What frustrates me as an egalitarian man

We can believe the genders deserve equal opportunity, equal respect, equal love, and still see that men and women were created differently (hello?). We think differently, act differently, and are turned on by different things, as a general rule.

There is little wonder women are confused by men, and men are confused by women. Ask many married women and men, their partners frustrate them; at least occasionally… when they’re being honest.

I know there will be blissful marriages where spouses say, “Not us! We have a delightful relationship, where we understand each other all the time.” There has to be the odd exception, but I’m also sure (based off experience) that there are so many couples out there that say they’ve got the perfect relationship and really, they don’t. They don’t have the perfect relationship, but some couples are insecure enough to need to project the image of marital bliss. The best marriages are anything but.

Indeed, experience dictates that it’s the couples that have conflict that are in the happiest of marriages, because their marriages are not defined by their conflicts, but by how they reconcile them.

What frustrates me about being an egalitarian man, who wants women to be accorded the same respect in the world as men, is that there are women and men that want to polarise it all and make us equals where there are definitely differences; and to God be the glory in that!

I have counselled far more men that have physical touch as their primary love language than women. I have counselled far more women that have quality time as their prime love language than men. Men far more commonly need sex and are most commonly frustrated in this area. Women are frustrated by a lack of attention from their men; a lack of time that their men give to being with them.

Are we not allowed to be different and yet be granted the same opportunities; rewards, pay, gifting, preaching, executive membership, housework, surnames, etc and the like?

If women require men to be constructed psychologically like women, to think and feel like women, we have a problem. Likewise, if men push women away and say they shall have no part to play in ‘men’s business’, we also have a problem.

Surely we can be granted equal opportunity—although we’re still so far away from this ideal!—and still appreciate our innate gender differences.

Think about it for a minute. It’s a fact that opposites attract. There is something in a woman that attracts a man, and likewise for the woman. It’s a force that cannot be stopped. It’s not our sameness that attracts us. It’s what the other has that we want. There is something in a woman that likes the physical strength of a man. There is something inherently beautiful to a man in a woman. Call these stereotypes if you wish, I just find that there are irrefutable evidences for this.

Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash