Men and women seem to be coming from opposite directions some of the time. There are a number of frameworks for understanding this, the most popular being John Gray’s Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. While an interesting read, it doesn’t quite cover the reality of men and women’s interactions, because of one fundamental assumption – that all men are thinkers and all women are feelers. This needs unpacking a bit.

Assumptions:

1. That Jungian personality theory of types are a good way of discussing people’s inability to understand each other.
2. Men are mostly Thinkers and women are mostly Feelers according to Jungian theory.
3. John Gray’s Men are from Mars, women are from Venus is a commercial, overly padded, simplified expression of assumption number 2.

Thinking is encouraged in 21st century Western culture. Logic is prized, and “being emotional” frowned upon, especially in romantic relationships and the workplace. Feeling and emotions are undervalued unless required for a specific situation such as conflict resolution or counselling. Feelers are seen as soft and counter productive.

To get on with Feelers without constantly upsetting them, Thinkers are told to use “softer” language and validate the Feeler’s point of view even if they are being completely irrational and destructive. In an argument, the Thinker’s first reaction is to destroy the Feelers (often vindictive) outburst with a logical argument. The Feeler will always feel attacked by this logic, even if no attack is meant, as it basically says to the Feeler “You are wrong. Here is the logic that supports my argument and proves you wrong.”

The position now is that the Feeler cannot cope so the Thinker must change their approach and speech to accommodate the Feeler, or following the Mars and Venus logic, the man must soften their approach to suit the woman. The softer, Feeling personality now has control by using emotional blackmail or staying upset until the Thinker backs down. This is exactly what small children do – sulk and annoy until the parents give in to the bad behaviour.

This is all well and good, if the Thinker learns the tools and methods to “handle” a Feeler – they can then operate in both modes, Thinking/logic and Feeling/validating/empathising. However, the Feeler is still only operating in Feeling mode here. Why should the Thinker have to modify everything they do and say to suit the Feelers? Why should men have to say and do the “right thing” according to Feelers to avoid emotional apocalypse? Surely it is just as important for the Feelers to learn logical skills to be able to communicate effectively with Thinkers? It appears this reversal is uncommon and ignored by writers on the subject (who are likely Feelers themselves…).

So, to the Feeler camp – us Thinkers will make an effort to understand your style and communicate in effective ways with you, but you need to meet us halfway and learn to deal with Thinkers too. While we will attempt to use validating and subjective language around you, you need to speak plainly, logically and directly while accepting responsibility for your emotional sensitivity. If something upsets you, it is partly up to you to deal with your feelings rather than insisting that the world treats you with Kid Gloves. Thinkers are not here to make you feel better or jump through hoops, we are free and energetic and stifled by the feeling of tiptoeing around those we care about and the experience of being manipulated by emotional blackmail.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Psychology, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.