I certainly don’t think men and women are identical, but I would question generalizations made without actual data to substantiate them. Genetics and culture both contribute to how human beings develop, and as our culture has changed in the last century so have our understandings of gender roles/differences between the sexes and so on.
I question the generalisations too, as well as see the importance of culture. However, it’s easy to say something is cultural but later find out that oops… maybe not? Think about twins ending up similar even if they are brought up in different circumstances.
Which would still be far more accurate than someone than someone making generalizations about men and women out of their own personal experiences and understandings.
Our experience is just a piece of the whole cake. While we can’t guarantee that what holds true for a piece is true also for the whole cake, we can infer much if we know the structure and the general rules that apply to a cake (even if we don’t know if the particular cake doesn’t deviate from the general principles as we see them). This is basically to point out that generalising isn’t always doomed. On the other hand, excessive particularism (stick with one’s piece of cake only) severely limits one’s perspective and impairs it. The extreme example of this is when people claim that only those who have experienced something can judge it, therefore e.g. judges, most of whom have never stolen or killed (except previously at war maybe) shouldn’t judge people. It can’t go that far. We need to use common sense and avoid either going too far or staying too close.
Well, I’m not ready to say that in general and I was just talking about my personal experience.
Well, I could say a lot of things about women from personal experience, but my experience includes also what I see of other people’s experience or what second-hand relations I come across and somehow I’m less inclined to claim that women have this or that pathology. The women I’ve had this kind of contact with may have had certain traits in common, but there’s a lot of factors there, including the reasons why I picked those women, more than just a proportional reflection of general traits. Speaking theologically, from your experience it seems to show that men are more affected by the Fall than women are.
But still, even if true, all it says is that men would be more likely than women to want power, or to want to be worshipped by others.
Nah, you’re just trying to reduce it to some supposedly 100% sure minimum. Generally, virtues have corresponding vices and desire of certain things, while of itself neutral, can develop into more positive or negative shapes. A person who likes eating, likes eating, while a glutton also likes eating, except inordinately so. Thus it isn’t too far off to say that e.g. a populace with a greater share of gluttons also has a greater general appreciation of food. Sure, you don’t have 100% proof, but you never have 100% proof in science anyway. You only have that kind of proof in maths.
If you grant that this is just the unhealthy variant of the healthy desire to want to be liked and well thought of, then I guess you could make an argument that maybe men might be more likely than women to want to be liked/well thought of/have influence.
Generally, if more men than women like cars, then it would be somehow expectable that more men than women would covet cars and so more men than women would still cars (obviously notwithstanding the fact that in particular cases people may well have strong desires but even stronger self-control). This should work the other way round too. When I say
should, I mean it just points in that direction, not like it’s guaranteed.
But it doesn’t say that most men would want this over being loved, or that most women would want being loved over this. Which I think is what the other poster wanted to say.
*Loved *is a broad word and I’m sure we have as many defintions as we have people. Perhaps some men would indeed put respect before love, while some others would define love, or especially *being loved *or
feeling loved in terms of respect than cherishing, well, depending whether they talked about loving women or being loved by women. Won’t necessarily be true for “metrosexuals”, I guess.
Everything in my experience suggests that both sexes want both respect and warmth/affection, which again, is no better than someone making a claim that men want respect and women want love. I admit that I could well be wrong.
Yes, of course, both sexes want all those things, but they differ when it comes to details or particular priorites. I would say it’s somewhat natural for people to want to be someone’s “big guy” (looked up, the hero, the protector/provider) or “little girl” (the princess, the treasured and protected one) than vice versa, even if we obviously shouldn’t go too far with generalisations. Nothing much wrong with a big guy and big girl scenario, but now big girl and little guy… ooops… no, not really how things are supposed to be.
If you look at everything in exclusive, absolutist terms-- like for instance, that nurturing means that women “sit around” and soothe babies all day-- then obviously the whole perspective will be skewed.
