Blogging Assignment #2

The article “He Said She Said” from Men’s Health magazine would be examined in this blog post, as well as the close association of this article with the excerpt from John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

The article provided scenarios where clueless men were constantly thrown into a befuddling conundrum by women who say one thing but mean another in a “No-Means-Yes” and “Yes-Means-No” sort of situation. Hapless and helpless men could now take faith and be reassured by this article, which sought to explain such bewildering comments and responses from unfathomable females. Explanations given for erratic behaviour and moods from the women species ranged the gamut from certain natural biological periods of the month, a bad day at work, an argument with her best friend, an inclination to pick a fight with a man no matter what he does and also when the woman feels that she should be right for the day. Men are told to treat whatever the woman say then as irrelevant and trivial, something that could be swept under the rug and fully dismissed till she starts to act sensibly again, as whatever the triggering factor that caused such a response would sort itself out and the matter would blow over after some time. Men are also advised to placate and accommodate to her requests in the meantime and never to react in ways that might add fuel to the fire. The best way of communication as proposed by this article is to listen emphatically without solving a woman’s problems rather than to speak knowledgeably and propose solutions, and to provide a listening ear whenever the woman is in one of her moods. However, as much as this article tried to be helpful, this actually not only played into the stereotypical portrayal of a hysterical female, but might also erroneously make the man ignore the real needs of a woman when she was really crying out for help and support. Men are also assumed, in the same breath, to offer solutions to every problem that they hear of or come across, and this “need-to-fix mentality” is extrapolated to their relationships with women, thus listening is described a skill which they need to develop, instead of something men are inherently born with.

The advice suggested from these various scenarios should be taken lightly, as this is but a men’s magazine and the perspectives of the author(s) are in no way credible or substantial. The scope of the article is rather limited as it is scenario-based and merely five scenarios were given to explain away tantrums from women. It is unlikely that these scenarios could cover every aspect of interpersonal relationships in grounded reality. This article shares similarities with Gray, assuming that men and women have different conversational rules and that men constantly have to “decode [a woman’s] words and body language”. Constant practice of suggestions from the article are deemed to be useful (a requirement, actually) in the long run and would allow for communication success with the opposite sex. The article went on to make several blatant assumptions, such as an assumption that men are really in the dark when it came to actual meaning and phrasing of words, even in certain situations where the intention was in plain sight, and that women are largely to be blamed for making the lives of men difficult with the use of indirect speech which men are unfamiliar with, which in turn resulted in conflict, miscommunication, misunderstanding and mishandling of the events. This article indirectly seemed to portray women as the source of all troubles men would ever face in his lifetime – cleaning up a laundry room filled with soap suds is seemingly more bearable and less stressful than having a woman complain about the purchase of the incorrect detergent. The last section on “Her Top 5 Communication Don’ts were indeed derogatory in nature to women, with use of strong terms like “Women freak out often for no discernible reason” and portrayed guys as unknowing victims who say things that they thought were pretty innocent, but had really annoyed or enraged the women folk, along with the assumption that all women would react in a similar negative fashion upon hearing the comment.

Therefore, though the article seemed to differ from Gray’s opinions since it depicted women as being confrontational rather than being meek and submissive that sought to avoid hurtful comments made to men, it actually re-hashed the typical stereotypes of the sexes that plagued Gray’s excerpt. The advice provided in the article is based on intuition of the author rather than factual realities, and is in no terms a comprehensive and useful guide, thus it should be regarded lightly and should not be taken as the absolute truth when it comes to dealing with women.