A delightfully heartwarming movie entitled “Enchanted” inspired me to explore and analyze the intrinsic differences between men and women.
It somehow shed light in decoding this paradoxical relationship and understand why relationships between the two sexes can sometimes be frustrating. I was made to wonder whether a storybook view of romance which was fl awlessly unrealistic survives in the real world?
In fairytales, it was told that men and women have so much respect for each other and enjoyed their differences—but alas, when one tries take a look at present day reality, we observe that men and women seem to completely forget that they are different as when women mistakenly expect men to think, communicate and react the way women do and vice versa.
These unrealistic expectations cause frustration but when we understand the individual differences between how the genders think, act and perceive things, we have more realistic expectations of each other, and our frustration level drops.
Speaking of which, we do realize that it can be very frustrating for some people when gender differences are painted in such broad strokes, since there’s such a large spectrum of what women are like and what men are like. Both men and women come in different shapes and sizes but by and large, I feel that most will identify with these characteristics which, if I may qualify, are not hard and fast rules but rather only a predominant inclination of both the genders.
Giselle, banished by an evil queen from her magical, musical animated land and finds herself adrift in a chaotic, gritty reality of the streets of modern-day Manhattan was shocked by this strange new environment that doesn’t operate on a “happily ever after” basis. Between a seemingly perfect man (Prince Edward) who is literally a knight in shining armor, and a fl awed divorce lawyer (Robert), she instead fell in love with Robert though she is already promised a perfect fairy tale love story with her prince back at her home in Andalasia.
The character Robert is what I would regard as the typical modern divorced guy raising a daughter single-handedly in an utterly disorganized home without a woman’s touch, who gets his sense of self from achievements by winning cases in court. He is the perfect example of the contemporary man who tends to be task-oriented, and being self-reliant is very important to him which is what most men are nowadays.
You put those traits together, and you get people who hate to ask for directions or for help.
They are the type who would try to fi nd a way to solve problems by themselves because accomplishing the task isn’t going to be satisfying unless they can do it on their own. On the other hand, women, like the young lady in the movie, mostly place premium on relationships whether at home, in the community or at work While men tend to be task-oriented, women are relation-oriented for most women regard connections to other people as the most important thing and instead of only prizing self-reliance, women tend to be inter-dependent, enjoying the connections with other people and asking for help and offering it is a compliment.
Furthermore, one dominant trait frequently observed is that men usually focus on a goal. They want to get to the bottom line or the end of something immediately, but women tend to enjoy the process. It is not that reaching a goal isn’t important to women, on the contrary, they like getting there too. That’s why driving vacations are so very different for men and women -- the guys want to get to their destinations and beat their best time with the fewest stops, and women sort of treasure the time to talk and look and maybe stop at the outlet malls along the way!
In addition, men are competitive whether on the (basketball) court, on the highway or at work, they just naturally want to win and be out front.
Some are driven to prove themselves, to prove that they are competent, and it comes out as what is known as “competitive spirit”. Not discounting the fact that women can also be competitive, it’s just that women tend to be more cooperative than competitive.
When girls are playing and one gets hurt, the game will often stop and even be forgotten while everyone gathers around and comforts the one who went down. It’s that relational part of women coming out.
Moreover, men are often firmly logical and analytical without regard to anything else and women tend to be more intuitive. This isn’t some sort of mystic claim; there was a study at Stanford University that discovered women catch subliminal messages faster and more accurately than men.
Voila -- intuition. This difference is evident in brain activity. Men’s brains tend to show activity in one hemisphere at a time whereas women’s brains will show the two hemispheres communicating with each other, back and forth, constantly.
That means that often, men and women can arrive at the exact same conclusion, using completely different means to get there. Our thinking has been accused of being convoluted, but it works!
Also, men are linear. They can usually focus on just one thing at a time. That’s why women learned not to try to talk to men while they’re reading the paper while women really struggle to read and listen at the same time. Maybe God deliberately made women to be multi-taskers, able to juggle many things at once since it’s a requirement for mothering.
Many times women can be cooking dinner and helping the kids with homework and answering the phone and keeping an ear on the radio or television, all at the same time. Consequently, men tend to be compartmentalized, like a chest of drawers: work in one drawer, relationships in another drawer, sports in a third drawer, and so on. Whereas women are more like a ball of yarn/thread where everything’s connected to everything else that is why a woman can’t get romantic when there’s some unresolved anger or frustration with her husband, and he doesn’t see what the two things have to do with each other.
Looking at all these character differences, there is really no confl ict through all the imperfections. Men and women may seem different in the way they think and perceive things, yet it does not need to be perfect for in the dissimilarities -- comes harmony -- these imperfections and peculiarities actually complement the absence or inadequacy of the other person which surprisingly comes out as a sound combination ---like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle---indeed a perfect fit!.
