What Planet Is John Gray On?

Not all of us are from Mars or Venus

Randy Frame

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I'm a man, but I admit I don't know what a socket set is, let alone how to use one. My wife, on the other hand, knows a socket from a ratchet, and what to do with them. At our house, she's in charge of repairs.

Still, no one has ever questioned my manhood, at least not to my face. Having grown up in a blue-collar, coal mining town where team sports were revered, I inherited my share of manly traits. I count two knee ligament tears, two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a broken hand, a fractured cheekbone and a corneal laceration among my sports-related injuries.

But the truth is, the definition of what constitutes genuine manhood has changed. Back in the fifties—for good or for ill—everyone pretty much agreed on what made men men and women women. Then the feminist movement started blurring the distinctions, urging men and women to take on characteristics traditionally associated with the opposite gender.

Clearly, feminism went too far in denying nearly all inherent differences between the sexes. But now, with our society's infatuation with John Gray and his best-selling book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, I fear the pendulum has swung way too far in the other direction. I give him credit for taking the risk of being labeled a cultural heretic by arguing for clear distinctions between men and women. But who put him in charge of determining what those distinctions are?

I wonder this primarily because my wife and I fail to measure up to Gray's standards. When behind the steering wheel, for example, my wife is an incurable tailgater. And she won't stop to ask for directions unless someone's life is at stake, and the person in peril has to be someone she really cares about. In contrast, when I think I might be lost (which is just about every time I go somewhere new), I toss pride to the wind and pull over to ask for directions. And tailgating ranks high on my list of pet peeves.

For the record, some of our behaviors do conform to the stereotypes. She's the reader. I do the heavy lifting and investigate strange noises in the night. She cleans the house; I have no use for a needle and thread.

But I'm the talkative one at social gatherings, while my wife seeks out a quiet corner. I like to cook, and I've changed plenty of dirty diapers. What would John Gray make of all this?

In the introduction to his book, he acknowledges that men and women sometimes reverse their roles, but he attributes it to denial of gender identity. The implication is that something is wrong with us when we don't act as he claims we should.

Baloney! So what if when my wife and I have a disagreement, she retreats to the cave (like a Martian) while I'm the Venusian, wanting to talk about things? Does that really make me less of a man?

Conspicuously absent from Gray's book is any discussion of what causes the differences between Martians and their cohorts from Venus. Are their contrasting traits rooted in nature and therefore unchangeable? Or might your planet of origin be determined more by parental example?

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 1998, Spring

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