In hindsight, it's clear that a few things got lost during the shuffle that was the Feminist movement. Chief among these was the idea that men and women might be different but also complementary, and that the dyad was more
resilient than either one alone. Perhaps it was the ubiquitous bumper stickers, buttons, and tee shirts that declared " A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," the strains of Helen Reddy singing "No one's ever gonna keep me down again," battle fatigue, or a just a baby-with-the-bathwater kind of thing. In 1992, with the
divorce rate in the United States surging to 48%, the publication of John Gray's blockbuster book,
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, delivered the
coup de grâce by institutionalizing the differences between the sexes into a cultural trope. This book didn't just articulate the zeitgeist; it became the template for
understanding why intimate relationships were prone to failure. Its message continues to be broadcast on innumerable television shows (including a few decades of
Oprah), in the plots and characters of books and movies and, most important, the conversations of ordinary men and women.
The two planets, in ancient times the symbol of a sacred marriage between the evening and morning stars, became a sometimes dismissive shorthand for what is and always has been a complicated connection.
It's no big surprise that the children—the Millenials, that is—were listening. They didn't even have to read the book.
As the parent of a Millennial, I wish I could say that nothing as reductionist as " that's so typical of men" ever passed my lips but, alas, I'd be lying. All the young women and men I speak to believe the Mars/Venus principle, agreeing that men and women think, feel and solve problems differently. More to the point, they also believe that the sexes have different life goals, as well as attitudes towards friendship and marriage.
The belief in the Mars/Venus trope shapes both what men and women expect of the other's behavior and how they interpret what they say. And when what they say may not necessarily be spoken, there's plenty of opportunity for friction. The repertoire of Mars and Venus traits is large but let's take two as examples: that men are less sensitive and responsive, while women are more emotional and more likely to overreact, on the one hand, and that women are looking for relationship and men are looking for sex, on the other. What happens when you combine these beliefs with the kind of communication that substitutes for spoken conversation in the digital world? "My ex-girlfriend took everything I texted way too seriously," a twenty-three-year-old complains. "Then, if she was upset about something and I texted right back, she'd land on me for not calling instead. It drove me nuts." Another Millenial admits that "I've had fights and squabbles with guys because of a misinterpretation of tone or wording in a text or message that would never have happened on the phone or in person." A twenty-seven-old year, now living with her boyfriend and getting married next year, has sworn off messaging in times of stress: "We both realized that we have to stop emails and texts if we're in the middle of a fight. It gets too overheated, too fast. And it makes the differences in how we handle things harder to reconcile. Men see things more concretely, with more black and white thinking. If this, then that. They don't deal with the gray areas very well. Women love the gray areas. They believe that two opposing ideas can be true at once. If we're texting, we're going to keep going around and around."
The mating dance has both more and less nuance in the digital age and while it's easier to meet potential partners, it's not necessarily more straightforward. One twenty-four-year-old explains how she "talks" to men she's interested in:. "I generally initiate contact with some medium involving text. It could be email, Facebook, or texting. If I've only met someone recently, a phone call seems very forward, pushy or needy, even if it is more sincere. I know that sounds like a double standard but it's also less intimidating than picking up a phone and having a conversation." A twenty-six-year-old man confides that he likes online dating because " I think I gain a certain amount of confidence contacting strangers without being face to face. Then too, there's less of an investment in the connection and less worry about rejection." Once they're in contact, he still prefers texting to talking before they meet in person. That said, he's surprised that he hasn't had more than one date with anyone he's met online.
Combining the new media with the assumption that Mars wants sex and Venus wants a boyfriend has yielded a new variation on reading the tea leaves. While digital silence is meaningful, so is too much attention. Is sending more than one text a day to someone you just met an act of desperation or courtship, a compliment to his or her charms or just plain creepy? It seems to depend. One Millennial is categorical, nonetheless: "He bombarded me with texts for three straight days after talking to me for all of twenty minutes. I don't even know this dude and I feel like he's stalking me!"
In her book Alone Together, Sherry Turkle's summary of what texting does is brilliant and on point. Describing a thirteen-year-old who hates the phone, she writes: "Texting offers just the right amount of access, just the right amount of control. She is a modern Goldilocks: for her, texting puts people not too close, not too far, but at just the right distance. The world is full of modern Goldilockses, people who take comfort in being in touch with a lot of people whom they also keep at bay."
Of course, the world has always had its share of Goldilockses, men and women who can't get close to anyone. Is it just harder to tell who they are? Are there more of them? Or, as one Millennial suggests, "Is it just this stupid Mar and Venus thing that has us thinking that we're more dissimilar than we actually are?" Or is it that it's simply easier to act like Goldilocks in the digital age?
Millennials sound philosophical, both discouraged and hopeful at once. "I wish it were less of a game of cat and mouse. The whole texting thing makes it harder to get a handle on who someone is and guys just don't want to talk on the phone," a thirty-year-old confides. She was in a relationship for four years, and is now "back out there, looking." A twenty-five year-old from the other planet completely disagrees. "Texting the women I meet makes me feel like I have a social life as well as a good tool for figuring out what they're like. I keep thinking the right one is out there, maybe at a bar or online. Or maybe she's a friend of a friend. I'm giving myself five years to find her."
But when he finds her, will they know how to talk to each other?
