Jeepers, Creepers,
Where’d You Get Those Peepers?
By Ruth Koch

Opening Scene: I was rather royally annoyed. After all, it was a simple request: When Susan calls, please get Grace’s phone number and leave it where I can find it. (Not exactly rocket science.)

But when I returned home, David was gone and there was no phone number to be found. Grrrr. Okay, so maybe Susan hadn’t called, or maybe she couldn’t get Grace’s number, or maybe…whatever.

Next Scene: David returns and I pounce, not very adept at concealing my pique: “I needed that phone number this afternoon!” I begin. Mercifully, before I can really get launched, David interrupts, “I put it on the cabinet, right at eye level.” So I raise my eyes about eight inches and lo and behold, there’s the sticky note with the missing phone number!

Do you see what I see? Not if you’re significantly shorter than the person posting the note “at eye level.”

While height is not necessarily a gender difference, much has been written lately about the very real differences between men and women and how each sees the world, perceives reality, and thinks about solving problems. In You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation, Georgetown University sociolinguist Deborah Tannen describes communication between men and women as a cross-cultural experience, as if Poles were sitting down to dinner with East Africans. Same humanity — same souls God loves and saves, but very different perspectives and purposes — very different ways of seeing.

Tannen notes that women see the world in terms of bridges, embraces, getting along, and being liked. She goes on to say that women believe that people are essentially the same under the skin and therefore people are at their best when they are connected to each other and affirming and enjoying their similarities. That’s why some women can sit and talk for hours, making connections and saying, “Oh, I know just what you mean!” It can be a joy for women to connect with others and to know that we are not alone.

Men see the world very differently. Men live in a world of ladders (who’s up, who’s down?) and judgment and comparisons. A man’s world is about being different, not finding similarities, Tannen says. A man’s life is about competition and proving one’s self to be worthy of respect. While both men and women want to be loved and respected, women focus on being loved and men focus on being respected. That’s why the worst thing a woman/wife/mother can do is ridicule or criticize a boy or man in public: He “loses face,” and while that seems a small thing to a woman, it is huge for a man.

We’re not talking Male Ego here; we’re looking at the challenging world in which men must live and work each day. Imagine that someone is evaluating you a dozen times each day, trying to figure out where you fit on the hierarchical ladder, checking if you are one-up or one-down. Imagine your antenna out: gathering signals that you are smarter, more skilled, or more valuable than other men. Harvard psychologist William Pollack, author of Real Boys, describes the rough-and-tumble give-and-take of a man’s world: teasing insults, searing criticism, challenges to your work and thought to see if you are worthy of respect. Imagine the isolation of “never let them see you sweat,” and the Boy Code, identified by Pollack as, “Everything’s just fine, I can handle it.” Male toughness, stoicism, strength. No whining. Earn respect. A man lives with a different worldview and may not see what a woman sees.

Several years ago I was in the Denver International Airport infirmary quite sick with the flu, giving the medical and airline personnel a rather hard time by insisting that I would indeed be on my scheduled flight. Finally a wise doctor leaned over the bed, looking me square in the eye as she said, “If you get sick on the plane, FAA regulations require that the plane be turned around and return to Denver. Then everyone’s going to be mad at you.” Instant attitude adjustment! What could be worse for a woman than having anyone mad at her — maybe a whole planeload of folks?

Deborah Tannen notes that little girls grow up learning to “make nice,” trying to make everyone happy. Now grown up, we may work hard to get people to be cooperative and avoid conflict. Perhaps you’ve missed a ministry opportunity because what was needed was loving care-fronting — caring enough to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15) — and what you delivered was something “nice,” designed to make the other person comfortable, thereby missing an opportunity to struggle with God’s truth.

“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” Henry Higgins asks in My Fair Lady. It’s not uncommon for both men and women to try to make each other over in their image, but God created us male and female in His image (Genesis 1:27). We are blessed to be who God made us to be.

By following God’s Word and avoiding harsh, judgmental thinking with faulty comparisons, and generalizations, the different ways men and women see things will not hinder our love or each other. Rather, we will draw closer to each other in a manner that brings joy, as it did for St. Paul who encouraged the Philippians, Then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose (Philippians 2:2).

God’s Word also reminds us that we are one in Christ, “neither…male nor female,” through faith in Christ, having been baptized into Christ (Galatians 3:26-28). The respect we have for each other flows from the love God has given us, who has made each of us both unique and alike!