, ain’t it?)

He says she’s jumping to conclusions, gets defensive.

She gets offensive because he’s defensive and hey, someone has to fill the role, right?

He gets fed up, tells her that she doesn’t understand, and she really shouldn’t be aggravating him right now. Probably does so rather rudely.

She doesn’t stop. Maybe brings up some ancient history or wild speculation. If he used the rude tone cue the shrieking.

He snaps at her to shut up.

She shrieks more.

He slams the brakes and raises his voice.

She sulks for the rest of the journey.

If you have any objections to how that turns out better raise them now.

I thought not.

Now, I find the process fascinating.

She gets agitated because he wasn’t thinking about their trip.

(She is agitated about the lack of thinking and the object.)

He gets agitated because she wasn’t feeling for him.

(He is agitated because of the lack of feeling and the subject.)

Wait a minute now……

Didn’t we say that men are more thinky and women are more feely? Why am I now then observing a reversal of roles? Not even a particular one ither, but extremely common and even universal in its application.

OK, so based on the above example (or counterexample, depending on how airy you wish to get on this) men are more inclined towards feeling, or at least it matter more to them, and women are more concerned with thinking.

Please don’t raise EQ as a yardstick to beat me with. If we can reject IQ as a useful measure, so can we do the same for EQ. In fact, epistemology would demand it, since they operate on similar statistical principles. The invalidity of one implies the invalidity of the other.

Of course, I cannot hope to debunk accepted theory (or myth, as it may turn out) with a single example. But it does provoke thought, and it would both careless and irresponsible of our social scientists if they fail to address it.

It wouldn’t feel right.

Ab alternative expectation would simply be that men have come to expect feminity and the associated feeliness from women, just as women have come to expect masculinity and the associated thinkiness in men.

So is this interdependency biological or, as feminists will gladly claim (with or without proof in any matter), cultural in nature? Is it necessary, or is it an appendage of humanity like our defunct tail bone?

For the first question I’m inclined towards the former option. It is less plausible to contend that varying cultures spontaneously adopted similar social partnerships and interdependencies independent of each other.

(Besides, feminists don’t have a very good track record of getting things right. You’d be better off betting against them most of the time.)

On the second question, I’m afraid I can’t answer. Is it necessary? It’d be good if it were, and useful as well for couples to better understand the hidden workings of their relationships. Not to mention so very interesting to study.

What if it isn’t? Indeed, I cannot even perceive of such a case, but that is hardly reason to reject it.

Maybe we ought to observe homosexuals. Do they gravitate towards such relationships? If they do, then we must conclude that it is a necessary and functional part of any healthy relationship. If it doesn’t, the question might arguably stay open but the case against would be so much stronger.

Guess I didn’t really debunk anything after all. Can’t deny though, it’s quite an exercise to engage in. I can’t get bored of it.

Piaroh-Cze:

Women are never stronger than when they are armed with their weaknesses.