Men and women are from earth, fool pt. III

This is the third part of a series in which I enthusiastically rinse Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and its well-documented grifter of an author, because so many people have recommended, or worse, tried to teach me stuff from this stupid book. In the first part, I started out with the intention of going through chapter by chapter, but this book has so much absurd content that I realised I might have to zoom out a bit, or I’d never finish it.

So in this part and the previous part, I cover the book a little more thematically. I’d say, read the first part if you want to see (1) the amusingly transparent extent of John Gray’s various frauds, and (2) how easy it is to see that whatever Gray says about men and women much more reflect Gray’s psyche than actual men and women. But rather than spend more time doing that, as much fun as it was, and since so many others have got there first, I thought that now I’d look more closely at Gray’s men and women, because it’ll make you equal parts amused and furious, plus I think it’ll do a much better job of stopping you from asking me about this book. I promise that no matter how into gender roles you are, you will not want to relate to Gray’s extraterrestrials.

¶Traditional roles might be sexy, but certainly not in this book

First, I want to flesh out a little why I think this book is popular enough for people to be bothering me with it. I think it’s useful context, but this bit is the same as the last article, so if you’re coming from there, or you just want to get to the fun part, you can skip it.

Gender essentialism is very clearly getting trendy again. Instagram and TikTok feeds abound with Jordan Peterson- and Andrew Tate-esque commentary on the meaning of being a man. For some reason this isn’t so surprising to me. People have been complaining about the feminisation of all of the things for ages, so that we have a bunch of antsy men wondering what they’re supposed to be doing isn’t that shocking. In fact, like Sebastian Junger noticed in his book Tribe, it’s one of the reasons young men join the military—a lot of the kids in my platoon were trying to find manhood in one of its last traditional bastions. So, I guess one lazy solution to this is to try to bring those bastions back? I don’t know, I’m not a sociologist.

A little more surprising is a similar spike in content around modern takes on traditional female roles, like MomTok, or other trad-wife and SAHM communities. I don’t know if this is new, of if I’ve only just started noticing it, but it seems to be everywhere these days. Although, maybe this also isn’t that surprising. After all, as I am apparently fond of pointing out, life is worse. If I was a girl, I might want to hand all this nonsense back to the people that caused it too.

It’s interesting to me, whatever the reason for it, because although there are trivially obvious differences in anatomy between males and females, there’s a huge amount of disagreement about how that plays out in behaviour. It’s also impossible to distinguish this from the influence of social norms, and there’s plenty of contention about what those mean for behaviour too.

The upshot is that there’s a lot of appetite for content that tells these aspiring men and women what they’re supposed to be. And my advice to those people is to pick any book but this one, because this one is an embarrassment. Half the [first] article is a litany of John Gray’s various frauds, and the other half outlines all the ways in which John Gray highlights what, from his own framing, I can only assume are some rather blinding insecurities.

¶Gray is evidently baffled to learn that women have ordinary needs

By the end of the last article, we’d made it as far as Chapter 5 before it had become blindingly obvious that Gray thinks men are awfully fragile people who feel inherently unlovable, and interpret any and all interpersonal work their partners try to do as some kind of threat to be avoided, either by passive aggression or literal avoidance. I will occasionally highlight this in the remaining chapters, because Gray can’t get enough of it. But, for me, that horse feels well and truly dead, so in this article I want to change tack a little.

We have already gotten some flavour of how Gray perceives women. They are, I guess, sort of messily spewing their emotions all over the place, causing all sorts of trauma for their men, because they value feelings, and place less emphasis on “achieving goals and success”. But what I haven’t highlighted yet is that, while Gray seems to think that the perpetually wounded responses of his emotionally fragile men are normal, he thinks that the normal responses of women are emotional fragility. So, before we move on from chapters 5 and 6, let me highlight his advice for women in this section:

When he comes back from his cave and she is upset he explains “I needed some time alone, it was only for two days. What is the big deal?” … What she hears is “You shouldn’t feel hurt or abandoned, and if you do, I have no empathy for you. You are too needy and controlling.”

If it upsets her she could say “I know you need to pull away at times but it still hurts when you pull away. I’m not saying you are wrong but it is important to me for you to understand what I go through.”

No John. Actually, in response to that explanation, I think she could say, “Where. The. Fuck. Have you been? It’s been two days”. And then I think she could begin throwing plates. ‘If it upsets her’ indeed.

Now, this is in a segment of several pages of advice ‘translating’ men for women. Gray actually has the presence of mind to point out at the end:

In each of the above examples I have placed the woman in the role of being upset with the man for something he did or didn’t do. Certainly men can also be upset with women, and any of my suggestions listed above apply equally to both sexes

But it is eminently notable that it was the women that this particular kind of advice was directed at. It’s always the women this stuff is levelled at. Men behave terribly, and women are supposed to pull themselves together and support them. I’d like to remind you of my overview of the first chapter:

here, “some brief examples of ways a woman might unknowingly annoy a man by offering advice or seemingly harmless criticism”:

• “Those dishes are still wet. They’ll dry with spots”
• “Don’t put that there. It will get lost.”
• “You should call a plumber. He’ll know what to do.”
• “You should spend more time with the kids. They miss you.”
• “You forgot to bring it home again. Maybe you could put it in a special place where you can remember it.”

These seem like harmless criticisms because they are harmless criticisms. In fact, there would be more harm in not voicing them. Anyone who needs to be told not to mess about with the sewerage and play with his kids needs to be told that. But, for Gray, this kind of behaviour is somehow problematic, on par with the nonsense his men are trying to pull.

Let’s see what else he has to offer.

In chapter 7 … a woman’s loving attitudes rise and fall rhythmically in a wave motion.

Now, I’m not entirely convinced Gray isn’t just talking about that most puzzling of feminine attributes, menstruation. The thing the better part of half the population will experience. He writes:

A woman is like a wave. When she feels loved her self-esteem rises and falls in a wave motion. When she is feeling really good, she will reach a peak, but then suddenly her mood may change and her wave crashes down. This crash is temporary. After she reaches bottom suddenly her mood will shift and she will again feel good about herself. Automatically her wave begins to rise back up.

Is it love? Or is it the normal hormonal cycle of the female sex? Well, perhaps it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s some other cycle, but either way let’s take the cycle as granted. Let’s see how we should handle this situation:

A man assumes that her sudden change of mood is based solely on his behavior.

Oh, whoops, I said I didn’t want to keep highlighting how emotionally fragile his men were. Let’s skip forward a bit more. So…

When her wave hits bottom she is more vulnerable and needs more love.

Ok, not bad. What else?

When a woman moves into her well, he needs to learn that this is when she needs him the most, and it is not a problem to be solved or fixed, but an opportunity to support her with unconditional love.

Ok, nice John, what else?

Because she is suddenly more loving and positive he mistakenly thinks all her issues are resolved. When her wave crashes again, similar issues will arise. When her issues come up again he becomes impatient, because he thinks they have already been resolved … he may respond inappropriately by saying:

1. “How many times do we have to go through this?”
2. “When are you going to get off it?”
3. “Why do you have so many problems?”

Yeah, John, good! I’m on board. Don’t do this! What else?

To support a woman when she is in her well is a special gift that she will greatly appreciate. Gradually she will become free from the gripping influence of her past. She will still have her ups and downs, but they will not be so extreme that they overshadow her loving nature.

Ok… that whole ‘gripping influence of the past’ thing felt oddly specific (is Bonnie making an appearance again?), but I guess it’s still not bad advice. Let’s check out the next subtitle: “UNDERSTANDING NEEDINESS”. Oh, John. Oh, no:

Tom could not understand why she had changed, but after a rather intense discussion that went on for hours, Susan felt much better. Tom had reassured her of his love and support, and Susan was now swinging up again. Inside he felt relieved. After this interaction Tom thought he had successfully solved this problem in their relationship. But a month later Susan began to crash and began feeling the same way again. This time Tom was much less understanding and accepting of her. He became impatient. He was insulted that she would mistrust him again after he had reassured her of his love a month before. In his defensiveness he negatively judged her recurring need for reassurance. As a result they argued. By understanding how women are like waves, Tom realized that the recurrence of Susan’s neediness and insecurity was natural, inevitable, and temporary. He realized how naive he had been to think that his loving response to Susan’s deepest core issues could permanently heal her.

Fucking Tom again. Look, Tom, if you’re going to be an asshole anytime Susan has more than one instance of ‘neediness’, then I’m not very sympathetic to your confusion. Her ‘core’ issue is probably you, although again it feels a bit like we’re veering somewhere suspiciously specific…

Some women who avoid dealing with their negative emotions and resist the natural wave motion of their feelings experience premenstrual syndrome (PMS). There is a strong correlation between PMS and the inability to cope with negative feelings in a positive way. In some cases women who have learned successfully to deal with their feelings have felt their PMS symptoms disappear

Ok. So we weren’t talking about the menstrual cycle? Well then, maybe you’re not talking about women, but some specific woman? One with “issues [that] may have to do with the relationship, but usually they are heavily charged from her past relationships and childhood”?

Suddenly she began to feel the way she felt as a child when her father was too busy for her. Her past unresolved feelings of anger and powerlessness were projected onto Harris’s watching TV. If these feelings had not come up, Cathy would have been able gracefully to accept Harris’s wish to watch TV.

Yeah… Right. Well, I guess the chapter isn’t a total loss so far. Deep childhood issues, menstrual cycles, or just, like, normal emotional fluctuations, don’t assume she’s blaming you and show her some care. But John, I promised our readers you’d give us some advice for women. Tell me, what can women do to help men with all this?

There was nothing wrong with Harris’s need to be alone or watch TV, nor was their anything wrong with Cathy’s hurt feelings. Instead of arguing for his right to watch TV, he could have told her something like this: “I understand you’re upset, and right now I really need to watch TV and relax. When I feel better we can talk.

What Cathy gets is the best her partner can give at the time. By not demanding that he listen to her when she wants to talk, she can avoid making the problem much worse by having a huge argument … It means giving up the demand that he listen whenever she wants to talk. Cathy learned to accept that sometimes a man can’t listen or talk and learned that at other times he could … If Cathy feels the need to talk but Harris can’t listen, then Cathy could talk more with her friends. It puts too much pressure on a man

Ah. Yes. Somehow, that one didn’t occur to me: “Fuck off, Cathy, with your deep-rooted emotional trauma. The footy’s on. Don’t you have friends?”

Ok, ok. That was clearly a chapter for men. This advice here felt a bit like an afterthought. Maybe it was a rushed editorial job. The next chapter is all about how women can help men. So let’s see what John has for us.

¶But of course women shouldn’t express their ordinary needs

In chapter 8 … Men primarily need a kind of love that is trusting, accepting, and appreciative. Women primarily need a kind of love that is caring, understanding, and respectful.

I guess John felt like he really covered how we can care for women, so this one is all about helping men feel the love they need. We have a wonderful little vignette to start. It’s a little laboured, but well worth the effort:

Deep inside every man there is a hero or a knight in shining armor … Imagine a knight in shining armor traveling through the countryside. Suddenly he hears a woman crying out in distress … The noble knight pulls out his sword and slays the dragon. As a result, he is lovingly received by the princess … A month later … he hears his beloved princess crying out for help … he pulls out his sword to slay the dragon. Before he swings, the princess cries out from the tower, “Don’t use your sword, use this noose. It will work better.” … He wraps it around the dragon’s neck and then pulls hard. The dragon dies and everyone rejoices … Somehow, because he used her noose and didn’t use his sword, he doesn’t quite feel worthy of the town’s trust and admiration After the event he is slightly depressed and forgets to shine his armor … A month later … he rushes forward with his sword but hesitates, thinking maybe he should use the noose. In that moment of hesitation, the dragon breathes fire and burns his right arm. In confusion he looks up and sees his princess waving from the castle window. “Use the poison,” she yells. “The noose doesn’t work.” … he pours into the dragon’s mouth, and the dragon dies. Everyone rejoices and celebrates, but the knight feels ashamed. A month later … the princess reminds him to be careful, and to bring the noose and the poison. He is annoyed by her suggestions but brings them just in case … as he draws his sword to slay the dragon, he again hesitates. He wonders, Should 1 use my sword, the noose, or the poison? What would the princess say? … Remembering that within every man is a knight in shining armor is a powerful metaphor to help you remember a man’s primary needs. Although a man may appreciate caring and assistance sometimes, too much of it will lessen his confidence or turn him off.

What. On. Earth. Firstly, at what point did our ‘noble knight’ appreciate caring and assistance? But I said I wasn’t going to get into this emotional fragility stuff. Does that mean the advice is to let men do whatever stupid nonsense they’re going to? To find out, we need to skip forward roughly six pages of exactly this kind of emotional fragility before we can discover ‘THE ART OF EMPOWERING A MAN’:

The secret of empowering a man is never to try to change him or improve him. Certainly you may want him to change-just don’t act on that desire. Only if he directly and specifically asks for advice is he open to assistance in changing.

Never. You might want to, but don’t. That’s the advice. You think I’m taking this out of context?

This doesn’t mean a woman has to squash her feelings. It’s OK for her to feel frustrated or even angry, as long as she doesn’t try to change him. Any attempt to change him is unsupportive and counterproductive

Any attempt. I don’t think he could be clearer. But in case that’s not enough for you, we close the chapter with three pages of helpful list items like:

1. Remember: don’t ask him too many questions when he is upset or he will feel you are trying to change him … Show some initial concern, but not too much, as an invitation to talk.
2. Remember: give up trying to improve him in any way. He needs your love, not rejection, to grow … Trust him to grow on his own. Honestly share feelings but without the demand that he change.
3. Remember: if you make sacrifices hoping he will do the same for you then he will feel pressured … Practice doing things for yourself and not depending on him to make you happy.
4. Remember if you give him directions and make decisions for him he will feel corrected and controlled … Relax and surrender. Practice accepting imperfection. Make his feelings more important than perfection and don’t lecture or correct him.

Listen. I should be the first to admit that I get defensive when people are telling me what to do. I have a very hard time accepting this is a man thing though. I suspect no one likes being told they need to change. But I am absolutely gobsmacked that the advice here is for women to just give it up entirely. It’s not just that Gray’s men obviously need to change. It’s that there is absolutely no healthy relationship in which one person must just unconditionally accept the other as they are. But for Gray, no. It’s just women who need to change.

And this is the point. Gray’s women need to just sort their shit out. But their shit is, like, reasonable shit. Need to talk to your partner about their deep-rooted emotional troubles? He’s busy watching TV. Go away. Want to stop him from doing silly things? Unsolicited criticism, go away. Want him to be less of an asshole? NEVER TRY TO CHANGE HIM, EVER. It’s not advice! It’s “grin and bear it”.

The ninth chapter is a return to fragile men, who so desperately need approval that any negative comment a woman might make is interpreted as a personal attack. But in the margins, he helps women understand that her “desire to help him be more responsible” is “intrusive” and that “Even when he is irresponsible or lazy or disrespectful, if she loves him, a woman can find and recognize the goodness within him.”

In chapter 10, he notes that men will do nothing most of the time, then do ‘one big gift’, and be baffled as to why women aren’t happy the rest of the time. To quote:

Some men may start out in a relationship doing the little things, but having done them once or twice they stop. Through some mysterious instinctive force, they begin to focus their energies into doing one big thing for their partners. They then neglect to do all the little things that are necessary for a woman to feel fulfilled in the relationship.

Oh yeah, that old ‘I find it increasingly hard to give a shit’ instinct. Troublesome fella, that one. And his advice for us isn’t “try to give a shit”. It’s, “hey, with all that neglect, she’ll be happy with scraps”:

There are a variety of ways a man can score points with his partner without having to do much.

Men can improve, but just a bit. Women, though, need to just put up with it:

A woman needs to accept a man’s instinctive tendencies to focus all his energies into one big thing and minimize the importance of the little things. By accepting this inclination, it will not be as hurtful to her.“

Yeah, women. Have you ever just tried pretending he does care? Well you should, because remember, you should never try to change him, so that’s the best you’ll get.

In chapter 12, he goes as far as to say:

Women make the mistake of thinking they don’t have to ask for support. Because they intuitively feel the needs of others and give whatever they can, they mistakenly expect men to do the same. When a woman is in love, she instinctively offers her love. With great delight and enthusiasm, she looks for ways to offer her support … in fact, not needing to ask is one of the ways they show their love for one another … Because this is her reference point, she assumes that if her partner loves her, he will offer his support and she won’t have to ask. She may even purposefully not ask as a test to see if he really loves her. To pass the test, she requires that he anticipate her needs and offer his unsolicited support!

Gray is astonished to learn that women expect to be supported without asking. That someone you love might be attentive enough to you to have an inkling of when they should be there for you. That, if she was suspicious that this motherfucker was just abjectly neglecting her, she might give him something easy for him to tackle, just to check to see if he’s, like, actively ignoring her, or if he’s just an idiot.

Gray goes on to note, if she is peeved by this behaviour, she might start to become resentful and make demands. You see, “Men do not respond well to demands and resentment”. Because, I guess women savour it?

Gray rounds this chapter off with, possibly, my favourite part of this book:

To women there is not much difference-in fact, “could you?” may even seem more polite than “would you?” But to many men it is a big difference. Because this distinction is so important, I’m including comments by seventeen different men who attended my seminars.

1. When I am asked “Could you clean up the backyard” I really take it literally. I say, “I could do it, sure it’s possible.” But I am not saying “I will do it,” and I certainly don’t feel like I am making a promise to do it. On the other hand, when I am asked “ Would you clean up the backyard“ I begin to make a decision, and I am willing to be supportive. If I say yes, the chances of my remembering to do it are much greater because I have made a promise.
2. When I am asked—Would you help me please?“ it gives me an opportunity to help, and I am more than willing to support her, but when I hear “Could you help me please?” I feel backed up against the wall, as if I have no choice. If I have the ability to help then I am expected to help! I don’t feel appreciated.
3. When I hear a “could you” I’ll immediately say yes, and then over the next ten minutes I will realize why I’m not going to do it and then ignore the question. But when I hear a “will you” a part of me comes up saying “Yes, I want to be of service,” and then even if objections come up later in my mind, I will still fulfill her request because I have given my word.

John gets 17 of his mates to help him make a case for how even the most reasonable request will be agreed to and then consciously ignored over the next ten minutes simply because she used fucking can you instead of will you. They’re like that attention-starved high school teacher who’d always reply to your “can I go to the bathroom” with “I don’t know, can you?”

To add insult to injury, this chapter is easily the most detailed of the book, describing how precisely a ‘woman’ should go about getting what she needs out of the relationship without stepping on any of the intricate interpersonal landmines John and the boys have laid for her.

¶An apology for assholery that plays on real interpersonal dynamics

This book is fundamentally nothing more than:

“Look, men can be a bit fucked up, and they can make small steps to be better, but women need to just stop bothering them with all their pedantry and just let them be who they are.”

But then Gray takes it to this incredible place by describing the most fucked up men possible and characterising the most reasonable requests of women as out of pocket. And if women don’t like it, they can fuck off. In chapter 5, he is quite explicit about this:

Anything that distracts her or helps her to feel good will be helpful to him. These are some examples:

• Read a book
• Listen to music
• Work in the garden
• Exercise
• Get a massage
• Listen to self-improvement tapes
• Treat yourself to something delicious
• Call a girlfriend for a good chat
• Write in a journal
• Go shopping
• Pray or meditate
• Go for a walk
• Take a bubble bath
• See a therapist
• Watch TV or a video

Yes girl, if he won’t engage with you, then you should go see a therapist.

In my first article, I noted:

What’s very easy do to, and fun to boot, is to demonstrate how common differences that people assume exist actually don’t exist.

I think, the reason that young me read this book and thought it had valuable advice is because it does speak to something true. Women do spend a lot more time interacting with feelings on average, and men are often less fluent at expressing them and validating them. For the same reason, men are more resistant to interpersonal feedback typically than women, because women do this kind of thing more frequently and have the social infrastructure to handle it. So some of this stuff rings true, because if we aren’t thinking very hard, it’s easy to just recognise this in the pages and move on. But, if you stop for even a moment, you’d realise there’s not one of the examples Gray uses to illustrate his points that couldn’t easily be seen as something the opposite gender would do.

More generally, what Gray is pushing here is a narrative that leans, not into the ways women and men are, but the way a lazy man might want his women to be. It’s a book that takes all the social expectations we have about men and women, and lays out a case for the worst men to improve a bit, with the implication that women should expect far less from the rest of men. I am far from convinced that this was Gray’s intent. I think this is something more like a biography, in which Gray is mostly detailing his travails with his long-suffering wife. However, if you viewed it as a piece of propaganda, you might come away far better informed.

And so, as I closed last time:

my advice to those curious gender essentialists is this. If you find yourself, like I once did, connecting with this material, then you need to ask some very delicate questions of yourself. What is it, in you, that reminds you of the emotionally troubled men that Gray describes? Or, what is it about your partner that makes you think that your reasonable requests are unreasonable? I think that the answers to those questions are the only valuable advice this book could possibly hold. Because it is, really, a very shit book. Whatever the case, stop talking to me about it.