Dustin’s Soapbox (Do men not listen to women?)

It has recently come to my attention that supposedly men and women cannot understand each other due to our brains being wired differently. I believe the metaphor was “Men are like math text books, short and to the point.” While women apparently talk in superfluous dialogues that leave the men overloaded. I don’t think this is correct and I decided to write my own interpretation of why the phenomena of “Men not listening” occurs myself. I’m sure there are much better authorities on the subject them myself and I would like to also say that everything I say is based purely on my own experiences in my (American) culture, so all of my forthcoming generalizations will be based on that.

First of all I think it would be a mistake to say that men do no listen when women are talking. Of course men do listen and there are several documented cases when they remember what the person of the opposite sex loves and thus use that to their advantage to prove that he was in fact listening. On the other hand the specific topic we’re going to cover is the breakdown of these talks.

My own interpretation is that this is not a gender issue. The main problem between men and women is not their sex organs but their social roles and expected mannerisms. For instance, let us say that there are two generic men who both really like and follow sports. They are having a conversation about it and since both men are interested in the subject find that knowing exactly what the other is saying comes easily. Now let us take one of these generic men who knows nothing of shoes and introduce him to generic girl who can think of nothing else. He hasn’t the slightest what she’s talking about and what’s more he doesn’t really want to know. He doesn’t listen because he has absolutely no interest. What then is the cause of the break down? Is it because he is a man? Although I’m sure many people would argue that perhaps women are all born as shoe lovers and men are all born as sports lovers and this is why we can’t communicate properly I don’t believe that to be the case. Women aren’t born loving shoes. They love shoes because it’s socially acceptable for them to do so and what’s more it provides a conversation opener with other women because they think that is what they are interested in as well. I think the best reference for this is scrubs when Elliot employs the shoe talking technique to get J.D. and Turk to tune out. Social standards dictate that if you see a guy wearing the same pair of tennis shoes every day that this isn’t out of the ordinary. However if you saw a girl in the same dirty tennis shoes you might think differently. Though not everyone, some due judge others by the way they dress (The clothes make the man) and thus there are standards for girls and guys and depending on which sex you were born into these standards will bear different social relevance. For girls the knowledge of shoes might be deemed normal and regular. Not every girl will base her responses on this, but this boils down to the girl herself. Guys on the other hand for shoes matter less will know less about this. On the other hand guys tend to be more encouraged to know about sports so they can talk to other guys about what is happening in sporting events and sound convincing and enlightened. In other words these are both tools to the survival in the harsh social world both sexes live in.

The Break Down

So where I deem the conversation to break down is not because of the difference in the wiring of the brains but simply the difference in social environment. There are of course many different kinds of people with different interests and that is why it is not uncommon to see men and women talking in coffee shops about things that interest them both. To justify my claim that no one listens to things they are uninterested in is a lot harder than my other claim, but I think I’ll just have to say judge this one as you may. I listened in chemistry when I wasn’t particularly interested all the time, but I will say from experience that when I found the thing the professor was talking about(regardless of the professors gender) I found it much easier to listen when the topic was engaging and interesting. So why don’t men listen to women, my answer is because when they aren’t listening they are simply not interested. Why do they listen when they’re not particularly interested? My answer is because they are incredibly interested in the woman.

The Solution

If you agree with what I said then the solution is quite simple. Either you can talk about things that interest both parties in a conversation or you can make that other person so important to you that you are interested in anything they are. For all the true love people out there the second option is much more difficult and asking an awful lot of the other person. The second is also not a sure fire method for other reasons that would be on a total tangent for this Dustin’s Soapbox

I am not an expert and I will probably never claim to be. I don’t truthfully do much talking to either sex so perhaps I’m quite off base. Take a stab at what you think this posed problem is, I would definitely like to listen.