“Men are From Mars, Women Wanna Shoot Mars Out of the Freakin’ Sky”

“Men are From Mars, Women Wanna Shoot Mars Out of the Freakin’ Sky”

- Ryder Strong as Sean on Boy Meets World

Any woman worth her salt will tell you that men just don’t listen.  In fact, I know a man or two who will pull up a stool and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and agree, whole-heartedly.  It seems that this has always been the case.  At least, in my case, I learned the cold hard fact of male obliviousness at an early age.

As I was growing up, this was a normal scene in my household:

My parents would be on the couch, watching TV.  I would come down the stairs, dressed to go out, and my mother would ask about the details of my plans; where was I going, who else would be there, what would we do, and when would we be back; was my phone on and did I have her number?

I would stand in the living room for ten to fifteen minutes, answering each question to her satisfaction.  Then, she would nod her approval, tell me to be careful, and I would hug her goodnight.  Then, I would kiss my father on the cheek and say a quick “bye.”  That is when he would usually look up at me and ask “Where are you going?”

Though he sat between my mother and me the entire time, he would not register a word of our conversation.  We usually laughed it off, and I would say, “Mom will explain it to you.”  It has just always been common knowledge in my family that, if Dad is watching TV, it is impossible for him to do anything else.

Chalk it up to the old cliche‘ .  And since I began to navigate the choppy waters of romantic relationships, I have been reminded, daily, that cliche’s are just that for a reason.  Many is the time that I have made a significant point or articulated a difficult emotion, only to have it ignored or regurgitated back to me in a twisted, unrecognizable form.

Though women have come to accept this as simple truth, the battle to make ourselves heard and understood still wages,  and time and time again, we come out the other side defeated, and wondering where we went wrong.  In our frustration, we lay blame wherever it seems to fit at the moment, from the men themselves to a global community that has socialized them to be unreceptive.  The consensus among the general population seems to be that men just haven’t fully evolved and that they need to learn to be more open and respectful.  Many men will even admit fault, but still seem to refuse to change.  So we collect ourselves, re-strategize, and steel ourselves for the next fight.

But for as many times as we have screamed, cried, and forced our male counterparts into workshops that will help them “get in touch” with their feeling, what if it isn’t their fault?  What if, as a study conducted at the Indiana University School of Medicine suggests, we are trying to fight biology?

Through this study, which utilized functional magnetic resonance imagine (MRI), researchers revealed that, while women use both hemispheres of the brain to listen, men use only one (the left hemisphere, to be exact).  Theoretically, this means that women are actually capable of relating to spoken language with the entire scope of cognitive function, which, for men, is a physiological impossibility.  The male and female brains are different.  It’s that simple.

The aforementioned study, among others, indicate that women have a biological advantage when it comes to grasping and retaining auditory information.  However, Dr. Michael Philips, co-author of the Indiana study, is a bit too politically correct to accept this conclusion  He insists that men and women listen to information differently doesn’t mean that one way is necessarily better than the other.

Despite Dr. Philips‘ attempt to undermine the logical conclusion of his own research, ignoring the inherent hurdles in male-female communication will only lead to more of the same frustration and resentment we’ve felt since men and women first met.

We’ve finally made a breakthrough! We have evidence and insight.  Why would we ignore it?  If we recognize the problem, maybe we can finally take steps to solve it.  For example, there is a theory that, because men process auditory information with the left hemisphere of the brain, we’ll be more successful at relaying information if we speak into a man’s right ear (And you thought you’d tried everything).  Men also respond better to visual stimulation, so if something is important to you, make sure he’s looking at your face while you’re speaking.  He’ll take visual cues from your features.

In other words, Ladies (and my friends, Andrew and Matt), stop trying to re-condition your men, and try, instead, to work with them.  Scientists have been comparing brain activity among the sexes for years now, and some of the most prevalent differences surfaced decades ago.  Most of us have heard of Dr. John Gray’s breakthrough work, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, but, who among us has actually read it?  Yes, it’s cheesy, but it actually goes quite a long way in beginning to explain some of differences in male-female communication.  For example, women tend to use words like “always” and “never” when talking about a problem, because it conveys an intense emotion, so “I feel that it would only be fair if you did the dishes half the time.  However, you don’t seem to be doing your share.  That frustrates me,” tends to come out “Why is it that you never do the dishes, Dick?”  Unfortunately, men are more literal and, if they can think of an instance when they did, in fact, do the dishes-even if if was in 1992- they feel that they aren’t being given any credit for their efforts.

Though Dr. Gray does not delve deeply into the physiological differences that interfere with male-female communication, he does a great job of articulating the concept that men and women are playing at the same sport, with different rules.  The fact is, we’ve been duking it out for centuries, and only recently has science given us a peek at the other team’s handbook.

Another concrete example of the differences in male-female brain activity, backed by empirical evidence: women, on the whole, have larger and more fibrous corpus collosums (the tissue that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, which makes us better multi-taskers and more detail-oriented.  Again, it is only natural that this would make us better listeners.

To most women, these differences should account for a great deal.  It certainly explains why my father becomes to intently focused focused on Babylon 5 that he is incapable of taking in other spoken information as soon as he hits play, or why my boyfriend can never remember the plans I made for the following weekend.  Now, this is not to say that men are stupid.  They’re not neanderthals, and it’s not that they don’t care.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  Men are not inherently inferior to women.  The two sexes are just different, as individuals are, with different strengths and weaknesses.

The sooner we recognize and accept these distinctions, the sooner we can learn to accommodate them.  In short, when your husband, son, male co-worker, or father just doesn’t seem to be giving you the attention you so richly deserve, give the poor guy a break.  Just take a deep breath, step in front of the TV, and repeat yourself one more time.  Remember his shortcomings and make the extra effort.  Someday, maybe he’ll return the favor.

And if that doesn’t work, you can always go back to fighting.