PMS Series - In The Face of Male Insensitivity

This will be the first in the PMS series, dedicated to all soul sisters out there. There will also be:

• In the face of male passivity
• In the face of male smugness
• In the face of male loving

I read an excerpt from a book some years back that went something like this,
“men and women are two sides of a coin, one cannot exist without the other, there will be conflicts, but we need to meet at some point in order to foster social order

…or something like that.

The only verse in the bible that my fiancé likes to quote is “Husbands, LEARN to live with your wives…” of course with the emphasis on “learn”.

As far as he is concerned, to live a successful and conflict free life with the female specie you require some kind of specialized training. Maybe Harvard should offer that course and make a man the Dean of studies and let’s see just how far that gets them.

I used to say that maybe the world would be better if we women found a way to exterminate all the men, became lesbians and cloned each other for posterity. You’ll see we will stop worrying about nuclear threats, wars, global warming, energy distribution and gender discrimination (obviously). But I guess, I lost my rights to making such frightfully incensing statements since I got engaged – to a man (thought I’d clear that up).

Male insensitivity. What does a woman really want? Tough question yeah? You know why it’s tough my dear brothers? It is because different women want different things. How come that never occurred to anyone? All those people writing books and giving lectures on how to treat a woman. All those people telling how women are from one end of Venus and Men from another galaxy altogether! Who told you we want the same things? Who told you we… I am beginning to foam in the mouth.

(Deep Breath) Now the one thing all women seem to want in equal amounts is for a man to magically be able to tell what it is they actually want. There’s a name for it, sensitivity.
Why is it such a big deal to see a grown man cry? Why do we not expect men to outwardly express grief and love?

One school of thought attributes this to nurture. Let me explain, all their lives men are more or less beaten into shape to attain exemplary male attributes. If you don’t know what I am talking about please watch the movie “300” and you’ll understand clearly. Men are taught to suppress emotions, tears and any such signs of weakness from a very early age. Imagine a group of boys playing soccer, if one of them gets hurt, he isn’t allowed to start shedding tears. What kind of silly girl would he look like? Over the years all these training crystallize and turn them into the men you and I eventually get married to. How do you expect men like these to be remotely in touch with their emotions?

There is another school of thought which stipulates that men are actually too sensitive and that’s why they keep their sensitivity under wraps so they don’t get hurt! You see, they have to be completely insensitive in order to survive. A bit convoluted but it gives me some sort of perverse pleasure to be told I am stronger than a man. They say it’s been scientifically proven that men have higher levels of stress hormones than women! Aha! If I catch a man make fun of PMS ever again…!

Sadly, my better sense tells me that men are whatever they wish to be. Men know what their women need. Trust me, they know. They hide under the cloak of insensitivity. Well, you see it’s not their fault, you think they are insensitive and you call them insensitive so they will be insensitive to please you. You got a problem with that?

You see that beautiful dress you were eyeing at the shop and going on about how beautiful it was and how you can’t afford it because it was a bit too expensive and how you’ve been trying to keep your spending in check. How you kept saying that knowing he’s just been paid a huge unexpected allowance. Trust me, he knew what you were driving at but being insensitive made more sense at the time.

So if you are female, don’t be buying it okay? He knows he just doesn’t want you to know he knows.