In 1992 a yoga instructor with a distance-learning PhD had the courage to ask: "Are women not getting help around the house because they're using the wrong modal verb?" Support us on PatreonWhere to find us: TwitterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSources:The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?A critical response to John Gray's Mars and Venus portrayals of men and women The Gender Similarities HypothesisThe Rebuttal from UranusComing home upset: Gender, marital satisfaction and the daily spillover of workday experience into couple interactionsFDA warning letter Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: An Analysis of a Potential MemeWomen, Men and Language Women, Men, and Gender: Ongoing DebatesWomen and Men Talking: Are They World’s Apart?
The speaker discusses their emotional experience of reading a 20th anniversary edition of a book in which they observe a trend of gender essentialism that was popular in the 90s.
A man struggles with understanding his wife's needs after a difficult birth, and relies on his friends for advice instead of recognizing his own shortcomings. This leads him to eventually write a book about his experiences.
The author states that men and women have different objectives in their communication styles, and that this understanding can help in gaining better insights into modern relationships and improving them. He also believes that men and women perceive, think, feel, react, respond, love, need, and appreciate differently.
The speaker highlights the annoying habit of men who jump to offering solutions to women's emotional problems instead of just listening and providing emotional support. They argue that women need emotional support, not just practical solutions when talking about their problems.
Women instinctively feel the need to talk about their feelings and all possible problems associated with it, even if there is no solution to those problems.
The speaker critiques a relationship advice book for its lengthy and simplistic lists, finding the advice to be superficial and more suited for dealing with difficult co-workers rather than intimate partners.
John Hagelin becomes the right-hand man of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi but faces pushback regarding his fake PhD. He gives couples counseling advice, which raises questions about his expertise.
One third of the book is dedicated to the concept that men need to "go to their caves." The book ends up being an accidental biography of the author.
The speaker analyzes how some men turn their negative experiences with women into a toxic worldview of masculinity, and then try to sell it to others through pickup artistry.
The societal trope that women who wear heavy makeup are "lying" has persisted for too long. While makeup can be used to enhance features, it doesn't necessarily mean that the wearer is trying to deceive others.
The speaker questions the accuracy of stereotypes surrounding women in the bestselling relationship advice book of all time, and comments on the escalation of requests being portrayed as an existential threat.
The speaker discusses a double standard in relationships where men are expected to be rational and women are seen as emotional. This leads to misunderstandings and conflict especially when it comes to communication styles.
Misunderstandings in communication styles can be used strategically to reflect underlying hierarchies between men and women. This highlights the importance of language and how we interpret the words of others depending on our own experiences and place in society.
Studies have shown that while men and women talk roughly the same amount, women tend to fish for topics to discuss, leading them to talk slightly more than men. Meta-analyses suggest that there are differences in communication between genders.
The belief that men talk more than women in society is a stereotype that has been debunked by conversation analysis, which reveals that it is not attributed to gender but rather to individual behavior.
The belief in traditional gender roles can make it difficult to accept the existence of gender as a spectrum, leading to harmful ideas about trans individuals.