“Here’s all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid”—George Carlin
Most women have girlfriends, but most men don’t have boyfriends. Most women go to beauty shops, but men don’t go to handsome shops.
Women are more aware of the opposite gender’s point of view than men. Traditionally women have read the time-honored “great” writers, who, conventionally, are all men—Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, Plato and so forth. It is sexist to say that the greatest writers are all men, but it has given women a tremendous advantage in understanding. Educated women have read deeply into the male perspective, by reading science and art from a man’s point of view. Men, on the other hand, are generally ignorant of the female perspective, which remains mysterious to them.
In my meditation classes I point out that the belief that men are the strongest gender is faulty. Women battle disease far better than do men, thereby outliving men by years. Males begin to die at greater rates from infancy. There are actually more male babies than female babies, but by the late teens there are more surviving females than males. This is not owed to male aggressiveness nor wars−it is primarily deaths from disease.
Males are responsible for mass murders nearly all of the time. Females make up 23% of murder victims, however, so most of it is men killing men.
After learning the “facts of life,” in my boyhood, I remember feeling relieved that females birthed the babies—not wishing to bear the pain that women endure. Even when expecting a child, women have been put on the spot. In my youth women couldn’t appear pregnant on TV. Today, women still can’t breastfeed in public without inconvenience or even shame (American women—I’ve seen others in Europe and Asia, Canada and Mexico, breastfeeding infants in public).
Ignorant men like Sigmund Freud proposed that females secretly wish to be males, even suffering from penis envy. I say ignorant because I’ve asked hundreds of women over the decades if they would prefer to be male, and not one of them did.
When asked, “Why do you prefer to be female?”, women often say they like being able to choose from a much wider array of clothing options. I wonder if we are not conditioned by living our lives as one gender, to finding it difficult to think about what it would entail to be the other?
And yet there has never been a time in my 77 years when there were more choices. In my youth, homosexuality was actually persecuted, now same-sex couples may marry in all but 13 states. In much of the country, a great many gender identities may be expressed openly, beyond female and male.
But most of us still identify as male or female, by our dress, mannerisms, and speech patterns.
Even within these categories there are a wide range of differences. You can, for example, say that American women shave their legs, and, while generally true, many do not shave their legs, or remove other body hair. While many wear makeup, many wouldn’t think of it. Some women go for the “glam” look, and others wear blue jeans and t-shirts.
People say “Women do…” but mean “Most women do…,” because there are so many exceptions. If women thought alike, because they outnumber men, they could take over by electing females to all governmental positions from the president on down.
The genders agree that females are attractive. Men’s magazines have attractive women on the cover to entice men into buying, and women’s magazines have attractive women on the cover to identify with women. Because of this demand, female models are paid 148% more than male models, on average, although women average lower pay in many other professions.
Most men do not have feminine intuition. Through natural selection, one theory goes, those women who had it were more likely to survive, because they detected when a cave man was about to go off and start swinging his club in a rage over this or that perceived problem. These women, taking the children, got out of his way quickly, and to this day I believe most women have retained this ability to sense things that most men do not sense.
But despite the differences I have long been one to see the similarities. I believe that, at birth, males and females are mostly alike. Our upbringing contributes to most of our differences, as we are taught to be male or female. Children play with gender specific toys, take part in gender specific games, and are treated either as girls or boys, eventually becoming that vision for the most part. Perception is reality.
I have met females whose mother departed their life when they were infants, so were raised by a father on ranches or farms where other females were distant from them. Often they seem to have the mannerisms of males. Conversely, the same I think is true for males raised in a female environment. So appearing with male or female traits isn’t as obvious as tradition teaches, and certainly not genetic.
We’ve all met women who hate men, because they were mistreated by men at some point in their lives, and men who clearly disrespect women. My take is that life is too short to miss out on all of the knowledge one can get from “the opposite sex,” so we should try to understand and share, with compassion for one another. Or, as the French put it, “vive la différence.”
Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.
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Unscrambling sexuality: Compassion, sharing and understanding in action
Posted on June 9, 2022 by Jack Balkwill
Most women have girlfriends, but most men don’t have boyfriends. Most women go to beauty shops, but men don’t go to handsome shops.
Women are more aware of the opposite gender’s point of view than men. Traditionally women have read the time-honored “great” writers, who, conventionally, are all men—Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, Plato and so forth. It is sexist to say that the greatest writers are all men, but it has given women a tremendous advantage in understanding. Educated women have read deeply into the male perspective, by reading science and art from a man’s point of view. Men, on the other hand, are generally ignorant of the female perspective, which remains mysterious to them.
In my meditation classes I point out that the belief that men are the strongest gender is faulty. Women battle disease far better than do men, thereby outliving men by years. Males begin to die at greater rates from infancy. There are actually more male babies than female babies, but by the late teens there are more surviving females than males. This is not owed to male aggressiveness nor wars−it is primarily deaths from disease.
Males are responsible for mass murders nearly all of the time. Females make up 23% of murder victims, however, so most of it is men killing men.
After learning the “facts of life,” in my boyhood, I remember feeling relieved that females birthed the babies—not wishing to bear the pain that women endure. Even when expecting a child, women have been put on the spot. In my youth women couldn’t appear pregnant on TV. Today, women still can’t breastfeed in public without inconvenience or even shame (American women—I’ve seen others in Europe and Asia, Canada and Mexico, breastfeeding infants in public).
Ignorant men like Sigmund Freud proposed that females secretly wish to be males, even suffering from penis envy. I say ignorant because I’ve asked hundreds of women over the decades if they would prefer to be male, and not one of them did.
When asked, “Why do you prefer to be female?”, women often say they like being able to choose from a much wider array of clothing options. I wonder if we are not conditioned by living our lives as one gender, to finding it difficult to think about what it would entail to be the other?
And yet there has never been a time in my 77 years when there were more choices. In my youth, homosexuality was actually persecuted, now same-sex couples may marry in all but 13 states. In much of the country, a great many gender identities may be expressed openly, beyond female and male.
But most of us still identify as male or female, by our dress, mannerisms, and speech patterns.
Even within these categories there are a wide range of differences. You can, for example, say that American women shave their legs, and, while generally true, many do not shave their legs, or remove other body hair. While many wear makeup, many wouldn’t think of it. Some women go for the “glam” look, and others wear blue jeans and t-shirts.
People say “Women do…” but mean “Most women do…,” because there are so many exceptions. If women thought alike, because they outnumber men, they could take over by electing females to all governmental positions from the president on down.
The genders agree that females are attractive. Men’s magazines have attractive women on the cover to entice men into buying, and women’s magazines have attractive women on the cover to identify with women. Because of this demand, female models are paid 148% more than male models, on average, although women average lower pay in many other professions.
Most men do not have feminine intuition. Through natural selection, one theory goes, those women who had it were more likely to survive, because they detected when a cave man was about to go off and start swinging his club in a rage over this or that perceived problem. These women, taking the children, got out of his way quickly, and to this day I believe most women have retained this ability to sense things that most men do not sense.
But despite the differences I have long been one to see the similarities. I believe that, at birth, males and females are mostly alike. Our upbringing contributes to most of our differences, as we are taught to be male or female. Children play with gender specific toys, take part in gender specific games, and are treated either as girls or boys, eventually becoming that vision for the most part. Perception is reality.
I have met females whose mother departed their life when they were infants, so were raised by a father on ranches or farms where other females were distant from them. Often they seem to have the mannerisms of males. Conversely, the same I think is true for males raised in a female environment. So appearing with male or female traits isn’t as obvious as tradition teaches, and certainly not genetic.
We’ve all met women who hate men, because they were mistreated by men at some point in their lives, and men who clearly disrespect women. My take is that life is too short to miss out on all of the knowledge one can get from “the opposite sex,” so we should try to understand and share, with compassion for one another. Or, as the French put it, “vive la différence.”
Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.