No matter
which way we look at it and whether we like it or not, we have evolved from a
hunter gatherer society. Since time
immemorial, our roles as men and women are very different, very specialised and
pertinent to the capabilities of our gender.
There is no getting away from the fact that we are very different. Both mentally and physically. We don’t think the same way, we don’t
approach situations the same way and we don’t act the same way. Men
are simply physically stronger than women, and the argument could be made that
some women are mentally stronger than men. It’s widely known that men can’t multi task
whereas women seem to do this with ease.
Think feeding the baby, talking on the phone and drinking coffee. All at once.
When men take a phone call, they stand up to do it. They stop peering at the computer screen to
sign for a DHL document. Genetics can be
held to account for a lot of things; for example, eyebrows from Great Granddad
Joe, or height from Great Aunt Maud, but it gets much more specific than that
when it comes to the doing of everyday things. Let’s go back to the days of the
caveman men, where they allegedly dragged their mate around by the hair. Remember that Britvic ad- the original of the
species? Basically, men are the hunters,
the providers. Back then, light was
natural and came from the sky; the only manmade light was due to a roaring
great caveman fire and not a little switch on the wall. Mr. Cave Man left at 9am carrying not a
briefcase and a set of car keys but a club for bashing his prey. According to Steve Biddulph in Raising Boys hunting was very much a
team activity, requiring ruthlessness, a certain amount of recklessness and a
lot of muscle work. “Once the chase was
on, there was no time for discussion. Someone
was in charge, and you did what you were told or else.” So in other words, if he loses his
concentration, he dies. Multi-tasking
had no safe place for men back in pre-historic times; the hunter could lose his
concentration and die. Back in the home
place (some things never change) the work of the woman was equally
important. Who can argue that raising a
family is one of the biggest and challenging jobs, and back then Mrs. Cave Woman
did not have the luxury of television to keep the bairns occupied whilst she
skinned a tiger for dinner. The women
folk had very different jobs to do; jobs that required dexterity which was handy
for berry picking. Women were sensitive
which is necessary for childcare. A bit
like that movie “How to make an American Quilt” women had the opportunity for
group discussions, similar to today’s stich and bitch sessions. So in a nutshell, Mrs. Cave Woman’s work
called for consistency, lots of caution and attention to detail. Think feeding kids at regular intervals,
making sure they are wearing suitable clothing and keeping little socks on
little feet. Mr. Cave Man’s job came
with a certain amount of risk and danger to their lives. They needed to be
ruthless and never take their eye off the ball or they could pay with their
life and the family would perish as a result.
Because of the way cave women worked, evolution saw to it that our
bodies became smaller. But we are better
able to continue and put up with things.
Men’s bodies were and still are superior when it comes to strength but
small things like flu hits them harder than women. Nice get out of jail clause there; don’t
blame the men when they complain about man flu, blame the ancestors. So back to today now that we’ve looked at
where we came from and how we think. When
a woman discovers she is pregnant, especially with her first baby, she
immediately starts nesting. The house
must be just so, the baby’s room has to be perfect and that nappy bucket which
is on offer in Lidl at the weekend, is suddenly the most vital piece of baby
equipment, why doesn’t he understand? And
him, the poor feker, what he’s really thinking is, “shit! How am I going to provide for this baby? I might be unemployed next week!” even when faced with The Big Stuff, our
priorities are just different. We’ve all
got our own individual idiosyncrasies, our little quirks that drive each other
mad. But I reckon it’s easy to put up
with half a dozen silly little things, like mucky boots trekked in over the
floor, rolled up socks in the wash, changing the mirror in the car when he
drives it (grrr!), not refilling the kettle, putting empty cartons back in the
fridge and using the last of the shampoo. But who’s counting? Years
ago, it wasn’t the done thing for the man to be seen helping around the
house. Through no fault of their own, probably
because they were never made do it, they didn’t know what a nappy looked like,
let alone put one on a child. But today
it is expected of them. And that is a
good thing. Most of our menfolk do it
without argument. So a lot of the time
they may not do it the way we would like them to, but mismatching socks and the
four year old wearing the two year olds clothes are not the end of the
world. Just comical. In the same way that we as mothers are never
going to change in our approach to raising our babies, the menfolk and their
laid back attitude are pretty much set in stone too. We have to accept them in pretty much the
same fashion we expect them to accept us.
