Men and Women Are Different, but in What Sense?

To the differences in human types we must add those between the sexes. Man and woman are basically different, far more so than they believe. This is why they both have such great difficulty in understanding on another and such threat need of one another for their growth. I will go so far as to say that never can a man completely understand a woman, nor a woman a man.

For example, man has a theoretical mind while woman has a more person-centered mind. Sometimes when I am speaking on a general matter with my wife, discussing two conflicting ideas, she will ask me right out, "who are you talking about?" I was not speaking about anyone. I was developing an idea. Yet my wife felt the need of identifying tat idea with something concrete, with some person. A woman thinks of people, and in terms of people. Take a look, for contrast's sake, at men as they gather together for a game of cards or a cup of coffee. They expound magnificent theories on the way the world should be governed and how universal peace and brotherhood can be achieved. These theories are quite abstract, detached, and unrelated to the immediate situation. If one of the wives were there, she would laugh and say, "you'll be better helping me dry the dishes or taking an interest in your son and his learning difficulties, instead of leaving me with all the worry of seeing th psychologists and teacher in order to get help for him/" thus I is from woman and under her influence that man can acquire a feeling for persons. Civilization built by men alone would remain abstract, cold, technical, and dehumanized.

A woman thinks in detail, also. Details interest her more than general ideas. She has a need to tell all the day's happenings, once she is with her husband. She has to tell which hat a friend was wearing, what kind of coat was worn by another, what the janitor or the store clerk told her and how she replied. Soon the husband is listening very distractedly because he has not understood that his wife is so made that details are of great importance to her. To him, all this appears very small and dull. When the wife senses that her husband no longer is listening to her, that he is reading in the newspaper about the world's great problems, she feels terribly alone. And alone, she will plunge ever more deeply into details which for her ever gain in importance...gossip, neighborhood jealousies, and the comparison of various stores prices.