The Null Device

Inquiry of the day: Why is it that you sometimes hear men talking about their feminine sides, but never hear women talking about their masculine sides?

There are 5 comments on "":

Posted by: mrsmalkav Sun May 19 01:08:22 2002

d00d. i'm *always* talking about my masculine side. it's very apparent for me. i think i was born with more testosterone than is normal for a woman. i was one angsty violent teen. perhaps the extra hormones may be also why i'm bi.....

who knows? maybe more women need to be masculine in order to 'make it' in the world and so it's less of something to comment on?

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Sun May 19 08:24:11 2002

Or maybe it has something to do with women having more connections between brain hemispheres than men (which is why they're more communicative/empathetic on average); perhaps the notion of dividing oneself into "sides" is inherently masculine?

Or, as someone once said, "there are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't"

Posted by: Hobbes http:// Sun May 19 20:36:06 2002

I think it is because men think that talking about our feminine sides will make us appear more sensitive and understanding, and women will like us better, while the reverse perception is that women acting masculine are evil bitches and are disliked.

Posted by: bzackey http:// Sun May 19 20:54:06 2002

To tell you the truth, I've never actually heard any guy talk about his "feminine side." You see stuff like that every so often in the news, but no one I know ever seems to have felt it necessary to quantify the ways in which he is not a slavering hulk of testosterone and masculinity.

Posted by: diane http://neuroscience.ucdavis.edu/grad/cogn.html Mon May 20 17:56:38 2002

I agree with Hobbes: many women are attracted to men who are able to discuss their feminine sides, but how many men seek out women who talk about their masculine sides? And forget about heterosexual women *showing* their masculine sides... it's too threatening and unattractive (e.g., how many men would date a woman who could beat them at arm wresting or whose legs were hairier than their own?

These "rules" are much less applicable to lesbians, however.