What I want to address in this article is one (and only one!) of the many ways in which Men differ from Women.
This particular difference relates to how men and women define themselves.
I believe that women tend to define themselves in relation to other people, and the qualities associated with those relationships — level or rapport, comfort, trust, confidence, strength of association, etc etc.
Men, on the other hand, tend to define themselves in relation to their accomplishments — external, objective, factual and concrete.
For women, relationships — social rapport — is lifeblood. Their mental evaluation of how others perceive them (public face), how close they are with their female friends, the extent to which friends confide in them, how many secrets they know, how many friends and lovers of either gender they have and to what extent they have control over them, how much love and adoration (attention) they are given by A) their social circles and B) the average person on the street.
All these factors (and many more related to relationships) are taken into consideration when making the internal assessment of “Just how valuable / worthwhile / effective / happy am I as a person?”
Now, this paints a pretty cold picture of women. Reading the above, an alien from outer space might conclude that all females of this species are cold-blooded, calculating, conniving, deceitful, manipulative, self-interested, shortsighted, and stupid.
Just wait; we haven’t looked at blokes yet.
For men, achievements are paramount — and not just generalized, woozy achievements like “I made a kitten smile” or “I brightened her day” but quantifiable, realizable, demonstrable, verifiable achievements.
If you can put a number on it or to it, it’s a pretty safe bet that some man, somewhere, has made it his life’s goal to realize the best / smallest / biggest number for whatever it is you put a number on. Examples would be: “I saved my department $2M a year with this innovative new construction technique” or “I closed a $500,000 deal” or “I rushed 200 yards for the goal” or “I approved 43 grant applications” or “I graded 250 papers” or even “I wrote 12 tickets.”
Now, this paints a pretty cold picture of men. Reading the above, an alien from outer space might conclude that all men are cold-blooded, ruthless, competitive, predatory, calculating, obsessive, pitiless automatons.
Now obviously all people are not cold-blooded, calculating, competitive, etc etc — but we can certainly agree that, in many cases, both men and women exhibit some or all of the characteristics described above.
(Thank God they do not *only* exhibit those characteristics, or I daresay the world as we know it would not even exist - but my point here is that there are definitely central tendencies, and those central tendencies split along gender lines).
Crossing the Gender Rubicon
Now what happens when cats try to act canine, when women define themselves more by their accomplishments? They become decidedly less “feminine” and more “masculine”.
Think of the stereotype of the career woman who has no time for a family and outsources her childcare; who competes with her husband for the bigger paycheck and status as “pants” in the relationship (itself an extremely sexist phrase); who goes on long business trips away from home and sleeps with her male subordinates as an expression of (male?) power. This may be a stereotype, but all stereotypes have some basis in reality, and the result is a woman trading away some of her femininity for a “masculine” place in the world (by adopting a male’s reference frame and orienting around a masculine set of self-definitions).
The reverse is true of dogs hitting the catnip (men defining themselves in relation to relationships). A guy who is always concerned about whether or not his friends are mad at him, or who stood him up, or is always mentally calculating who is outing whom or breaking rapport with who else, has become centered around relationships in a way that detracts from the “get up and go”, results-oriented masculinity that previously defined him. Now, can you think of any males that fit the above description? If you are like me, the example that springs to mind is gay men — the ultimate in de-masculinized men (and yes, there are “butch” gay men, but arguing that point is a matter of degree, not kind).
So what is the point of all this?
Don’t get me wrong; my point is not to reinforce gender stereotypes and assert a rigid, oppressive patriarchy (although plenty of knee-jerk feminists will believe thusly after reading this); my aim is simply to highlight what seem to be *natural* differences between the sexes, and thus lead to greater cross-gender awareness, and understanding.
If anyone knows of any research that directly contradicts any or all of the above, I would be more than happy to look at it. The most obvious that springs to my mind immediately is the work of Carol Gilligan — it was she, in fact, who first suggested a relationship-based morality in opposition to Kohlberg’s concrete, linear Moral Development scale (and my impression is that Gilligan’s work is generally considered a blow struck for feminism in most academic circles).
A Balancing Act
Obviously (to my mind, at least), men should have *some* concern for relationships as well as external accomplishments, else they’d find themselves without support or important relational linkages in their work — and women should have *some* concern for external accomplishments, or they’d never get anything done.
But too much of the opposite gender’s definitional orientation and you will either be masculinized or feminized — and we wouldn’t want that, would we?