Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus ?????

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I'm currently reading this book, as my wife and my mum think it might solve or assist in our marriage difficulties.

Reading it, I get frustrated at how stupid it sounds to me. A woman says "We're never happy" and apparently means "i'm not happy at the moment and I would really like a hug from you to reassure me everything is ok".

If that's the problem why don't they just say it?

Even the male stuff is stupid, I feel. It doesn't resonate with me.

I'm sure people will disagree with me, but I guess why i'm posting is why can't the world just say what they mean and mean what they say instead of playing mind games and language games.

The book feels biased to me towards women (NT women i'm basing this on), and I just don't get it.
Sorry for a bit of a vent, but this book frustrates the crap out of me, that even when I'm blatantly not wrong, even when I didn't instigate anything, I for some reason have to come around to someone elses terms and apologise for something that I didn't start, all because they are [i[feeling[/i] and i'm thinking.

Has anyone else read this book and had similar or even dissimilar thoughts about it?

I think it's just another in a long line of 'pop psychology' books, and I think there's even been books refuting it's presence (Mars and Venus? So men are dry and arid, and very cold, while women are intensely hot, acidic, and crushing pressure?...

Next they'll say that men are like batteries...they store love and let it come out slow and steady; while women are like capacitors, if you don't say 'I love you' constantly, they go dead...

(pullin' yer chain, folks...

As a woman, this book did not resonate with me whatsoever. A friend gave it to me as I am clueless when it comes to flirting or relationships. I found that it portrayed a really stereotypical image of men, women and their interactions.
It was also terribly old fashion in its description of how relationships should be.
But who am I to judge!! !??? I am on this site trying to figure out if I am an Aspie or an Alex..or maybe both...

Actually, being male and having worked in both a male-dominated profession (engineering) and a female-dominated profession (libraries), I think there is something to the concept. I've found these similar books (by another author) to be helpful at times:

That's Not What I Meant

Talking From 9 to 5

You Just Don't Understand

Read one or two of the above listed Deborah Tannen books when in my late teens & thought they were pretty good. Of course, that was before I found out about AS, let alone that it applied to me. Hadn't much real-life "adult" experience with males with which to compare it, either-so, in theory, it made plenty of sense.

I read the Mars/Venus book around same time (shortly after it came out in early 90's) & felt conflicted about it-too simplistic for people who don't conform to "basic types". I try to put these gender separations into context, and figure they apply to some people some of the time-and that they might better fit with personality types-rather than along strict gender lines. Author's "voice" from tone of writing did strike me as bit smarmy or snarky, but I can't put my finger on why...

Also, as a female w/AS, the books I read make me feel split loyalties, divided between which "side" I'd be taking. Many books assume the ASD person is male, the NT person is female, and work from that premise. With those, one page I'll be resonating with the description of the AS person (since the described symptoms or traits are familiar to me)-yet the next second I'll be relating to the perspective of the NT person-not solely because she's the female but because that outlook or cencern (as written) is where I'm coming from, mentally (compared with that of the male in the relationship). It's frustrating to get constantly yanked all over the place in terms of roles-as presented in book's interaction dynamic-or where, with whom, my sympathies lie.

I have not read the book. Only listen to their cd. I do think they are on the right track though.

I know because of social politics many people developed the idea that man are the same as woman when they clearly not.

When they grasp the concept of difference between the sexes they might be able to grasp the concept a 3rd catagory that as different from the two sexes as they are from each other.

i haven't read the book but i have heard of one that is of a similar premise called:
men are like waffles and women are like spagetti.
the basic concept is that men (in general) tend to compartmentalize their life , eg. work is work, play is play, family time is family time.
where as women tend to have all aspects of thier life running together, eg, i am X's wife or mom and i am at work.
men and women are just wired differently, and the thing is sometimes women don't want to tell you exactly what to do or how to do it, it makes them feel more special if you try to guess.
what i want is for someone to bring me flowers just because, for no special reason. or to have someone just hold me when i'm having a bad day, and i just want you to know it without telling you, not to play mind games but i believe once you've been with someone long enough you should know what they want and need in general, and if you don't you can always ask.
eg. i know you're upset, what can i do for you,

it's about acknowledgement and effort. at least in my books anyways
sorry if this is off topic but i hope it helps.

The books basically a play on stereotypes, there's truth in it but its by no means 100% factual. Unfortunately the masses of modern society are obsessed with Anti-Individualism stereotype based "cultures" (voluntary self oppression if you ask me), the fact of the matter is that despite the differences in the brains of nt men and women (im not sure about autistic's but it think the differences maybe less?) there is still a large overlap between em and as such books/views like this should not be taken as the whole truth. it's not exactly wrong, its just been simplified somewhat. think of it like this..

<<<men<<<(overlap)>>>women>>>

now most people in the overlap section are still closer to the rest of their gender then they are to the opposite gender, that being said it's still not rare for an individual to be closer to the opposite gender. Also if i remember correctly i think i remember an article saying that female neurology varies more than males in nt's which probably complicates matters even further.

And of course there's the cultural factor to think about, for example if we go back to 18th century Britain most women wouldn't dream about going out on the weekend and drinking heavily, dressed in revealing clothing as most would of believed it to be un-womanly, but by Britain's current popular culture such behaviour is largely considered acceptable.

What use would it be to us if they could only grasp the concept of a "3rd category that as different from the two sexes as they are from each other" if they can only do it by automatically assigning you to a strict pre-made stereotype, do you really think this would help with anything? i don't mean to be rude, your not wrong but... well when your putting a puzzle together you gotta look at all the pieces, if you only concentrate on one piece then your not going to get far are you?

You don't need to think that men and women are exactly the same to think that this kind of book is silly. When you're dealing with differences between the sexes, it's a question of averages: men are more likely, on average, to do A; women are more likely, on average, to think that B is important. If you get a big sample size there may be a substantial difference between men and women.

But it's meaningless in the context of one man or one woman, all experiencing particular neurology, cultural pressures and einvironmental constraints. A young black man in New York may be statistically more likely to like rap music than an elderly Chinese woman in Beijing. It doesn't mean that the love of rap music is innately wired into him, or even that a particular person who fits this profile feels this way about rap at all. This is why I have difficulty with the notion that AS is an "extreme male mindset." OK, I'm self-diagnosed at this stage (waiting for referral) but I can't help but wonder if this idea has come about because female ways of being aspie are just not being recognised. If I do have AS, what does that mean for me as a woman?

It's very very dangerous to go from "group X is more likely to do Y" to "all members of group X do Y, or would like to, and if they don't they're just deceiving themselves." A lot of this kind of book is based on this kind of fallacy. I can tell you for certain that I do NOT say "we're never happy" to mean "I'm not happy right now and I want a hug."

From what I have heard of the book, it fits the average woman well, and many women AGREE! I think it fits the average man well as well.

I have heard some of the male parts that fit me, but I haven't read the book.

BTW AS is almost the extreme of how they describe males in that book, which is probably why the extreme male brain designation came about. That is only ONE aspect though!

So it figures that women HERE wouldn't think the female description in the book fits them.

that book bored me at page 10... really annoying... I am from jupiter

To expand on my previous, brief post about the Deborah Tannen books, one of the main ideas I got from those books (and others, including the Mars/Venus series) was that GENERALLY SPEAKING (one size does not necessarily fit all), men are more about direct communication and facts/results, while women are more about indirect communication and feelings/emotions. This idea has been substantiated by some of my own experiences; for example:

(1) While we were driving home from vacation, my wife (later ex-) asked me if I wanted to stop and get something to eat. Consumed by typical male get-there-itis (we were only an hour or two from home), I said no, after which she got rather quiet. Years later I realized that she was asking me because SHE was hungry, but didn't (or couldn't?) come right out and say so directly.

(2) When I was an engineer (male-dominated profession), the periodic performance evaluations consisted solely of 3 factors: "Quality of work" (40% of grade), "Quantity of work" (40%) and "Timeliness" (20%) = simple, direct, to-the-point. When I worked in a library (female-dominated profession), there were 10 factors, all equally weighted: Quality of work, Quantity of work, Initiative, Innovation, Cooperation and Customer Service, Job Knowledge, Leadership, Quality of Worklife, Diversity, and Dependability = complicated, and some are a bit obscure (to my mind). For instance, I doubt that engineering firms would ever evaluate their employees on anything like "Quality of Worklife", which was defined as:

"Creates a supportive work environment with open communication that values and encourages co-workers while treating them with dignity and respect. Encourages employees to contribute to the success of the organization. Demonstrates understanding for the family-related responsibilities of others."

I never got more than an average grade for "Quality of WorkLife" because I could never figure out how to perform in an outstanding manner in that category and still have time to try to do outstanding for quality and quantity of work.

(3) When I was having conflicts with library co-workers who I felt spent an awful lot of time in social gab with others, both in person and on the unit's phone line, my female supervisor told me, "It's all about how people feel about work", which baffled me no end. I guess she meant that people felt good about work if they had time to socialize, whereas I felt good about work if we got a lot done. I realize this might be more of an AS/NT thing than a male brain/female brain thing.

The main point is that women's brains and men's brains basically function differently, as has been proven by brain scans. I don't think one style of thinking is necessarily superior to the other in all situations, and theories abound as to why any differences should exist at all. Since the differences are factual, however, I think books like the Mars/Venus series and the Deborah Tannen books are helpful in exploring, understanding and dealing with the differences, as long as one takes a broad view, doesn't over-generalize and allows for individual variations -- kind of like dealing with people on the autism spectrum, I suppose ...

Sorry, one other example just came to mind, after which I will shut up for a while:

Regarding direct vs. indirect communication, in the library world I had to learn to add a lot of "weasel words" to my speech, e-mails, etc. to get along. For example, instead of just saying, "That number is wrong," I had to learn to say it like:

"Well, this is all really good work you did, and everyone here deeply appreciates all the time and effort you've obviously put into it, with great success I might add, but I was sort of thinking that maybe, just maybe, you might want to consider the possibility of giving thought to pondering the idea of perhaps becoming interested in doing just a brief little review of this one number here, that is, if you wouldn't mind too terribly and feel like doing it, as long as it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience for you and wouldn't disrupt your schedule too horribly," etc.

OK, maybe a *slight* exaggeration ...

And yes, that might be an AS/NT thing as well.

The Rebuttal From Uranus

When you look at the gender symbols, the male symbol stands for Mars and the female symbol stands for Venus. Men generally appear to be fighters and women are generally lovers. That's why women bear children, and men go off to war.

Umm... I always thought that men went to war because they tend to be physically stronger, and women bear children because they are the ones equipped with a uterus. Sure, there are hormonal influences in there. But if it were purely innate biological drives, all men would be out killing people, and all women would be at home baking pies and going gooey over babies. This is not the case.

I really think that as soon as you get into "I know! You do this because you're a woman!" you're not showing respect for the other person, and the fact that they could have any number of emotional and motivational drives for the things that they do. What is wrong with, "I don't understand why you do this, but I want to understand. Could you maybe explain it to me?" Blanket generalisations about something over which the other person has no control, such as their gender (or race, or age, or disability) are not good for a relationship. They break down communication. I also think that it's incredibly manipulative to try to steer the other person's behaviour in a particular way by responding to preconceived ideas about their gender rather than by actually listening to them.