Do men and
women view love differently?
To answer that, it is necessary first to demonstrate if the differences
between men and women affect love. Because it is scientifically demonstrated
that men and women are not identical, genetically talking: their brains are
slightly different. For example, as Dr. Ruben Gur says, a neuroscientist from
the University of Pennsylvania, the reason why men and women can view love in a
different way “is a matter of how we’re built, not what we learn”. So the
conception of love changes depending on the gender, not on the society or the
school or family environment you have grown up on. About this fact, even though
is it said by a scientist, we don’t agree with it. First, we don’t have to
believe everything a scientist says just because he or she is a scientist, because
we all know science has been wrong about some things in the history of
humanity. Like, for example, Newton’s theory, that although it is scientific,
nowadays we know that it’s not exactly true. Therefore, we don’t agree with the
sentence that men and women view love in a different way because they are built
differently. Well, it is true that this fact can affect to the conception of
love, we cannot deny it, but we don’t have to forget that the environment you
have grown on also affects it. And with environment, we mean society. Directly
or indirectly, society makes you behave some way or another depending on the
gender. For example, society makes girls be beautiful, delicate and passive,
the typical princess waiting for her charming prince; contrarily, boys have to
be brave, strong, but also polite. Or, also, when couples go out to have
dinner, men always have to pay, and give flowers to women from time to time.
Men have also to be the first ones to ask a woman out. These kind of things are
roles that have been there from a long of time ago (fortunately, now are
starting to change), and some of them people don’t really notice that they are
conventional, and they directly accept them. But, as we just said, they are
conventional, they are roles that society has created, but we are able to
change them too; and that’s what some people is trying to do now. So,
summarizing, we agree that the constitution of men and women are different, and
they can affect the way each gender sees love, but our environment also plays
an important role in the way we conceive love.
In addition, talking about other scientific theories that corroborate
that men and women see love in a different way because of their genetic
constitution, there’s one study that says that men and women also communicate
different during times of high emotion; while men are more likely to shut up
when the tension is at its maximum, women tend to keep talking, and get mad
when the other person stops talking to them. There are also researches which
affirm that men are more insensitive and impatient, and more fragile than girls
medically and emotionally. This means that boys are more likely to have birth
defects and are more easily stressed during their childhood, among other
things. Finally, it’s a documented fact that old men are more likely to die
after losing his or her partner than women. Therefore, in summary, men are more
reactive to emotion than women, so this fact can influence the way men and
women love.
So, with these arguments, it is demonstrated that men and women are
slightly different about the way they react to certain situations, which can be
related to love. So genetics influence the way man and women love, even though
the difference between them is not huge and, obviously, there can be exceptions. We’re not sure if these characteristics
really affect the way men and women view love because, as we said, we believe
that society has an important role in making the two genders view love
differently.
Should
boys always ask a girl out or can a girl ask out too?
Is a girl who asks a boy out too daring? Tradition has always told that
boys are the ones who have to ask a girl out. That is the romantic way, the way
it appears in romantic books, films and in the well-known princesses films, which
have a major influence on little kids, especially girls, but also on boys.
Nevertheless, it doesn't mean it is the way it has to be done.
The stories we are told since we are little and the society in which we
grow up have an important role in our view of the world and its different
aspects. In the case of asking out, it's not only the fact that films show that
are always boys who ask girls out, but the fact that they, maybe
unintentionally, teach girls they should never ask a boy out. There are several
consequences, that are usually related with the “what will the people think?”,
that can make a girl being afraid of asking a boy out, as Erin Tatum exposes on
the article published in the Everyday Feminism Magazine. For instance, girls
are taught that asking a boy out makes them take the boy's role in the
relationship, causing, on the one hand, making the girls more masculine and, on
the other hand, showing the boy as if they were weak. This happens due to the
fact that boys are normally supposed to have the lead role in a relationship,
getting to the point that if they don't ask the girl out, they are not a “real
man”, Erin Tatum says; which shouldn't be like this at all. Yet, as it has been
said before, that is society's influence on us. Another teaching given to us is
that a girl asking a boy out shows desperation. For many, the fact that a girl
asks a boy out means that she can't wait any longer for him to ask her out, and
this shows a girl obsessed and desperate. And from our point of view, this is a
sexist way to see it, considering that when a boy is chasing after a girl, even
when she has told him she doesn't want anything, as Tatum declares, “rather
than a sign of creepiness or desperation, this is meant to be perceived as
endearing”, while when it is the other way round, it doesn't play out like
this. One of the last points the author of the article exposes, is the
“unsexiness” of the girl taking an active role. She claims that a girl having
agency is seen as someone not sexy and cold-hearted, something in which we
don't agree, since many men have admitted being attracted to women who hold the
reins of the situation.
All the same, these consequences shouldn't stop girls from asking boys
out or society is never going to change. In fact, one of the reasons for girls
to do it is to change the situation and show the world that because one thing
has been one way for many years and decades, it doesn't mean we have to live
with it and stop fighting to change it. This is exposed on the article posted
on the online magazine Elite Daily, written by Alexia LaFata, in which she
gives several reasons to encourage girls to ask boys out. These reasons are
related both on the good results it can have and on the empowering of the
female figure and the woman itself. Some reasons LaFata uses to encourage the
girls to do it are, for example, that the boy can be too shy to make the move
or that you'll get answers about his feelings towards you instead of keep
worrying about it and overanalyzing every situation to get to a conclusion. And
also, she points out important aspects, such as making decisions by yourself,
which should make you aware of the powerful woman you can be, because, as she
says, “taking control of what you want is one of the most powerful things a
woman can do”. And, in addition, it will help to make you gain self-confidence
and, therefore, be happy with yourself, as well as more independent.
However, this is not an opinion everyone shares, and there is still
people who are much attached to tradition and don't feel like a woman should
ask a man out. In the article The Nice Girl's Guide to Asking a Guy Out,
published in the online magazine Psychology Today, Jen Kim explains a case of
Michele Bachman, a Republican candidate who revealed that she didn't let her daughters
ask a boy out. She also exposes the case of a dating expert, Evan Marc Kratz,
who claimed that girls shouldn't ask boys out if they don't want to be seen as
“desperate or masculine”, and that instead, they should use their traits to
make the boys ask them out. We totally disagree with both Bachman and Kratz,
because we think girls should be able to ask guys out with the same ease boys
can do it, and it shouldn't mean any problem. The article exposes opinions of
other people, and it finishes with the author's opinion. She says that before
asking a guy out, you should consider your personality and if you will be able
to handle a rejection. There are girls who feel safer being asked than asking,
so if you are one of these girls, just don't ask a boy out. We agree with this
point, although we think it is quite obvious that if you don't feel like asking
out, you don't have to do it, but that's not really the topic that was being
discussed, and that's why we weren't really pleased with the article.
In conclusion, we agree with and we stand up for girls asking boys out.
Of course, it will always depend on the personality of the girl, if she is more
extroverted or shy, but we think that if a girl wants to ask out a boy and
feels sure about it, she should be able to do it and he shouldn't be seen as
“masculine or desperate”. It should be seen the same way as if a boy did it,
because even though traditionally it isn't common a girl asking a boy out,
nowadays things should are different, and it should be the same for everyone.
Made by: Paula Caball and Mar Oliva
