Male/female hour

I don't comment on this hour every week. I feel I'm handicapped. I'm a woman whose thinking is in the left brain, unlike the majority of women, who are right-brained.

Barbara De Angelis, in her book Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know, said that couples should start by asking themselves, "Do you want to be respected for your thoughts or cherished for your feelings?" and that 90% of men answer "respected for my thoughts" and the same percentage of women answer, "cherished for my feelings."

I'm not sure what that has to do with thinking. Years ago I was astonished when a fiftyish man told me, "men think logically, women use their feelings." It seemed so alien to me, having been a university fmeinist, to hear a man admit to such a prejudicial over-generalization. Eventually, though, I actually took a second look at the women I knew. Some of them seemed to be analytical and logical. The rest seemed to be ... "emotional" is too simplistic. But many of them certainly were counter-logical.

There is a reason why women don't become car mechanics at the same rate men do. Our feminists thought the answer was more counseling for girls--in other words, put pressure on them to become chemists, mathematicians, and mechanics, whether they want to or not. One of my roommates, though, has never once bent down to see what that tube in the dishwasher is for, and so she keeps covering it up because it seems to be a nice bowl holder. In fact it's the pipe that delivers water to the upper fan blade and MUST be left free. She's not just an idiot, she's a female who won't deal with a machine on ITS terms.

I can't explain it. Sadly, I also can't relate to it. The upshot is that I have a very hard time relating to most women. Prager has criticized women who don't have at least a few female friends. I'm one of them.