Men Are from Mars and Women from Venus

"To feel better, women talk about past problems, future problems,
potential problems, even problems that have no solutions. The more
talk and exploration, the better they feel. This is the way women operate.
To expect otherwise is to deny a woman her sense of self."
"Just as a glass of water can be viewed as half full or half empty, when a
woman is on her way up she feels the fullness of her life. On the way down
she sees the emptiness. Whatever emptiness she overlooks on the way up
comes more into focus when she is on her way down into her well."
"In Chuck's mind, the more money he made at work, the less he
needed to do at home to fulfill his wife. He thought his hefty paycheck
at the end of the month scored him at least thirty points. When he
opened his own clinic and doubled his income, he assumed he was
now scoring sixty points a month. He had no idea that his paycheck
earned him only one point each month with Pam—no matter how big
it was."

Before Men Are from Mars,Women Are from Venus, John Gray
wrote a book entitled Men,Women, and Relationships. He began
that book with a story.
His father had offered a lift to a hitchhiker, who promptly robbed
him before locking him in the trunk of the car. Police responded to two
reports of an abandoned car, but bad directions stopped them from
finding it. They made it to the car after the third call, but by then it
was too late. Gray Snr. had died of heat asphyxiation in the trunk of
his own car.
When coming back home for the funeral, Gray asked that he be
locked in the trunk to see what it must have felt like. In the darkness he
ran his fingers over the dents where his father's fists had hammered,
and put his hand through the space where the tail-light had been
knocked out for air. His brother suggested that he extend his arm
further, to see if maybe he couldn't touch the hood button. He
reached—and pressed it open.
Gray took the manner of his father's death as a sign for what his
work was about: liberating people by telling them about the emotional
release buttons within their grasp.
Gray under the microscope
A good story, but do John Gray's books in fact liberate? A feminist critique
of his writing is easy to make. Websites have sprung up with titles
like "A Rebuttal from Uranus" (Susan Hamson) arguing that Men Are
from Mars institutionalizes sexism.
Sex-role theory, of which Gray is a prime exponent, says that men
and women are by nature very different, and that gender forms the
core of a person's identity. Gray is particularly insidious, these critics
say, because he never presents his views as a theory, simply saying "this
is the way things are" (biological fact). His millions of readers, caught in a marketing blizzard, are blinded to the alternatives and the fact that
gender roles are actually culturally conditioned. Gray's ultimate aim—
conscious or not—is to make women feel better about their subordinate
place in a hegemonic masculine culture.
Men Are from Mars in brief
Before taking sides, we must first describe the book. What are Gray's
main points?
? The golden key to better relationships is the acceptance of differences.
In our parents' day everyone accepted that men and women
were different, but the culture changed to the other extreme of there
being no differences.
? A woman aims to improve a man, but a man only wants acceptance.
Her unsolicited advice is never welcomed, being interpreted as negative
criticism. Rather than presenting a problem to a man, which is
often taken to mean that he is the problem, a man should be
approached as if he may embody the solution. Men are focused on
their competence and if they cannot solve problems they feel as if
they are wasting their time. Women, on the other hand, actually like
to discuss problems even without a solution in sight, because it gives
them the all-important chance to express their feelings.
? Women are like waves, rising to peaks, falling into troughs, then
back up again. Men must know that the trough time is when
women need men most. If he is supportive and does not try to get
the woman out of the trough immediately, she feels validated. In
order to be motivated a man must feel needed—but a woman must
feel cherished.
? Men alternate between the need for intimacy and the need for distance.
Men's going away into their "cave" is not a conscious decision
but is instinctive. Women who don't know about the need for
the cave and seek constant intimacy will see relationship turmoil.
Like a rubber band, a man needs to stretch—but will usually spring
back.
? Arguments quickly descend into hurt feelings about the way a point
is being made, rather than its content. It is the uncaring sound of the
point being made that is upsetting. Men do not see how much their
comments hurt and provoke, because they focus on "the point."
Most arguments start because a woman expresses a worry over
something and the man tells her that it is not worth worrying about.
This invalidates her and she gets upset with him. He then gets mad
because she seems to be getting angry at him for nothing. He will
not say sorry for something he believes he has not done, so the initial
argument goes into cruise control for hours or days.
? Men will argue because they do not feel trusted, admired, or encouraged
and are not spoken to with a tone of trust and acceptance.
Women will argue because they are not listened to or put high on a
man's list of priorities.
The broader message
Gray suggests that at our time in history, we are right to expect maximum
fulfillment in our romantic life. However, our bodies and brains,
evolving over millennia, required the refinement of sex differences for
greater survival success. (As Daniel Goleman argues in Emotional Intelligence,
we are modern people walking around with brains built for the
plains and the forests of distant ancestors.) To wear the bright expectation
of perfect relationships, unarmed with any knowledge of the basic
differences between male and female thought patterns, is naïve and
unwittingly invites a saboteur aboard the loveship. Gray doesn't focus
on the nature or nurture debate. He just says that this is how men and
women tend to act, and if we understand it there will be fewer relationship
problems.
In Gray's defense
As we noted to begin with, the criticism that often greets this book is
that it increases the division between the sexes. We are, after all, in the
twenty-first century—can't we see each other simply as people and not
by sex? Or skin color or nationality or anything else? And why doesn't
Gray ever write about gay relationships? He does admit that he generalizes,
yet he writes as if what he is saying is fact.
These are all valid points, but they fail to see Gray's basic intention.
He wrote for an audience of people who do not read genetics or sociology
textbooks—they want better relationships now. Men Are from
Mars does not advance cutting-edge theories, but neither does it say
that men and women are roped to the poles of their sex; we have tendencies to action that, if recognized, need no longer be our master.
By highlighting sex differences, Gray may be guilty in some courts of
entrenching patriarchy, but nowhere in his writing does he go so far as
to say that gender determines the person. The public would not have
touched the book if he had. If the goal of focusing on sex differences is,
paradoxically, to move beyond them, then Gray is a liberator.
Final comments
There are thousands of books on relationships. What made Men Are
from Mars stand out?
Gray has said that he deliberately wrote Men Are from Mars in such
a way that people "would not have to think." It seems made for
lunchtime television and "cheesy" probably sums up the book in many
people's eyes. Readers interested in this whole area of intersex communication
who want something a little more brainy might like to read
the books of linguistics expert Deborah Tannen (for example You Just
Don't Understand, That's Not What I Meant). A page of Tannen may
be more interesting than ten of Gray, but the key to Gray's success is
that his statements and analogies stick in the mind and many points
involve quite subtle distinctions.
Gray's influence in the relationship realm is a lot like Dr. Benjamin
Spock's in child rearing. Both authors' books became the standard text
to have around the house on these subjects. Spock's ideas were blamed
for producing a generation of spineless pacifists, but millions also
swore by him. What verdict will eventually be passed on Men Are from
Mars? Who knows, but it is clear that the book has been right for its
times, and perhaps we needed to be reminded of our differences before
we could move beyond them. As Emerson noted, the finest people are
able to marry the two sexes in the one person. We should not get
caught up in differences (gender or otherwise) if they will sidetrack our
consideration and wonder at people per se.
The healthy attitude to take to Gray would be to accept some of
what he says and disregard other parts. Both unquestioning embrace
and outright rejection would indicate a closed mind. It is very easy to
dismiss this book—but read it when you are miserable following a fight
with your partner and it may come alive for you. As a simple guide to
the ups and downs of living with a member of the opposite sex, it does
have touches of brilliance.