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Men are from Mars, Women Are Complicated |
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A friend of mine is teaching a college course called "Psychology of
Women." She has a Ph.D. and is lecturing on topics such as gender
identity and roles, theories of female development, relationships,
achievement, language, health issues and spirituality.
She's obviously an expert. So, I asked her a question that's been
weighing on my mind for quite a while: Why do wives ask husbands to
load the dishwasher, when the wives know they will rearrange the dishes
after their husbands are done?
My professor friend laughed. I knew the laugh. It was the
"If-I-told-you-I'd-have-to-kill-you" laugh women use whenever men ask
questions about their secret society.
My wife doesn't rearrange the dishes after I've loaded the dishwasher.
She hasn't allowed me to load our dishwasher in several years. She
won't even tell me how to deactivate the child-safety lock.
My wife does have a minor reason for barring me from the washer. She
can fit a few more items into it than I can. Okay, maybe it's more than
a few. I can place four plates in our dishwasher in an arrangement that
makes it impossible to find space for an additional sippy cup. I could
claim it's a unique ability but it's not. All men have it. It can be
traced back to the "fight or flight" response, which helped Adam
survive by running rather than battling the saber-toothed tiger. Adam
was loading the dishwasher at the time and had only placed a few dishes
before his mad dash to safety. To this day, men are unable to load
dishwashers. My wife, on the other hand, can load the dishes from a
500-person banquet and still have space for the pots from a chili
cook-off.
My professor friend won't answer my dishwasher question in her
psychology of women class either. Under normal circumstances, the
answer would fall between the chapter on "How to Keep Men Guessing" and
the one on "Compulsive Garage Sale Disorders." But there are a few men
taking the class, so she isn't allowed to reveal any secrets of the
sisterhood.
I admire her for teaching such a difficult three-credit course. Based
on my experience, the 600-page textbook can be revised by any women,
anywhere in the world, at any time. There have been 54 changes since
you started reading this column. (Technically, there were 27 changes
because each of the revisions was reversed. That's a woman's
prerogative.)
I don't want to make men seem shallow but the "Psychology of Men"
course is a bit shorter. Classes meet during the commercials of a
single Monday night football game. The mid-term is at halftime and the
final exam is given after the post-game show. The textbook is a page
and a half long and hasn't been revised in 1,700 years, when it was
translated from Latin. The third paragraph of the ancient text begins,
"Operor non rudimentum onero quis vestri uxor dico vos non contineo."
That translates to "Do not attempt to load what your wife tells you not to touch."
Tim Bete's column has been featured in the
Christian Science Monitor and more than a dozen parenting magazines.
His column has also appeared on CatholicExchange.com, ParentingHumor.com, CatholicMom.com and iParenting.com.
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