Not so different after all

And this is a post I started a week before Thanksgiving. You think I have been busy or something.....


Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Yeah, right.

This has long been an irksome phrase for me, mostly because I think it is a load of crap. Sure there are some differences between men and women, but on a core level, we are the same. No one wants to feel unloved and isolated. We all want to be important in some way, to another person, in a company, in a family. The idea that men and women are so far apart emotionally and intellectually that we require separate planets for our existence is frankly, absurd. Don't get me wrong, I know men and women are not carbon copies of each other, we process information differently, we sometimes communicate in ways the other doesn't understand, but where our biggest differences lie, so too lies our greatest asset, the ability to compliment one another.

This idea of separate spheres of life (hehe, get it, planet, sphere, ok, bad joke. moving on.)is particularly prevalent phenomenon in Christian circles. Men and women are constantly divided; men's breakfast, women's luncheon, separate bible study groups, separate retreats, separate sermons. And then people wonder why men and women don't understand one another! I am no relationship expert or anything, but it seems to me if you have spent your entire young adult life being told how different you are and had that message doubly reinforced by constant separation of the sexes, it seems reasonable that you would be a little bit unprepared for something as intimate as romance. So then to explain this seemingly huge rift, "doctors" write books about men and women being from separate planets, further reinforcing the idea that men and women are alien creatures.

Instead of focusing on how different we are, why not focus on how we are the same? Wouldn't that make our differences seem less insurmountable? Men, you have emotions too, go ahead show 'em, cry if you want. I won't call you a sissy. And you over there, the woman trying to make yourself smaller because strong assertive women will never land a man, SPEAK UP! God gave you a brain for more than just filling up your skull cavity. Focusing on differences only separates people. It's high time we start realising people are people are people, and more similar than we may want to admit. So when we don't understand one another, just ask. I think a lot of people would answer.