It seems to me that men and women compete very differently.
A woman competes with other women by tearing the other women down. Women are nit-picky, looking for ways to disparage and discredit the successes of others. Women construct elaborate, ambiguous, social structures that can be used as weapons to reward their friends and punish their foes in a near-arbitrary fashion.
A man competes with other men by building himself up. Men gain stature by "going where no man has gone before": exploring new territory, building a bigger skyscraper, buying a fancier car, and so forth. Yes, it's all very phallic.
Nit-picking annoys men because to us the accomplishment speaks for itself, regardless of its imperfections. Even Christopher Columbus's enemies acknowledged the greatness of his feats. To women, no accomplishment has any value other than that granted to it by the social construct; if a woman doesn't like Columbus, she'll find a perfectly reasonable excuse to dismiss his achievment because it wasn't done "properly".
Similarly, women appreciate compliments on the details. If she changes her hair, a simple "You look great" pales in comparison to "You changed your hair, and it looks great". Men, on the other hand, want to be admired for their large accomplishments, and generally couldn't care less about the details.
Men try to impress women as if they're men, and this leads to confusion. To a man, a one-time gift of a $10,000 new car is equal to 100 weekly gifts of $100 each, and he won't understand why the woman is still expecting more gifts, frequently, (much) less than two years later. He wonders, Why doesn't she appreciate what I've done for her already? Women try to impress men with details. She buys him a shirt or makes him a birthday card, and he hardly notices because they're small things -- but she feels slighted.
Advice to men: give her lots of small gifts, frequently; express appreciation for small things; try to notice details. (I've found that noticing details is easier for me if I focus on a specific thing I know she likes. For instance, if you know she likes her fish, look at her fish every time you go over and remark about any differences. This gets you off the hook for having to notice other things that are more subtle.) If you want to compete with a woman, it's easy to tear her down by pointing out tiny flaws in her work, even though to you they are inconsequential. Yes, this is fighting like a girl.
Advice to women: recognize his large accomplishments and compliment him on them as long as they're active, not just once. For instance, he may spend every day building up a career that he's very proud of, but you may not think to express frequent admiration because there is no specific detail for you to anchor your compliment to. If you want to compete with a man, it's easy to discredit his accomplishments by comparing them in total to greater accomplishments by others; don't waste time criticising small details, because he'll dismiss your nit-picking. Yes, this allows him to retain credit for the accomplishment, but it makes him think that the credit is insignificant.
To speak to this paragraph:
"A woman competes with other women by tearing the other women down."
Its amazing how often female admins at work are at each other's throats. One guy who transfered had only one request, don't make me supervise the admins cause its drama and breaking up verbal fights day after day.
It all just tends to the fact that men think much more in the macro, while women think far more in the micro.
I am blessed to have a wife that "gets it" and I believe I could not have a more perfect partner. It took me a lot of years to understand these differences and I still get confused frequently. The hardest thing to watch is a couple fighting within the relationship for their power and reaching the point of "What have you done for me lately". Neither one willing to give because their previous attempts were rejected or misunderstood.
Pirate -
I once worked in a bank HQ as a programming & database geek. If you haven't worked in a bank or insurance headquarters, well, it's 95% women. My section consisted of about 6 men with a male supervisor, and each of us was platooned out to support a vast array of female-only sections & sub-sections.
It was exactly as you decribed it. My boss (a man) and several of the female section heads privately warned me about the nasty intra-squad squabbling, and openly admitted it was due to the all-female structure.
Michael -
I cannot help but notice this example:
Nit-picking annoys men because to us the accomplishment speaks for itself, regardless of its imperfections. Even Christopher Columbus's enemies acknowledged the greatness of his feats. To women, no accomplishment has any value other than that granted to it by the social construct; if a woman doesn't like Columbus, she'll find a perfectly reasonable excuse to dismiss his achievment because it wasn't done "properly".
This mirrors the divide between left & right with respect to the war in Iraq. It would be ugly to suggest the left didn't want to see the Iraqi people unyoked from Saddam - BUT - the left wanted it done a certain way and only *that* path can count as victory. United Nations oversight. Sanctions before Force. Buy-In of all the European players.
The Right, OTOTH, says that yes, the war was rough at times and cost American lives. But look what we accomplished! If we had taken the path suggestd by you leftists, it never would have borne fruit.
micheal, dude, don't tell them how to annoy us! They'll only use the knowledge against you, how cruel an irony!
The left isn't nitpicking, we value the importance of honestly advertising the reasons for engaging in war before getting down to it. The right don't seem to mind that the goal-posts have shifted. That sets such a dangerous precedent, don't you see? Next time we need to fight, I'll be wondering why we're *Really* going in...
Can I be a woman and nitpick your post? *grin*
While I admit that women tear each other down by picking each other apart, I think women listen more to each other than men do and thus are more supportive. I think women rip women apart about as much as women build each other up. I think this goes back to the fact that women base our feelings of self worth on WHO we are not WHAT we do necessarily. So we are proud to be a wonderful girlfriend, mother, sister, and friend and not necessarily for making $x amount of money, buying a certain car, or making partner.
Men, I have noticed, really don't tear each other down or build each other up. Yes there is a sense of team work that men seem to get by patting each other on the ass and slapping high fives but in an individual capacity, you rarely hear a man compliment another men on his achievements. I don't think men create the support network for each other that women do. Men also don't base their self worth on whether they are a good husband or a good friend which I think is ultimately detrimental and tends to make men seem more selfish. I think often men act without regard for how their action affects others.
Granted these are all gross generalizations but that is why I think there are so many deadbeat dad's, alcoholic father's who beat their children, men who don't pay child support, etc. You just don't read/know/hear about as many women who abandon their children and their husbands or are cruel to them.
As I was reading your thoughts, it seemed like you could put the word liberal or Democrat in almost every place where it now says woman, and put Conservative or Republican in each place where it now says man, and it still makes about the same amount of sense.
Can I be a woman and nitpick your post? *grin*
While I admit that women tear each other down by picking each other apart, I think women listen more to each other than men do and thus are more supportive. I think women rip women apart about as much as women build each other up. I think this goes back to the fact that women base our feelings of self worth on WHO we are not WHAT we do necessarily. So we are proud to be a wonderful girlfriend, mother, sister, and friend and not necessarily for making $x amount of money, buying a certain car, or making partner.
Men, I have noticed, really don't tear each other down or build each other up. Yes there is a sense of team work that men seem to get by patting each other on the ass and slapping high fives but in an individual capacity, you rarely hear a man compliment another men on his achievements. I don't think men create the support network for each other that women do. Men also don't base their self worth on whether they are a good husband or a good friend which I think is ultimately detrimental and tends to make men seem more selfish. I think often men act without regard for how their action affects others.
Granted these are all gross generalizations but that is why I think there are so many deadbeat dad's, alcoholic father's who beat their children, men who don't pay child support, etc. You just don't read/know/hear about as many women who abandon their children and their husbands or are cruel to them.
Kitten,
You lost me in the last two paragraphs. If by "what he does" you're referring solely to careers, then that's not a general enough male trait to be generalized. As far as "what a man does" in other aspects of his life, then it would certainly include such things as leaving his spouse and child behind. As far as men leaving their wives, statistics suggest that it's more often the woman that leaves the man and not vice-versa. As far as the children are concerned, there are less "dead-beat moms" because the mother is more often than not given custody of the child.
As far as physical abuse goes, that's something that does fall squarely on men more than women, but I believe it has a lot to do with other things beyond a simple lack of empathy. It's a factor, but I would argue that it's more about power and a greater propensity for violence.
As for your general point that men are less interested in building each other up and tearing each other down, I'm inclined to agree. Men are less interested in getting help (hence the stereotype about men getting directions) and I think are more likely to conclude that others don't want help being built up, either (and are therefore less likely to give assistence and therefore less "nurturing").
Does this make men more selfish? If uncurbed, it can certainly make them more isolated. But women's general desire for approval, if uncurbed, leads to things like emotional dependency, which is considerably more common in women than in men.
I'm inclined to believe that there are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches. Either can get really bad if leaned on too heavily, though I think that the differences involved are what make men and women more complimentary to one another.
Sorry about posting Kitten's comment as well as my own. I cut and pasted the whole thing from Notepad instead of just my response.
I think the male/female dichotomy is very similar to the right/left political split.
WSK: I agree with RA mostly, although you're both wrong in thinking that men physically abuse women more often than women abuse men. In fact, the proportions are about the same, and the violence perpetrated by women tends to be much more severe.
For the record, I am one of those women who hates the fact that large number of her sex are bitchy and manipulative. Maybe its because I had a bunch of guy friends growing up cuz girls were too mean and nasty. I am quite capable of being manipulative, its just a quality i find wholly repugnant. I have too much pride not to deal with people in a forthright manner