My husband and I had an argument last night. It was nothing serious, one of those silly ones that we'll sooner forget than anything, but in reading and commenting on Courtney's post about cohabitation issues today, I realized that it represented the hand of society toying in some small part with our individual relationship.
The whole thing was a misunderstanding, a moment where ManPants thought I was trying to say something without actually saying it.
After 6 years of marriage, it amazed me to think that he couldn't recognize a moment when I was being completely honest, with no subtext to read. To be completely fair to him, I am often unintentionally vague about what I want, and have only been learning in recent years to quit prevaricating.
Yet looking back on it, I see a gender role filter too, an expectation that ManPants was interpreting our interaction through. There is a belief that women never say what we want , expecting instead to have our desires read in the unspoken parts of our words *. For some reason, this expectation seemed to be particularly strong last night, so strong that nothing I said could break through it. While I don't consider society the sole causation of our little conversation, it certainly played a role.
I wanted to play Guitar Hero, but ManPants wanted to watch one of his t.v. shows. The Wii and the DVR are both hooked up to one television, so one of us would not be able to do what s/he wanted at that moment. It was an easy choice - I didn't want to play Guitar Hero that badly, so I went and read blogs and looked for mp3s on Amazon instead.
This eventually reminded me that he had wanted to download some Bruce Springsteen songs for Guitar Hero, and that those songs were supposed to become available for download yesterday. Lest I forget (which I would do, I knew, for weeks or months or possibly forever), I immediately got up and said something to him.
"You really want to play Guitar Hero, don't you?" was his answer.
"No, I just wanted to remind you before I forgot."
"If you want to play Guitar Hero, we can right after my show is done."
I laughed, "It's fine. I don't want to play Guitar Hero. I just wanted to remind you." I had already lost my desire to play and was enjoying what I was doing online.
"It's fine. We can play," he responded.
"If I wanted to play, I would say that I wanted to play," I told him several times.
But he kept saying, "I think you want to play but you just don't want to say it."
Eventually, I said, half-jokingly, "I think you want to play but aren't willing to say it!"
But the conversation continued intermittently like this. No matter how much I said I didn't want to play, he continued to say that he would be willing to join me if I did. And I continued to laughingly respond that I thought he was the one who wasn't willing to simply say what he wanted.
Finally, I gave in. "Fine! Let's play Guitar Hero! Since you want to play it but won't admit that you want to, I'm making the decision that we're going to play and you can't say no!"
We played Guitar Hero. He could tell that I wasn't enjoying it as much as I normally do, so we only played three songs. Then he said, "You really didn't want to play Guitar Hero, did you?"
"No. That's why I kept saying that I didn't," I grinned.
(*There is a corresponding stereotype that women must find hidden meanings in men's words that I find equally ridiculous and inaccurate.)
Cross-posted at What If
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The issue I see here is whether couples will cease misunderstanding one another on the day that full equality from womb to tomb is completely possible, without social norming and so on. Can feminism -- or any other -ism -- really resolve the age-old problems? My bet? No.
Of course misunderstandings won't cease completely. Communication between any two people will always be imperfect so I would never expect that. We humans often interpret what another person is saying through the filter of our own expectations of them. This was merely an instance in which that expectation and the subsequent filtering was gendered.
This stereotype is laughable, since I can't count the number of times men have expected *me* to "read their minds" and "know" how they feel. This applies especially to 1) their sexual intentions, unless of course I "assume" something about them in which case "who do I think I am"; and 2) their degree of upset at something I might have done which I thought was fine or not that serious. I'm supposed to "know" not to do or say certain things even if no one has ever told me anything about it.
Notice the stereotype about women trying to understand men written right at the bottomn of waxghost's post. Therefore, by your anecdote, none of this is laughable, since if you provide examples of men expecting women to know what they are thinking, the reverse must also be true.
I know, right? I was just thinking anyone who assumes only women expect their partners to somehow read their mind and say the opposite of what they actually want hasn't met my ex!!!
(And since they haven't met him, I actually envy them ;p )
I have run into this too. I am a very straightforward "spell it out for you" type, but my ex would often insist that there was some other, secret meaning to my words or secret motivations to my actions and claim that he "didn't understand what I wanted" or that I "confused" him even though I thought I had simply and clearly explained things. Sometimes like in your situation he would not believe a statement about my desires and instead make a choice he didn't want to make simply because he thought it was what I wanted, even though I said it was not. I think part of it was just his personality (one of the many reasons he is an ex now), but I do also believe that some of that reluctance to take me at face value was due to the stereotype that "women never say what they really mean or mean what they say."
What I find terrible about this situation is that I know a lot women who do say one thing and mean another. They don't want to act like they're making the decisions in the relationship, so they passive agressively "make clear" what it is they want while never actually stating it clearly. They just hint at things.
And it just makes it tough for girls like me who are straightforward and will just say what we want when we want it without any hidden agenda.
But I would definitely agree that guys do this too, and my problem definitely lies with passive agressive types in general.
Agreed. Passive Agressive people bug the hell out of all of us, regardless of sex.
But as Transcend pointed out below, and I think it is a very good point, is that men are generally allowed to be more assertive, and say what they want, whereas women, as everyone on this forum acknowledges, are trained to be people pleasures, never saying wrong things that might offend others. Therefore, going with this premise, it would make sense for women, moreso than men, to not say what they want to say, in order to not offend other people.
If this were the case, you would find that in general, Men tend to be more aggressive, and women tend to be more passive aggressive.
Is this true? WHo knows.
I have definitely accused women (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) of saying "maybe" when they really mean "no," or saying "either one is fine" when they really want to get ice cream instead of coffee. In my moments of anger, I generalize that this is a feminine failing, but I must remember that I have at least two male friends who do similar vacillations.
Deep down, it is a people-pleaser thing, a conflict-evasion thing: a fear that asserting yourself will create conflicts, will disappoint people, will act against you. We all have these fears, but only some of us think these fears might outweigh the opportunity to express our own desires. Clearly, members of both sexes can be conflict-averse; but if women are socialized to place more of their value in the feelings and opinions that others cultivate about them (and if men are socialized to think self-assertion is macho and manly), then I wouldn't be surprised if (at least for now) there are more women who are tempted into this kind of behavior.
One of my best female friends always thinks that I am tricking her when I ask her "this movie or that?" I have to assure her that "no, I really would be happy with either." If I have a strong opinion already, I ask "this movie, maybe?" ;-)
With me, the passive-aggressive thing is on three levels.
1) I'm a woman, and I've been trained from kindergarten on that in order to get attention and friends and ahead in school, I have to be good and nice and not piss anyone off.
2) My mother, and her mother before, are both people pleasers. My mother has a story in which she got laid off as a teen, told her mother, and was told to go back on her knees and BEG for her job back for half the salary. They said yes, and so she spent the rest of the summer being miserable and broke.
3) All of the jobs I have been able to get have been people-pleaser jobs. Since I can't afford to go to college, I work restaurant jobs- often where my very salary is in the hands of the patrons. So if I piss them off- (or bring them food they find to be unsatisfactory, or give the check to the wrong person so they think I'm sexist, etc etc) I don't earn enough money to pay my rent.
Huh, it's funny, I just emerged from a long fight with my partner. The argument started with the accusation that I was 'reading too much into what he said'. We essentially covered every major difference between us, from religion, to politics, to lifestyle choices, to family issues, etc. And the conversation essentially ended with me asking "Why do you love me?"
His response: "Because you make me happy"
Me: "But, what is about me, as a person, that makes you happy?"
Him: "Because I love you. When I'm with you, I'm happy".
And, you see, for me, that isn't quite enough... I expect him to be able to elaborate on his emotions more. Now, we could chalk up the differences in this fight to us fulfilling gender stereotypes, but that would be incredibly unfair, since, for us, it's more complicated than that. I'm an English student, so I've spent my life reading and thinking about the complexities of the human emotional range. He's a Physics student-- enough said. He was raised in an environment where emotional displays or sensitivity were strongly discouraged (for both boys and girls) and I was raised in a home where I was encouraged to analyze my emotional state.
But then I wonder, how much are we acting out stereotypes? Am I really just reducing him to a simplistic being? Am I right in feeling frustration at his inability to unpack his feelings?
Oh, and this whole fight started from his comment saying that, in general, men are more likely to be judged more harshly by a prospective partner's parents, because they tend to be more forthright. (Which I jumped on...)
I think there is a gender component to this but it's also been my experience that if a man or a woman believes you are "talking in subtext" it's because that's what they do.
Gender stereotyping pretty much = bad.
That said, since you are "often unintentionally vague about what I want" (even if you're getting better about it), what makes you think that society had anything to do with this, rather than past empirical experience?
If your point is that women generally grow up learning to hide their feelings and men don't (just like girls get dolls and boys get trucks, etc), and that society has set you up to be the type of person who hides her feelings, I see your point. But if you're blaming society for your husband thinking that you were being unintentionally vague about what you want when you are, in fact, often intentionally vague about what you want, then I'm not sure exactly where you're going here.
Did you actually read what I wrote? I'll highlight the important parts for you:
"I realized that it represented the hand of society toying in some small part with our individual relationship. [...]
Yet looking back on it, I see a gender role filter too [...] While I don't consider society the sole causation of our little conversation, it certainly played a role."
Clear enough for you?
There really is something to be said for subtext, though. If we all said what we were really thinking, it might turn out something like this:
http://www.break.com/index/first-date-honest-answers.html
Doug S.
You've got to admit, the world would be a whole hell of a lot simpler if EVERYBODY communicated as directly as the guy and the woman in that video!
People would ask for what they want, and get it - with no games and no bullshit...sounds good to me!