Don't Forget: Men and Women Are Different

Published on October 16, 2019

On a podcast I listened to this morning, I heard journalist and author Douglas Murray describe an interesting phenomenon in the world today that he identified as he wrote his latest book. He talked about 'things we (as a society) know a lot about but pretend we don't'. Then I sat down with my morning coffee to read, picking up the book I've been working my way through, and realised it is about one of the things Murray was describing.

I'm reading Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship Skills for Today's Complex World by John Gray, author - twenty-something years ago - of the bestselling Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Many of us, or at least 'we' on a societal level, seem to be pretending that we don't know men and women are different.

The climate we are in at the moment almost requires me to say: equality of opportunity is an incredibly important thing and the work done by feminists and campaigners to change laws, rules and expectations so that it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their gender was (and is, where it is genuinely still needed) important and inspiring work. But the fight didn't seem to end at 'equal'. Growing up, I learned that men and women are (and should be) equal, but I also learned that they are the same. And this is really, really, really not true.

I would go so far as to say that it was a big contributing factor to a previous relationship of many years crashing and burning, slowly and (at the time) almost inexplicably, over years.

At the time, suffering from what Robert Holden calls an 'involuntary stop' in my life caused by the break-up of that relationship, I looked deeply at my understanding of the world. That set me on a path of learning about myself which in some ways led to what I do today. A key part of that was setting my mind to the problem: what happened in that relationship and how can I stop it happening again? This led me to what - it turns out - is an incredibly rich, detailed, thoughtful, loving and insightful section of the library/bookshop: those books on how to have successful romantic relationships. It turns out there many people whose research into men and women and how they are different is incredibly useful in creating, subsequently, an immeasurably happier relationship.

Indeed, that's what Beyond Mars and Venus is about: it's about how, in the modern world with all its amazing developments, we can have relationships which support both men and women to contribute to the world, to relieve their stress, to be happy and fulfilled, to live meaningful lives.

But it starts from the place that men and women are different. To have a meaningful impact, it has to.

I was once sharing with a friend how it was important to talk about how men and women are different because of the incredibly different hormonal make-ups that they have. He said something like 'We all have incredibly different hormones!' Now that may be true, I don't know, but certainly according to Gray, there are very important differences between men and women which have very important implications for how each of us deal with stress in our lives and how we deal with stress in our romantic relationships.

Acknowledging these differences, and then leaning into them, changing my behaviour to support them and supporting my wife to do the same has, I believe, led to me being a better, more whole, more complete man, freer from the expectations of society and freer to express my unique blend of masculine and feminine qualities. And, I believe that doing this together has also allowed my wife to be a better, more whole, more complete woman, freer - again - from the expectations of society, freer to express her unique self.

As another of my favourite researchers into men and women, Alison Armstrong, says in her audiobook Understanding Women, let's not forget that every nature documentary about a species will tell you the differences between males and females. That isn't about opressing lionesses or male lions, it's about understanding them so we can appreciate them, joying in the beauty of both and deepening our understanding of the world.

So don't forget, men and women are different. Use that to thrive.

And if you want some recommendations on how to learn more or where to start, let me know.