Men are from Mars . . .

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone else read the book men are from mars, women are from venus?

It seems to be a pretty good guide to talking to neurotypicals of the appropriate sex. Not just in matters of love, either.

. . . I'm not sure it works about aspies, though.

No I have not, but men are definitely from Mars. I still don't know where women originated from. Venus or Jupiter. Who really knows?

Haven't read it but have heard a lot of commentary from people who have - I at least concur that while we see the same situations there's a pretty big qualitative difference in what we pay attention to and what we evaluate.

One thing I've learned for sure, most women are into socialization first. Especially with music, my one NT friend put it this way - guys tend to like more what sounds good or what they can feel, with women "Is it popular? Is it on the radio? Ok, I can get down".

Are you serious?

No wonder I don't understand women.

My guess is that if you look closer, it's only certain neurotypicals. My guess would be that the book is most accurate for right-handed neurotypicals of Indo-European origin.

Left-handers may be different, because the brain is asymmetric and what would be neurotypical for right-handed people simply doesn't map onto the other hemisphere. Neurotypical left-handers must differ in traits to their right-handed counterparts for that reason alone. It may not be by very much, but it must still be.

General-case non-NT folk (by which I mean anyone whose mental characteristics differ so far from the norm that you can't sensibly put them in the same bracket as NTs) must also differ. My guess is that this is still a very small fraction of the population as measured as a whole, but that does not make such people less important. If anything, it makes them MORE important.

Huh?

If "Men are from Mars" only holds true for a specific but easily-available subset of the population, then the picture is too simplistic. It is taking a special case and generalizing it.

C'mon, you've all been in science classes, where the teacher has said something totally and blatantly untrue and explained it as a simplification that sort-of works (if you don't look too close) in a specific set of cases. In fact, if your education was anything like the norm, you probably got filled with hundreds of these special cases, all for the sake of avoiding the general case. Which is stupid. Easier in some cases, sure, but stupid and just as likely to confuse as help in the long-term.

When you plot a small non-random segment of men with a specific combination of traits, you find they're all going to be around some common point. Duh. Get another small group with a common trait that's different from that of the first group, and they're all going to be clustered around a different point. Duh. Keep doing this and you will eventually produce a hill-like shape.

Mars may well be on top of that hill, but Venus might be on any of the ridges or valleys, and you'll find all the other archetypes that have ever existed elsewhere within that structure.

"The manifolds of male and female personality topologies within a non-Euclidian social space" may not be such a catchy title, it would sell far fewer books, but it would be able to describe the dominant traits of every identified group that existed and be very accurate for every unknown/unidentified group as well.

People are not a point, they are a shape of many many dimensions and enormous complexity. I'd love to see that explored rather than the over-simplified catchy titles aimed at making money.

I'd buy that book.

I haven't read it, but I believe it's c***. Here's why. I did a test in one of those " women's " magazines at the dentist, and as my sister was studying psychology at the time, she bought the book and also did the same quiz. In her opinion it (the book) was a huge waste of money. We are both female, straight, and as far as I know she's NT. We both scored as definate males.

It just makes too many assumptions in my opinion.

I saw a bumper sticker I loved:

"Women are from Earth, men are from Earth, GET OVER IT!! !!"

you're all from earth, whether you have a penis, a vagina or both

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, doesn't have a male/female test at all associated with it. In fact, it states in the book that some females have very strong male traits, and some men have very strong female traits.

I come out male in most tests, too. Spark.com used to have a really good test, but near as I can tell, a lot of questions would make aspies/add'er seem male.

I don't know. Here's some of the things I have found true about the book that's helped:

-Men disappear into their caves, and if you follow them, you'll make them angry.
- Women usually want someone to listen to their problem - without offering dadvice.
- Men usually don't talk while they're thinking of a solution. Women, on the other hand, talk constantly. (This one was a relief for me, as I had nticed how quiet men were, and thought they were angry. It was nice to know they were just thinking, and sure enough, if you wait, they do answer)
- Men want women (and other men) to trust them more than anything. They do not want constant attempts to improve them.
- Women are highlyemotional, and might seem really really angry, and be yelling at you and everything, but then, when they stop, suddenly everything's all right. ?!?

But starseeds.

Yeah, I liked the quote "men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Get over it". I read the book some time ago and part it was true eg. about men going into "caves" (mind you, the guy who wrote it assumed that women should be prepared to do all the work around the place while their guy was in his "cave" which I thought sexist as would she be able to have a similar break if she felt things were too much for her?). The biggest truth was the one where women want to talk about issues in detail but don't want advice.

Waaa! I wanna be from Neptune!

I never bothered to read it, but now I'm thinking about it. Maybe it'll help me understand my NT husband's communication style a bit more. Guess I'm from whatever planet spawns people who cut the crap, discuss the issue directly, solve the problem, and move on. Pretty sure that's neither Mars nor Venus, from what I've heard.

Uranus.

I want to be from that planet, too.

I find I have a lot of male traits, but my major feminine trait is that I like to talk about problems that I don't want or need help with. If I want advice, I will ask for it directly. Otherwise, I'm just sharing what's on my mind.

What really annoys me is when a guy wants to give me advice regarding something that I know a lot about and he doesn't. As if I hadn't already thought of all those possible solutions myself. Depending on the guy's tone, it can feel very insulting.

Is that a feminine trait? I find myself just talking about a problem... and not really expecting a solution... but explaining a problem helps solidify my own ideas.

Though I may not consider potential solutions, I don't think worse of a person that offers help. Unless they are completely ignorant... but try to help anyways... that's always a bit annoying.

But that's just generally not liking people who exude expertise in areas they don't understand.

Last edited by Pugly on 01 Aug 2007, 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.