It’s Like We’re Not Even Speaking the Same Language, Part 2: Translating What Men and Women Say to Each Other
Because sometimes we use the wrong words.
It wasn’t my intention for this story to have a Part 2, but since I feel it’s necessary to clarify a few more things about the way men and women communicate, then here it is.
I guess it’s technically Part 3 of a discussion that started here:
And then continued here:
But you don’t need to have read those to follow along with this one.
Just know that the issue at hand is emotional labor. From the female perspective, it usually feels like we’re the only ones who notice it and who take initiative to tackle it, despite the fact that it benefits everyone. From the male perspective, it tends to be understood as nagging, or something it doesn’t really make sense to make such a big deal about.
Even though emotional labor isn’t constrained to household chores, that realm is where it tends to manifest more expressively than anywhere else. It’s also in that realm where most of the miscommunication between men and women happens.
On one-income households, where one partner agrees to be the home maker and effective house manager, the lines seem to be more easily drawn. In two-income households, however, it’s not hard to find women frustrated with the fact that they end up assuming that side-job they didn’t exactly sign up for, house manager. When trying to fine-tune the dynamics of who’s responsible for what in a relationship like that, a lot of miscommunication ends up happening.
If it often feels like men and women aren’t even speaking the same language, it’s because they’re not often being precise with the words they use to express themselves — or are willingly refusing to understand each other.
Communication is a funny thing
Even when we’re speaking the same language, our meaning can get lost in the space between what we’re trying to express, what we’re actually saying, and what the other is hearing.
Please notice what a difference caring makes to the real meaning behind what a person is saying. Sometimes, we care but don’t really know how to express it, so when we speak, we sound as if we don’t care at all.
Let’s take a look at what “care” means (according to Google Dictionary).
Care
noun
1. the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.
2. serious attention or consideration applied to doing something correctly or to avoid damage or risk.
verb
- feel concern or interest; attach importance to something.
- look after and provide for the needs of.
Caring, therefore, is hard work. It takes effort to “attach importance to something,” to “feel concerned or interest” and to “look after and provide for the needs of.” A lot of people would say that the effort involved in caring is the very essence of what constitutes emotional labor.
When it comes to communication, the challenge in figuring out who actually cares and who doesn't persists (it’s a matter of attitude, not statements). However, I hope the following translations help illuminate the issue a bit.
When it comes to emotional labor, here are some of the biggest misunderstandings between men and women, translated:
Translating men to women:
1. On to-do lists and assigning tasks
What men say: “just make me a chores list.”
What women hear: “I’m a man-child who can’t look around and notice for myself what needs to be done.”
What men actually mean:
- Those who really care: “I love you, I can see that you’re tired and overwhelmed, and I want to take some of that burden off your shoulders, but I don’t know where to start. Will you guide me?
- Those who don’t care at all: “you’re the woman, you should handle it. But fine, if it will make you quit nagging, I’ll do them damn chores, just don’t make me think them up, give me a list.”
2. On who’s actually in charge
What men say: “I’ll help you, just tell me what to do.”
What women hear: “You’re the one in charge, you worry about that stuff.”
What men actually mean:
- Those who really care: “I love you, I want to see you happy and de-stressed, I just really, really don’t know where to start.”
- Those who don’t care: “I’ll help you, but you’re still the one in charge of delegating. You’re the effective manager and I’m your assistant, which means I naturally have less responsibilities than you when it comes to this stuff. Which also means I shouldn’t have to take part on any of the mental work that goes on behind noticing what needs to be tackled and when. Besides, I’m offering to help, which means you should be thankful for whatever you get, however often I choose to provide it.”
3. On who does it better
What men say: “you just do it better.”
What women hear: “It’s your problem, figure it out.”
What men actually mean:
- Those who really care: “I’d like to lighten your burden, but whenever I take charge and do something, you tell me I’m doing it wrong. I feel trapped in this Catch-22: if I don’t take charge and do it, I’m useless; if I take charge and do it, I’m incompetent. Forgive me, but if I’m going to disappoint you, I’d rather disappoint you by not having done it.”
- Those who don’t care: “It’s your problem, figure it out.”
4. On “having impossibly high standards”
What men say: “your standards are just too high. You need to relax.”
What women hear: “what matters to you doesn’t matter to me, therefore, you don’t matter to me. To top it off, you’re dumb for caring so much about and spending all of that energy on these trifles.”
What men mean:
- Those who really care: “I don’t like to see you so frazzled about all of this. Since my standards are a bit lower, can’t we reach a compromise so we both spend less time on this and more on each other? I won’t think any less of you as a partner, I promise.”
- Those who don’t care: “I’ll help you, but can you cut me some slack? I’m not up for all of this extra work.”
Translating women to men:
1. On being tired of the mental work
What women say: “I’m tired of everything I have to take care of. Can you step up a bit? I don’t want to have to ask all the time.”
What men hear: “I need your help. I need you to do more.”
What women mean:
- Those who really care: “I’m tired of being the only one shouldering the mental work of figuring out what needs to be done. I don’t want to be the house manager, delegating tasks all the time, I want an equal partner who’s just as interested in having our home in order and our lives organized as I am.”
- Those who don’t care: “can you be a little bit less useless?”
2. On remembering to get things done
What women say: “did you remember to do X? When do you think you will get to Z? How’s that chores list going?”
What men hear: “you are so incompetent that even with a list I don’t trust you.”
What women mean:
- Those who really care: “I’ve had bad experiences before, perhaps with another partner, or even with you, in which promises were made but not delivered. I’ve seen chores on a list be treated as optional, and I was left to pick up where another person left off, despite being promised I wouldn’t have to. So, forgive me if the fear of having things be neglected only to become my problem later causes me to micromanage so much.”
- Those who don’t care: “why can’t you just do what you’re told, when you’re told?”
3. On doing it “right”
What women say: “why did you do X like that? It was supposed to be done that other way.”
What men hear: “doing it isn’t enough, you have to do it my way or you’re incompetent.”
What women mean:
- Those who really care: “I’ve been taking care of this task for years, and I’ve learned what to do to get the best results. It takes work, it takes time, but it comes out right. When you don’t do it my way and it doesn’t come out as I expected, I feel as if you’re cutting corners and deliberately not interested in putting in your best efforts.”
- Those who don’t care: “why can’t you just do it as I tell you?”
4. On having high standards and being too demanding
What women say: “my standards are not too high, it’s the bare minimum for proper living conditions.”
What men hear: “why are you such a pig?”
What women mean:
- Those who really care: “rationally, I know it’s not true, but there’s a big part of me that still believes that my worth as a woman — and as a person — is attached to keeping my life and my house a certain way. If I look around and things are below that standard, it feels like a personal failure. I wish you’d understand how that really hurts me.”
- Those who don’t care: “why are you such a pig?”
Mitigating the communication problem
Feeling like we must be speaking different languages is very frustrating, for both men and women. In the end, however, if there’s real love and genuine care, then what they’re really saying is “I love you.”
When men say, “I want to help you,” they’re saying, “I love you.”
When women say, “I want to make our house into a home,” they’re saying, “I love you.”
When there’s love, what’s missing to mitigate the communication problems is to try using different word, especially more words, to describe what we’re really thinking and feeling.
When there’s love, what’s missing is to practice actually listening to the other person, and not get into conversations with the assumption that the other is exaggerating a problem or complaining just to get at you.
It’s not a surprise that issues around the distribution of emotional labor causes break-ups
As we’ve seen, actually caring makes a huge difference not only on what is been said and understood, but also on the solutions that can arise. Eventually, the lack of care becomes evident, and one side or the other inevitably snaps.
