Do You Think Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus?

I was 12 years old when I stumbled across the book Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus by John Gray while visiting my aunt and uncle. I was already curious about sex and relationships, so I picked it up. As a kid I was a voracious and fast reader, so I was able to get through most of it in less than a day.

I hated it. 

The gist of the book is that men and women are so different that heterosexual couples need a manual to be able to understand their partners. Gray argues that men and women communicate in such incompatible ways and have such different needs, they might as well be from different planets and speaking different languages. 

Even as a pre-teen, the message of the book felt wrong to me. I hated gender stereotypes and rigid gender roles. Men are like this. Women are like that. I didn’t like expectations based on gender then, and I still don’t!

There is also clear misogynist undertones to gendered stereotypes. Although I didn’t yet know the word misogyny as a 12 year old, the message I received was that girl things were frivolous and silly and boy things were cool and superior. To be seen as “cool,” a girl had to be into boy things. As a teenager, I bought into it completely. I hated being seen as a girl because I wanted to be taken seriously and treated like a person. 

For me, that’s what it really comes down to: wanting to be seen as a person, as an individual. I don’t want assumptions made about me because of my sex or gender. I think many people feel that way. So why do we default to gendered assumptions?

Why do we stereotype?

Stereotypes are cognitive shortcuts made by our brains. We lump people or things into categories based on superficial characteristics and make assumptions based on one or two traits. Stereotypes happen because they save us a lot of time and energy. Stereotypes are our brains being both efficient and lazy. 

The content of our stereotypes is learned from a very young age. Gender stereotypes are reflected in many of our families and are everywhere in our media. From the stereotypes we learn about gender roles, we then go on to make assumptions about others. 

In psychology, some people teach that these stereotypical categorizations are automatic, but that isn’t true. The process happens quickly and often without our conscious knowledge, but all stereotypes are learned. Stereotypes can be be changed by challenging our stereotypical beliefs and by expanding our knowledge about individuals.

It is normal and common to stereotype. We wouldn’t be able to function in the world if our brains didn’t have cognitive shortcuts like stereotypes. It works well for object categories like chairs. If we had to re-learn what a chair was and how to use it every time we saw one, we would never get anything done. When talking about actual humans, however, stereotypes and the assumptions that come from them can cause problems.

What happens when we make assumptions?

As the saying goes, assumptions make an ass out of you and me. Right?!

When we make assumptions about other people based on their sex or gender, we are not seeing them as a whole person. This makes sense when you don’t know someone, but when it is someone you want to be involved with, or someone you are dating or married to, it will lead to problems.

If we make assumptions based on gender stereotypes, we are just setting ourselves up for misunderstandings and conflict. We might assume our partner should behave a certain way because of their gender and then be upset when they don’t align to our assumptions. We also miss out on so much of getting to know all of the great things about that person. 

Assumptions can lead to relatively benign outcomes, like not inviting your partner to a sporting event because “women don’t like sports.” Or it can lead to shaming when someone on the masculine spectrum expresses vulnerable emotions like sadness because masculine people are not supposed to cry. 

At the most severe, it can lead to violence. Like when a woman is sexually liberated and comfortable in her sexuality, but her partner believes women are less horny than men, so decides to punish her for her sexuality. 

We are not that different

I am a psychology professor, and much of psychology is focused around gender differences. For many reasons, this is the way the discipline has been shaped since its beginning. There have been many women in the field who have pushed back against the focus on gender differences, but for my purposes today, I will focus on Janet Shibley Hyde’s Gender Similarities Hypothesis. 

Using statistical techniques to examine the size of the differences between men and women on various tasks that were shown to have gender differences, Hyde showed that, in fact, men and women were much more similar on most things than they were different. There is more difference within each gender than there is between each gender on most things. 

Assuming that men and women are so different that they are alien to one another is just not based in science. It is also not my personal experience at all. Granted, I have never lived a very heteronormative life and have actively fought back against gendered expectations as much as I could. I also have close friendships with people of different genders. 

I believe we cannot have good healthy relationships with others if we rely on stereotypes and assumptions. We need direct communication.

The solution: Better communication and self-knowledge

I know many people in heterosexual relationships who have found the Mars and Venus books helpful to understand their partner. They truly see that person as an alien that they can’t understand without decoding from experts. That makes me sad.

Men and women are not that different, but we are constantly told that we are. And from this assumption of difference, we either try to fit into the stereotype for our gender and/or don’t get to know people of another gender. This also results is reflected in an inability to communicate about our individual needs and boundaries. We assume others should just know.

Good communication in relationships is hard. We are not taught how to communicate well with others. It’s assumed (see, another assumption!) that we should just know how to communicate because we are all humans who interact with other humans. But good communication just doesn’t happen naturally. It requires work and attention. 

It also requires getting to know ourselves better, either through therapy or other introspective exercises. When people say “well I am a woman so, of course I like X” or “well I am a man, so clearly I feel Y,” that reflects a lack of self-knowledge. Why do you, specifically, behave in this way? Or like this thing? Can you articulate that? If not, maybe that’s something to reflect on.

When we see ourselves in terms of stereotypes, it is hard to see others outside of that same lens. I encourage you to reflect on your beliefs about yourself and your partner(s) and think of ways to dig below the assumptions you have about yourself and others.

In summary

Stop making assumptions and start asking questions. That is my prescription for a relationship where two people really understand one another. Figure out the ways in which you are similar and the ways in which you are different. Figure out the ways in which you like to communicate. Figure out what assumptions you have been making about one another. All of these things will be unique to your relationship and will help further better understanding and communication.