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I don't know why, but the comment I originally replied to really bothered me and I thought of a simpler example. If women understood men perfectly, there would

I don't know why, but the comment I originally replied to really bothered me and I thought of a simpler example. If women understood men perfectly, there wouldn't be so many examples of classic male-female miscommunication. AskReddit threads are a testament to this. Take person A who only speaks Chinese and person B who speaks English as a first language as well as perfect Chinese. For some reason they often have misunderstandings, why would this be? Probably because person B doesn't speak Chinese as well as they think.

jansho 9y ago
Sorry but this still bothers me. I'm not going to wade into the gender war so let me put it this way: we are also 'different' in other ways, so misunderstanding is generally not just down to one factor. So is it right to just simplify the attribution to male-female differences? Normal vs neurotypicals. Secular vs religious. White vs non-white. East vs West. Old vs young. Urban vs country. And so on it goes, plus the greys in between, and life experiences and assumptions and beliefs. Every person has a unique combination of these factors, creating a very grey (or colourful if you like) identity. Then combine this with the time, place and mood the misunderstanding occurred in. Then you will realise that it's too fuzzy to just put it down to a factor such as gender differences ... so what to do? Simples: try not to judge, because at best it is inaccurate and at worse it feeds into the prejudice. It would be far more helpful to take the benefit of doubt while being honest and empathic, because that's the only way the two parties can meet at the centre. If one party refuses to budge, then perhaps just give in! Victories are ultimately a bit petty. By the way, please don't take this as a holier-than-thou speech, and I'm not condemning you for being so 'simple'. The reality is that all of us are like this, because it's so deeply ingrained and easy, a shortcut in our search for explanation. But for the sake of peace, we can definitely try to rise above it. Honesty and empathy - without the tree-hugging tone.

jansho 9y ago

Sorry but this still bothers me. I'm not going to wade into the gender war so let me put it this way: we are also 'different' in other ways, so misunderstanding is generally not just down to one factor. So is it right to just simplify the attribution to male-female differences? Normal vs neurotypicals. Secular vs religious. White vs non-white. East vs West. Old vs young. Urban vs country. And so on it goes, plus the greys in between, and life experiences and assumptions and beliefs. Every person has a unique combination of these factors, creating a very grey (or colourful if you like) identity. Then combine this with the time, place and mood the misunderstanding occurred in. Then you will realise that it's too fuzzy to just put it down to a factor such as gender differences ... so what to do? Simples: try not to judge, because at best it is inaccurate and at worse it feeds into the prejudice. It would be far more helpful to take the benefit of doubt while being honest and empathic, because that's the only way the two parties can meet at the centre. If one party refuses to budge, then perhaps just give in! Victories are ultimately a bit petty. By the way, please don't take this as a holier-than-thou speech, and I'm not condemning you for being so 'simple'. The reality is that all of us are like this, because it's so deeply ingrained and easy, a shortcut in our search for explanation. But for the sake of peace, we can definitely try to rise above it. Honesty and empathy - without the tree-hugging tone.