I realize that the whole "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" thing has gotten a bit old in some circles, but I feel the need to expose some of the ridiculous "controversy" over John Gray's information.
I'm not the biggest fan of his work, but I do respect that – on the whole he understands masculine and feminine gender roles fairly well.
What drives me up a wall are all these people who "think" way more than they feel, and believe that we can intellectually re-define relationships and attraction based on our anger and imagined injustices supposedly created by "oppressive masculine institutions."
Many of the critics are those people who want to rush to classify what he's teaching as "anti-feminist" and therefore quickly push the concept of emotional reality right out of the picture.
Here's what one of those critics of his work had to say on her web site:
This page is exclusively for the critical review and analysis of the enormously popular (as puzzling as that may be) self-help book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). Despite its promotional hype, at its very core it is a sexist, patronizing, male-centered invective which does little more than perpetuate long-held negative gender stereotypes. Infomercials, popular magazines, the existence of a WWW site, television appearances and published spin-offs by the author, John Gray, have made this book appear undisputed in its broad claim to improve communication between men and women. Unassailable it is not and thus there is a very sincere need to rebut the arguments put forth by John Gray.
Intelligent discussion concerning John Gray's methods is needed outside the realm of TV talk, four-minute interviews, biased infomercials and various women's and on-line magazines. The intent is not to make ad hominen attacks on the author, but to seriously question his point of view and the advice advanced in his publications. "Success stories" notwithstanding, Gray's advice, and the methods he uses to promote it, poses more troubling questions than those it professes to answer. Please accept this invitation to read through The Rebuttal and share your point of view.
CARLOS XUMA COMMENTS:
Well, the puzzling is not so puzzling as this author would have it.
The reason his views are popular (in my belief) is because he respects and understands that MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT.
We are NOT alike (equal, but not alike), and we have differences that complement each other by virtue of understanding them. The unfortunate thing is that in this mad quest for "political correctness" (i.e., trying not to hurt other people's feelings) and "equality," we've lost sight of the NATURAL aspects of us.
(I saw one author argue that we should discount gender roles because they're not what make up our identity. Can you think of ANYTHING that defines who you are more than your gender?)
Men and women simply are not meant to behave the same. And when we try to pretend (with our big "brains") that simply because our logical brain wants something, we'll always be very disappointed when our emotional brain wins the hand – as it does every time.
The western world (which is fast becoming the World) does not respect emotions as a way of "thinking."
Remember: Attraction is not a choice.
In my experience, those people who are solely motivated to counter a different point of view (in this case, just to discredit and attack John Gray's material) – these people feel a sense of intellectual frustration and anger at not having reconciled for themselves what does make relationships work.
The relationships that work long term are those that understand the roles of masculinity and femininity within the relationship – and RESPECT those traits. Not fight them.
And – contrarily – I have yet to see a relationship founded on the "new version" of gender roles (i.e., that both people lead in all areas of the relationship – that did not have a distinctly false aura of partnership to it.
In other words, they always seemed a bit like they were in a business partnership rather than a loving and caring relationship.
The funny thing is that in almost every successful family, the man is the "patriarch" of the family, but we always know that the woman is the effective leader in just as many decisions by virtue of her feminine leadership – which doesn't mean a big power struggle over who "wears the pants."
Women who grew up with good feminine role models – and were secure in their own gender identity – rarely had an issue with this. Yeah, the dad was the law, but mom was the one who made things run behind the scenes. I call these the Alpha Matriarchs.
Now, I hate to speak in generalities, and I don't want to come across as some old-school dinosaur…
I'm not arguing for some misogynist family structure – only that we stop looking at traditional family structures as being flawed in some major way. I see many more flaws in today's family structure, where neither boys nor girls are learning what it means to be their own sexual best.
And yet, as I always say, I must speak my mind – even if my voice shakes.
What do you think?
hey Carlos,
It was fun meeting you in Vegas.
Anyhoo, I'm not a big fan of the book. I'm all for the chemistry created by masculine/feminine polarities, but I think Mars/Venus strays too far into the "women should do this, men should do this" domain instead of encouraging radically honest communication. I'd rather see people following their hearts than following rules.
Men will have far less reason, for example, to "go into their cave" if they are feeling understood through good communication. Similarly, women will do less emotional "pursuing" for the same reason.
For me, the book doesn't get us to intimacy, which is that balanced, even, emotionally centered place men and women can get to with good communication while still having the sexy male/female polarity.
That's my two cents.
cheers,
Erika from http://www.awakeningfromthedream.blogspot.com
Comment by Erika — February 8, 2009 @ 11:22 am
I definitely agree.
I like to refer to the idea of yin and yang. Male and female energy, their differences but also they are complimentary in their essence, which is something we all should embrace instead of battling reality or our own nature.
As you already pointed out there is a difference between an ideal and how things really are. We can sit around and philosophy about how things should be but ultimately we need to face the facts: men are men and women are women with all their differences.
I think understanding and self-realization are first steps to bring us all to a better way of living together and getting together. You already pointed that out in all your awesome programs.
Especially men are internally too screwed up in terms of what society expects of them to be and how they really behave and feel, and most of them not really trust their core feeling and try to intellectualize everything without being in touch with their own core identity, that of being a man.
I
Comment by Günalp — February 8, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
I didn't read Gray's book and thus am not in a position to comment about it.
But to me the critics of the traditional family structure, which you touched on, are all wet.
It worked for thousands of years, and the feminists had to come along and change it.
And what do you have now? Broken homes, that send out into the world to fend as best they can, broken young men and women. A social institution, marriage, that is reeling not from the pseudo-threat of gay marriage, but from the effects of no-fault divorce. And the biggest joke? The myth that men "won't commit". Where it is the woman who is two to four times more likely to initiate any given divorce, depending on whose statistics you believe.
The traditional family unit wasn't broken. So why did feminism have to come along and try to fix it?
I'd like to hear Gray's critic respond. Anti-feminist? So be it.
Comment by Serginho — February 9, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
To be honest, I haven't read the book (it's on its way from Amazon), but the feminist criticism you cited above (and the criticism on the Amazon review page) was enough to make me buy a copy so I could judge for myself. Maybe it's crap, maybe it's Gospel truth, or something in-between–but if it generates screeching like I saw amongst the one-star reviewers at Amazon, Mr. Gray must be doing something right.
Comment by Dennis Mahon — February 9, 2009 @ 9:23 pm
Carlos-
An interesting blog you have here. I stumbled onto it because I'm currently reading John Gray's "Mars and Venus On a Date," and since I had some qualms about the book, I did a Google search to see what sort of feminist reviews I could find on it.
I think your blog is right on target, and that there's no denying the existence of gender roles — especially in the dating world. While I'll admit to feeling uncomfortable while reading Gray's book (which is all about applying his theories to the dating and mating process), I've been struck by how absolutely on target his characterizations are concerning how men and women relate when they date and form relationships.
I call myself a "little f" feminist (I support myself and my son, I'm comfortable living on my own, and I can take care of myself in most situations. But I also enjoy being a woman and being treated as such by the opposite sex). So its eery how many of the situations Gray portrays in his book sound/read exactly the way they have played out in my dating life (I'm just talking about the last 4 years, since my divorce).
So bravo for presenting a more realistic view than the Feminist Gestapo. We ARE different, and whether we want to paint it negatively (passive vs aggressive) or more positively (receptive vs active) is our choice. I think understanding our differences doesn't condemn us to live the lives of our grandparents, it just opens the way to figuring out together how we choose to live and love.
Comment by NancyG — April 1, 2009 @ 1:55 pm