PERSPECTIVE ON THE SEXES : Who’s the Norm, Who Deviates? : If there’s to be peace in the gender wars, we have to give up the “universal male” standard of behavior.
If women and men are not “opposites,” what are they? Everyone knows that they are not the same. “Different” seems a safe answer, but it’s not; it’s the stealth weapon in the war between the sexes--it’s invisible, and it strikes in only one direction.
“Different” means deviation from the norm. But who is normal? The trouble with talking about gender differences is that they are too easily transformed into deficiencies, weaknesses or pathologies. A person who is “different,” after all, is differing from something that represents the normal and healthy way.
If you browse through the “women’s” section of your local bookstore (as opposed, presumably, to the “human” section), you will find a litany of problems that women supposedly have by virtue of being different from men. Women are too dependent or co-dependent. Women love too much or the wrong way. Women are self-defeating and passive, which is why they stay in bad relationships and don’t get promoted. (Of course, women who aren’t self-defeating and passive worry that they are too self-promoting and aggressive, which is why they don’t get into good relationships--and don’t get promoted.) Women who don’t have jobs outside the home suffer from Housewife Syndrome; but if they do have jobs outside the home they suffer from Superwoman Syndrome. Women undervalue their efforts. They have difficulty developing autonomy. They aren’t good at expressing anger. Their self-esteem is too low.
Surely, these are things to worry about. Surely, it is desirable for women to have high self-esteem, value their work, be self-confident, express anger and develop autonomy. But now let us take the pieces of this picture and twist the kaleidoscope a few turns. When we do, we can see that all of these judgments share a frame of reference, a standard against which women are continually judged and found lacking: the universal, normal male.
Of course, the habit of seeing women’s behavior as something to be explained in relation to the male norm makes sense in a world that operates on norms defined by men. In one study, a researcher showed that modesty, a quality supposedly admired in women, does them a disservice in job interviews; being modest about their achievements and unwilling to promote themselves, they appear unconcerned about advancement. (Of course, if the women weren’t modest, they would be accused of being too aggressive and egocentric.)
Had these books used women as the norm and compared men to women, the same findings might lead to a different notion of what the “problems” are: Men are too independent and aloof. Men are too self-involved and conceited. Men overestimate their abilities and overvalue their work. Men lash out when they are hurt instead of stating how they feel and inviting sympathy. Men have too much self-esteem.
This way of talking about men is biased and derogatory, but that is the point: Why is it so difficult to notice the same degree of bias and denigration in the way we talk about women? The answer is that we are used to seeing women as the problem, and to regarding women’s differences from men as deficiencies. This is why psychiatry has concocted a diagnosis called Self-Defeating Personality Disorder, which applies primarily to women who are too “feminine.” But there’s no counterpart called, say, Delusional Domineering Personality Disorder, which would apply to men who are too “masculine” (e.g., most members of the U.S. Senate).
Many women, understandably, have grown tired of trying to measure up, to prove repeatedly that they are “as something as men”--as competent, as talented, as worthy. They would like to see “woman as problem” replaced by “man as problem,” where women’s behavior is the standard against which men are measured and found wanting. One example of this reversal is apparent in the domain of close relationships, where women’s ways of expressing closeness (through talk and shared feelings) have become the norm, and men’s ways (through action and shared activities) are considered deviant and disturbed.
It is certainly important for women to validate their own experiences and perceptions. But replacing “woman as problem” with “man as problem” does not advance us very far. Any portrait of both sexes in which only one is assumed to be the norm will distort the true experience of both. Women and men do typically differ in how they express intimacy, and this difference causes endless grief and occasional merriment. But neither style is better than the other; research finds repeatedly that each has benefits and disadvantages.
It is time, therefore, to move away from the old question of “Do men and women differ?” and ask instead why everyone is so interested in differences. Which differences are important? Why does our society focus on those that are small and keep changing (such as SAT verbal scores) and not on the large, persistent differences--in the degree of safety that men and women feel, in their opportunities for a financially secure old age, in the amount of time they spend in housework, in their chances of being criminally assaulted?
Further, we can ask what purpose is served by the belief in differences. Obviously, believing that women’s brains do not fit them for powerful positions serves to lock women out; worse, it serves to limit their intellectual growth from the earliest age. Similarly, the belief that men’s psyches are not well-suited to nurturance serves to exclude men from family obligations; worse, it serves to discourage them from expressing their emotional needs and receiving nurturance.
As the historic division between man’s public world and woman’s private domain continues to blur, there will be more misunderstandings as new players try to learn old rules--and as some players try to change the rules. Those in power like being the ones who set the norm, and they will do their utmost to keep those who are “deviant and deficient” out of the inner circle. This will continue as long as we keep focusing on alleged mental and psychological differences instead of acknowledging the real, pressing differences in power, resources and opportunities, and acting on them to shape a healthier, more equitable world for women and men.