The beauty of the difference

The beauty of the difference

Why men and women are different and the same

Martine F. Delfos, PhD

Original title

De schoonheid van het verschil. Waarom mannen en vrouwen verschillend én hetzelfde zijn

First Dutch edition: May 2004 (ISBN 978 90 265 2227 7)

Sixth Dutch edition: September 2018 (ISBN 978 90 8850 844 8)

First English edition 2018

The beauty of the difference

Why men and women are different and the same

Martine F. Delfos

www.mdelfos.nl

ISBN 978 90 8850 855 4

e-ISBN 978 90 8850 856 1

NUR 773

© 2018 M.F. Delfos; SWP Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of SWP Publishers, Amsterdam the Netherlands. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to prosecution and civil claims for damages.

For Simon

Far from hurting me, you complete me when you differ from me.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Si tu diffères de moi, mon frère, loin de me léser, tu m’enrichis. In: Lettre à un otage (1943).

Table of contents

(Comprehensive)

Preface

1Introduction: open Sesame!

The urge to understand

Interpreting behavior

Taking differences into account

A society geared to equality instead of equivalence

The pressure for equal achievement

Understanding one another

Emancipation

The imprisoned liberated woman

How this book is structured

The aim of the book

Open sesame!

Focal points

2The origins of differences between the sexes

The significance of two sexes

The age of the partner

Security about the propagation of genes

In search of the best genes

Procreation strategies of men

Infanticide

The wish to have children

Procreation versus the sense of security

Human selection

From procreation to orgasm

Man or woman, XY or XX

Correction and strengthening

Nature and behavior

Focal points

3Where behavior comes from, and the form it takes

Interchangeability of roles

Genes and how they will be expressed

Behavior genotype and behavior phenotype

Differences in nature and behavior

Behavior linked to the source

Overlap in behavior of men and women

Preferential behavior

The gender as a fundamental condition

Focal points

4Differences between men and women

I – The foundation: care versus competition

Sex as a foundation from day one

Guys do not iron

Territorial drive

Muscle strength

The vulnerable man

The refreshment syndrome

‘Fight or flight’ versus ‘nice or victim’

Fundamental differences

Spatial and relational intuition

Focal points

II – The testosterone hypothesis: on diseases and the self

The development of the fetus in the womb

The biological self

Immune reactions

Illness perception and life expectancy

Biological self > psychological self > neural self

The Socioschema

Me-otherdifferentiation

Focal points

III – The consequences: from manipulation to egocentrism

Continuity and relations

To place oneself in another person’s place, empathy

Sensitivity to language

The self as the axis of consciousness

Changing perspectives

The empathy spectrum

The memory

Intelligence: from mathematics to language

Moral development

Resistance to change and concentration

Self-reflection

Focal points

5The anxiety model

Anxiety as a basic drive

The detection of danger

The reaction to danger

The power of action of testosterone

Poor balance

Testosterone and aggression

The ‘missing link’

A lack of testosterone and depression

Female aggression

Anxiety model: agression versus depression

Differences between boys and girls

Fight-or-flight versus nice-or-victim

The HPA-axis and chronic stress

Focal points

6Psychosomatic model

Differences in diseases between men and women

Body and soul are inseparable

The neccessity of a balance

The psychosomatics model

Talking versus moving

Focal points

7Raising children in equivalence

Modern education

Maelstrom of diagnoses

Psychological fullfillment of needs

New form of abuse

Healthy limits and healthy rewards

The right to differ

Playing ‘father-and-mother’ and ‘militairy’

A mother for the boy, a father for the girl

Gender differences and the virtual environment 307

Raising children, acknowledging the differences

Educating from strength

Specific aspects for the pedagogical help

Sex-specific versus sexist

Focal points

8Epilogue

The beauty of the difference

Rigidity and manipulation

Appendix

I:Glossary of new concepts and theories developed by Martine Delfos used in this book.

II:Solution of the problem presented in Chapter 7.

III: Action or anxiety. Interview with Martine Delfos on the beautiful sex differences in a Dutch newspaper (NRC).

References

List of outlines and schemas

List of illustrations

Author index

Subject index

About the author

Preface

Some time has passed since the plan was conceived to write The beauty of the difference, which I did in Dutch first. The plan emerged after the publication of my book about autism in 2001, when Jos Geurtsen told me that reading the book was like reading two books in one: the first book: What is the blueprint of humans? and the second: How does that work out for autism? He suggested writing the chapter on the differences and similarities between men and women as a separate book. In the framework of my project of writing about human sexuality, it seemed a sensible plan to first describe general differences and similarities between men and women in one book, and sexuality in a second one.

But for me writing a book is not to repeat a chapter, but reconsider the subject all over again. And I did. It has been useful that it took some time, because in the meantime the book matured. I had a tour of four weeks of lectures and courses about communication with children and child psychology in 2003 in some countries in South America and that has contributed to a deepening of the experience of the universality of the facts about men and women. The Dutch book was published in 2004 with a fifth edition and now it is time to publish an English edition.

This book is written in the scientific ‘we’ even if I have written it by myself, with some co-workers searching for literature as and when required. Everyone builds further on the knowledge and ways of thinking that were there before. The ‘we’ is a tribute to those who preceded me, and have influenced me, often even without me personally being aware of that. Isaac Newton phrases it so beautifully: “If I could see further it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.” This is one of the reasons that many scholars are cited, because all have a piece of the puzzle and it is only by building from the many pieces that the encompassing image can unfold itself. So, if I cite Jung, it is not because I am a Jung adept, which I am not, but because he possesses a piece of the puzzle.

When I started writing, seeing the first sentence appear made clear to me that the book had begun: From the perspective of a lion, we all look exactly alike. For us the differences seem immense and full of meaning. Writing the epilogue I suddenly wanted to write the last sentence, I touched the ‘Enter’ button several times to advance on the page and then with astonishment I read what I had typed; definitely the last sentence of the book: We do not need to understand everything, if only we understand that we do not understand, then we treat the other in a natural way with respect. Within the boundaries of those two sentences it was a feast to deploy the differences and similarities between men and women as an exploration of science and human experience.

I hope my book can help people understand each other better. Perhaps it is asking too much, but every step that can contribute in the long road where we are capable of inventing computers, but hardly know how we can live together as husband and wife or husbands and wives, is useful I think to make any contribution, however small it is.

My book also proved an attempt to give a new impetus to true emancipation by connecting more with how men and women really are. It is more a scientific and logical analysis and not a fight of the sexes.

Each theory, model and scientific book requires an integration of existing research, and placing new insights in a broader context. Each research contributes as a piece of the truth in itself, sometimes a picture gets blurred when it is surrounded by bad interpretations or prejudices and mistakes, but in its core each piece of research is always a contribution. The truth is plural, and should not have to be discovered only by debate but by combining all core pieces together in order to enable a more comprehensive and encompassing knowledge and a bigger step toward the truth than before.

I thank my husband Simon for his patience; I have dedicated this book to him with all my love.

Quite some time after the Dutch edition, this English edition sees the light, which of course I am very happy about. For this I am deeply grateful to my publisher, Paul Roosenstein, whom I have learned to consider a real friend.

And… as my dear (French) grandmother always said citing the great storyteller LaFontaine: Tout vient à point à qui sait attendre [All is in time for the one who knows how to wait].

Martine F. Delfos, Utrecht, 2018

1Introduction: open Sesame!

From the perspective of a lion, we humans all look exactly alike. For us, the differences are immense and full of meaning. Standing on a balcony overlooking a marketplace, we can recognize someone we know in the middle of an activity just by how he or she moves. We recognize someone’s voice, scent or facial expression and are seldom mistaken if it is someone we have seen regularly. Years later, we are able to recognize someone we know superficially, without necessarily being able to place how we knew him or her. Although we might notice the smallest of details, the most important difference and the one that usually first stands out is the one between men and women.

People are different. The fact that people differ has many consequences, one of which is that it makes it harder to understand each other. This also means it is not easy to predict someone else’s behavior. We become insecure and as a result we would often like to do away with the differences. That we are different and often find it hard to understand each other makes it often difficult to show consideration for each other.

With regard to human differences, those between men and women are the most prominent, which does not mean that as a group, all men – or all women – are the same. On the contrary, human individuality is impressive.

The research on men and women has brought us even closer than before to the insight that the differences exist together with the similarities. To take the point of view that men and women are totally different or the view that they are totally similar is a kind of outrage to the ingenious diversity that mankind displays. We will see that in reality both are true; the similarities as well as the differences. We have to broaden our perspective and no longer feel forced to adopt only one perspective. Research, certainly when it seems contradictory, helps us to take a broader view. The research of Joel and colleagues (Joel et al., 2015) for instance claims that, setting apart the sexual-genital differences and the size of the different elements of the brain, the brain of men does not show a totally male brain morphology (appearance of elements of the brain) nor does the brain of women show a totally female morphology. The review research showed that of the 1400 human brains studied, only 4% of the male and female brains were completely male or completely female. Ergo: men and women are the same, considered from the perspective of the morphology in the brain. Ingalhalikar and colleagues (Ingalhalikar et al., 2014) show that from the perspective of the organization of the brain, white matter, men and women are totally different, and follow the ‘prejudices’ we have. Also in gray matter the differences between men and women reveal themselves (Gur, 1999; Núñez, 2017) Ergo: men and women are different from the perspective of the organization of the brain. Differences are also clear on the level of the immune system, making women more ‘immunocompetent’ (Nunn et al., 2008). Quite interesting in this context is the research on autism, which is considered an atypical development (Delfos, 2017a) in which there is an extreme male brain development by several theoreticians and researchers (Asperger, 1944; Delfos, 2001/2018; 2017a; Baron-Cohen, 2003). In this context the research of Beacher and colleagues (Beacher et al., 2012) is of interest, because they discovered that the sex differences between men and women with autism are less than in men and women without autism.

There is enough research to demonstrate the differences, and there is enough research to demonstrate the similarities. It is how we interpret this, which is the question. Many scholars preceded us, and this means that there are many pieces of the puzzle which can lead us to a deeper insight. To adhere to only one element, one scholar or one research result and disregard wisdom that already preceded us, will not improve our insight. There is a vast body of knowledge that has already been built. We only have to dissect the prejudices…

Let us turn to Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant mind, the uomo universale to learn what he says about knowledge and science.

Knowledge which is the issue of experience is termed mechanical; that which is born and ends in the mind is termed scientific; that which issues from science and ends in manual work is termed semi-mechanical. But I consider vain and full of error that science which is not the offspring of experience, mother of all certitude, and which does not result in established experience, that is to say, whose origin, middle and end do not pass through any of the five senses. And if we doubt of everything we perceive by the senses, should we not doubt much more of what is contrary to the senses, such as the existence of God and of the soul, and similar matters constantly under dispute and contention?

And it is truly the case that where reason is lacking it is supplemented by noise, which never happens in matters of certainty. On account of this we will say that where there is noise there is no true science, because truth has one end only, which, when it is made known, eternally silences controversy, and should controversy come to life again, it is lying and confused knowledge which is reborn, and not certainty. But true science is that which has penetrated into the senses through experience and silenced the tongue of the disputers, and which does not feed those who investigate with dreams, but proceeds from the basis of primary truths and established principles successively and by true sequence to the end;… Collected works of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci; 9 True science based on the Testimony of the Senses, P.10-14, Pergamon Media.

Leonardo da Vinci was a true scientist who pursued the truth by repeating procedures on dissecting human bodies, even in times where we could not preserve dead bodies as we can now, so, under abdominal circumstances he tried to find the truth.

When we try to get hold of the insight in men and women, we should not investigate dreams, but take all the evidence from science and from experience to build from the basis of primary truths and established principles successively and by true sequence to the end. This is quite a challenge, but we will try in this book to proceed as seriously and honestly as we can.

We have the tendency to base our acceptance of research results on whether they can be applied to ourselves, and we should, but not only on that, because the differences among both men and women as groups and as individuals are enormous. If we base our comparisons only one aspect, we can always think of a man with a ‘feminine’ characteristic, or a woman with a ‘masculine’ one. But we should not focus on one single aspect; it should be about the pattern of characteristics as a whole.

We can try cancelling the differences in spatial ability between men and women by naming women we know with mathematical abilities, and then explain away the statistical overabundance of men in this area by a lack of women’s emancipation. However, when we see a number of interrelated characteristics brought together in a single person, we can usually see that the ‘mathematical’ woman also has strong tendency to develop guilt feelings and tends to take care of others. In other words, the characteristics taken as a whole give a more feminine picture. The same is true for men: a man can be very sensitive and because of this can sense what is going on inside another, but express his sexuality in a clearly masculine way. Within a person as a whole, a ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ image usually emerges.

Moreover, these characteristics can change throughout life and, often starting in midlife, can shift towards the opposite sex. Carl Jung (1978) spoke of anima (the feminine part of the man) and animus (the masculine part of the woman) in humans, and said that starting with the midlife crisis, the part of the person that represents the opposite sex becomes significant. We also see this in the human hormonal makeup: with age, the ‘male‘ hormone testosterone decreases in men and increases in women (Hill, 1997; Dabbs, 1990; Dabbs & Hargrove, 1997). Kelsey and colleagues (Kelsey et al., 2014) assert that it is more that the variance of testosterone level is broader after 40 years.

The body, male or female, is a whole, functions as a whole, is born as a whole, gets older as a whole and dies as a whole. Within himself the person is always a whole, never only one characteristic or a collection of characteristics, and all parts are interact together all the time in order to form that whole, just like one gigantic orchestra. We cannot really interpret one characteristic if we do not see its role in interaction with the rest.

It is not only the differences between men and women that are obvious: the similarities between them are also impressive and meaningful. We will see that there are explanations (including evolutionary ones) for the differences as well as for the similarities.

The urge to understand

We are always trying to understand what the small differences between people are. As humans, we need to do this in order to know where we stand. Other people’s behavior provides us with information about ourselves in relation to others. When we greet someone, we pay attention to what the other person expects from us so that we do not make embarrassing mistakes. There are rules for making contact that make daily human contact easier, but these cannot – and can never – organize the entire range of human behavior. Just cross the border of a country and we are immediately out of our depth. In The Netherlands, it is three alternating kisses on the cheek to greet someone you know well, in France two, in Argentina one and in Paraguay two again. In Europe this is often a sign of intimacy, but in South America it is used much more generally as a greeting. And which cheek do you start with again? Right-handed people are said to have the tendency to start on the right cheek and left-handed people on the left cheek. One, two or three kisses – it seems like a minor difference, but it can cause a lot of social anxiety and irritation. People often run aground on these kinds of subtle details, even during initial contacts.

When a person has serious problems assessing social interaction – for example, in the case of autism – taking part in social interactions can be compared with walking on an emotional minefield. It is precisely when assessing subtle social details that people with autism quite unexpectedly can exhibit very unusual behavior. The following example of Martin (in his forties, autism) shows the problem he has with the Dutch custom of kissing as a way of greeting.

Martin learned you kiss people you know well three times, alternating on each cheek. He carries this out as if it were a very precise task. He gave a clearly aimed kiss on the cheek and repeated this two more times, very precisely, on alternating cheeks. Because it felt like a very precisely performed task it was unpleasant, no matter how well intended. It was explaIined to Martin that the idea of the greeting was not so much to distribute kisses as to make contact and share the feeling that it was nice to see each other again. No one had ever explained this to him and he was very surprised to find there was a completely different meaning behind the ritual of greeting than what he had thought. He had, as it were, taken the non-verbal activity too literally. Because he was too much of a perfectionist to do this superficially, for him it made more sense not to kiss, but instead to look at the other and in this way show it was nice to see each other.

So, a simple greeting – set as it is in all kind of customs and rituals and which takes place according to the rules of etiquette – can already cause a great deal of confusion. One can understand then, how complicated contact can be if the subject is more complex and there are no social rules for behavior or if these rules are implicit. Contact between people can be the source of a great deal of miscommunication. It can lead to extreme anxiety and panic attacks and can even lead to a social phobia where people start to avoid social contact.

Even though we might not always think so, people are looking for security and safety, and have many strategies for achieving this. One of these is to try to understand the other and based on this, be able to predict his or her behavior. Although we might find the differences between people pleasant, fascinating or interesting, they can also arouse insecurity and even cause anxiety.

Especially when we do not understand behavior, it can summon up feelings of insecurity. In its most basic form, this leads to a feeling of anxiety. This can take the shape of a direct expression of anxiety, but also of aggressive or tough behavior. When we do not understand other people’s behavior, we often explain it – incorrectly – according to our own standards and values. What happens next is that we judge the behavior according to what it would mean if we ourselves were to exhibit such behavior. However, the same behavior can mean many things and have many backgrounds and only within its own context can the behavior be understood. Certain behavior by one person often means something completely different when exhibited by someone else.

The day after being involved in a serious traffic accident, a man bumps into someone in a shopping center. Although this causes the other person to drop her shopping bag, the man walks on without a word. He offers no apologies, nor does he bend down to help her. Because he is still overwhelmed by the traffic accident, he doesn’t notice a thing. The outraged ‘victim’ doesn’t know the man, doesn’t know the background to his behavior, interprets the behavior from within her own frame of reference and sees the man’s behavior as intentional and therefore as rude.

The same behavior can arise from different sources and this has consequences for what the behavior means and how to deal with it. We will use the example of ignoring. In fact, this is what the ‘victim’ in the previous example thought: namely, that the man was actively ignoring her. Illustration 1 gives a number of sources for the same ‘ignoring’ behavior (active and passive ignoring) and this list is not even an exhaustive one.

Illustration 1: Sources of ignoring (Delfos)

We tend to interpret in a negative way behavior we do not understand. We can also experience it as refreshing or interesting, but in order to do this we need to feel safe with the other person, sure of ourselves or know there is a large distance between ourselves and the other, both literally and figuratively. When faced with someone’s incomprehensible behavior, often our first gut reaction is to feel ‘threatened’ or we are at least on one’s guard. The threat can be physical in nature, for example trying to hit someone, and can also include feeling hurt or insecure about a situation.

The man in the example above is preoccupied because of the accident he experienced before. Normally a polite man, his behavior can easily cause people to judge him as rude, rough or even aggressive. This is how serious breakdowns in communication can come into being. When we do not understand behavior, we easily tend to be hostile. People are even ready to fight if necessary, both literally and figuratively, even against someone who has nothing to do with the matter. History has taught us that we are prepared to go to war in a faraway country to try and create more safety at home. We are ready to destroy someone with words to keep our self-image intact. We might tell lies in the hope of creating a picture of reality that we prefer or better serves our purposes. And we like to be the hero or heroine of our story as well.

Interpreting behavior

People usually want to understand each other. Maslow (1970) put ‘the need to know and to understand’ at the fifth place in his need hierarchy (this hierarchy will be discussed further on (see Illustration 55, p. 288) Men and women often think they understand each other better than they actually do. In order to understand someone else, we look for the similarities and differences with ourselves. The similarities seem to tell us something about what we can expect from the other, and can give us a feeling of familiarity, of connection and of security. But this is not always accurate. Our initial assessment of someone can be inaccurate, or in the end leaves out the most important characteristics. We see this, for example, with preconceptions.

The idea of ‘danger’ is an assessment often based on preconceptions. The chance of someone feeling threatened when he sees two girls walking down a remote street late in the evening is significantly less than if it were two boys. It also depends on whether the person walking here and making the assessment of danger is a man or a woman, a child, a younger person or a middle-aged person; it also depends on his or her mood, and especially on his or her experiences of violence.

Preconceptions can result in an incorrect assessment that is to the disadvantage of another. Preconceptions can also work to their advantage, as when someone is in love. When people who are in love talk with each other they are often able to finish each other’s sentences – as a result, they feel they understand each other completely and think the same way about everything. They feel there are almost exclusively similarities. These same people however, experience major differences if they then live together for a longer period of time: then it is precisely the differences they notice, rather than the similarities. This is possible, because both are always present in everyone.

Similarities can provide a feeling of safety because the behavior’s meaning seems clear. Moreover, because of the similarities we think we can also predict the person’s other behavior. We often think that if there is one similarity, there are perhaps many more similarities. The process of feeling safe based on ‘similarity-and-difference’ can also be observed with xenophobia, the fear of strangers or foreigners. We tend to be afraid of people we do not know, certainly when they look different to that which we are used to, or different from ourselves. The unknown means we no longer know what to expect, that we cannot actually predict the behavior of the stranger or foreigner and that we do not really know how we should interpret that behavior and this can promote discrimination. Discrimination is judging people and attributing negative characteristics to the other person and treating them as if they are bound to behave in a particular way. Discrimination arises when people with certain characteristics are lumped together, for example on the basis of a particular skin color. They are judged based on experiences with individuals with these characteristics. Often, these have not been experienced firsthand, but through ‘hearsay.’ Discrimination is the judgment of people by assigning negative group characteristics to someone and treating that person as if he or she will act a certain way. With discrimination we do not take the individual into account. It is much easier for us to discriminate against an unknown person than against our own neighbor. When we get to know him, the latter exhibits much behavior that is the same as our own. The similarities between our neighbor’s behavior and our own make us feel safer because we think we understand his behavior and can predict what he will do. In addition, the discovery of similarities in behavior between him and ourselves means we judge him to be similar to us, which reinforces our feeling of safety. A similarity with our own behavior is more likely to result in a positive assessment rather than a negative one: we even expect the other person will like us and that we will like him or her.

Still, every behavior is just a link in a complex system of behaviors that can produce different behavior results. Together, the parts form an endless number of behaviors, just like the plates in a kaleidoscope (Illustration 2), where a simple twist produces a huge number of different patterns using the same pieces of colored glass.

Illustration 2: Three images produced by rotating the same kaleidoscope

Even though time and again reality teaches us the contrary, we continue to think simplistically. In general, we unconsciously assume that a similarity in one aspect of another person’s behavior means we are also alike in other respects and that this one element will lead to the same behaviors as it would with us. For relationships among people from different cultures, this can certainly be a significant hazard.

Saïd is very considerate. He is very fond of Sarah and she of him. They enjoy the same kind of western music. They never talk about the fact that Saïd also likes Arabic music, because it does not come up. Saïd was raised in a very western fashion and he and Sarah have no idea how different they are. They do not really talk about their differences, but are thrilled they have so much in common. The fact that because of his background Saïd is convinced the man is the head of the family will only cause serious problems when they get married. Sarah is deeply shocked that her husband finds it such a matter of course that he should take all important decisions.

Although a difference can be surprisingly positive, it can also result in a feeling of uncertainty or insecurity. The difference means we find it harder to predict how someone else will act in a certain situation. People look for security with other people and at the same time other people often form a source of a lack of security for each other. The biggest threat for humans is other humans. A simple example of this is speaking in public. No matter how sure we are of our story, it makes a big difference whether we tell this in the privacy of our homes or in front of a group of strangers.

That the security of the private circle is lacking when there is a large audience also applies to the audience itself. The chairs near to the person giving the lecture are often left empty. This remains unabated even when people know that the person giving the lecture will not exhibit aggressive or hurtful behavior. It is a recurring phenomenon, no matter what the lecture is about or how safe the subject is. In a situation with many strangers, people usually do not want to be out in front, either literally or figuratively. Children’s lack of inhibition means they suffer less from fear and will be more likely to sit in the front row.

People who do not know each other yet must first feel out what they can expect from each other, even when the official roles are clear, as with a lecture.

Taking differences into account

People are fundamentally egocentric. This means that in principle, he or she sees the world from his or her own perspective, and only with difficulty can he or she imagine how the world is experienced by others.

The egocentric perspective is visible when we are sitting in a stationary train and the one next to it pulls out, our first impression is that we think our own train is moving, not the other one.

This egocentric perspective is even stronger among young children than it is among adults. It takes years for them to be able to imagine what goes on inside someone else and to be able to imagine a world from another person’s point of view, apart from him- or herself.

When small children cannot imagine the world existed before they were born, we can see their lack of ability to differentiate between the ‘me’ and the ‘other.’ To them, the idea that their mother was a child before they existed seems implausible and even objectionable. Their egocentricity stands in the way of thinking about an ‘other’ who is separate from him or her. As he or she grows older, the child will be increasingly able to imagine a world separate from him- or herself.

When communicating with children, their egocentric perspective can result in surprising situations.

Four-year-old Vincent is staying with his grandmother, who still lives in the house where his mother grew up. They are sitting at the table and Grandma is talking about his mother. “Mary Ann also sat at this table when she was your age.” Vincent’s mouth falls open. “Was Mommy’s name Vincent when she was little?” he asks, utterly amazed.

There is a big difference between egoism and egocentrism. The previous example deals with egocentricity. The child lacks the awareness of what is going on inside someone else, and that the other person has a life separate from his own. He can only express his mother’s life in terms of his own existence and also uses his own name for this. Egoism means a person is aware of what something means to another and that this person chooses for himself, while realizing that by doing so he is harming the other. For an egoistic attitude it is necessary to be able to put yourself in another’s place. Without necessarily being egoistical, however, it is virtually impossible for people to let go of egocentric thinking. It is very difficult for us to imagine what goes on inside someone else’s mind, certainly when this deviates from what we ourselves know or experience. If the inner experience is not expressed in visible elements, such as with a physical handicap, we find it very difficult to remember there is something going on that plays a role in another person’s behavior. We find it easier to show consideration for someone who walks with a limp, at least if he or she is walking, than someone who has a headache, even though we may just have been told this. Because a headache cannot actually be seen, we forget it easily. In a manner of speaking, if you don’t get purple pimples from it, it easily goes unnoticed and is forgotten by others.

A society geared to equality instead of equivalence

More than ever, today’s society seems to be geared to equality. This can be seen on all fronts, even in the smallest details and in outward appearances. Also with clothing, the difference between children and adults is becoming blurred. After the dominance of men for centuries, the focus on women in the nineteenth century, the attention brought to adolescents in the second half of the twentieth century and the changing position of the child with the United Nations Convention of the Children’s Right in 1989, society underwent a profound rejuvenation. In the 1960s the influence of the adolescents came to the foreground.

The outward signs are also disappearing for things as significant as mourning, see Illustration 3. In the past it was customary to wear mourning clothes, for example wearing a black bangle when an important family member died. For everyone, this was a sign that that person was carrying an additional burden.

Nowadays, after the funeral there are no signs that clearly indicate mourning, and almost no rituals to commemorate the one who died, except for the funeral shortly after death.

Illustration 3: Left: Buckles for every day, right: buckles for mourning. “I am now in mourning for my mother. I am now in black… Mourning is much sadder. Especially for girls. They have these lovely clothes, they sometimes want to wear their nice dresses, and they have to dress in mourning…For an acquaintance it is eight weeks, not in black but in blue. An aunt or an uncle: 16 weeks. Myself, four years now…I find it all quite hard.”
Nowadays, few people wear mourning clothes following the death of a family member or acquaintance. In the past this was common practice and this custom continues even today in the areas where traditional clothing is still worn. All traditional costumes included clothing for ‘deep’ mourning and for ‘out of mourning.’ In some places, there were also a number of levels in between. Children and even babies also wore mourning clothes (Source www.openluchtmuseum.nl/Algemeen/engels-01.html, 2004).

The lack of elaborate rituals can lead to unresolved grief (Örücü, 1991). Nowadays, scarcely any attention is paid to the anniversary of the death. Nevertheless, on the other hand, it is also true there were a number of objections associated with these outward signs of mourning. They were experienced as an imposed code of conduct that stood in the way of getting on with life, as can be seen in the quote in Illustration 3. This resulted in their gradual disappearance. However, this change also resulted in the disappearance of important benefits.

For humans, probably the deepest mourning is that for the death of a child. The natural order of death is reversed when a child dies earlier than its parents.

The process of mourning is made up of different stages. It begins with denial of death, followed by the realization that the other is never coming back and it sinks in that the other is no longer there. In the end, the deceased person has to be given a place in the present life, and life has to be picked up with a view to the future. With the death of child, the first stage often lasts some seven years. The family is steeped in mourning for a very long time, and is often unaware of this (Delfos, 1999a).

Penny was always anxious and as an adolescent she was depressed. Deep inside she felt she had to make up for the loss of her brother, who had died before she was born. She did not live her own life, as it were, but the life she thought her parents expected from her dead brother.

Showing consideration for each other, respect for death and for the person who died is less a matter of course when there are no outward signs and rituals. Although this is a cultural shift with regard to the importance of death, it can also make the process of mourning much more difficult.

In this way, many external differences have faded away over time, equality more and more prevailing above equivalence.

The pressure for equal achievement

In general, showing consideration for each other is less self-evident now that the differences are less visible, and existing differences are often considered to be unimportant. To a certain extent this also applies to the differences between men and women. For decades the differences between men and women were virtually denied. This was the only possibility, because the emancipation of women was built upon the idea that men and women should be the same. The main thrust was equal intelligence (Top and Heesink, 1996). For a long time, emancipation was understood to be the development of women as identical to that of men. In order to achieve this goal, all the differences between men and women had to be glossed over.

To give emancipation of women a new élan in the twentieth century, for a while there was even an attempt to try and blur the outward differences between men and women. Clothing for both men and women became more similar, and in line with the women’s liberation movement of the time, women started to wear more men’s clothing. In the last century, during the 1960’s there was even something called ‘unisex’ fashion, where there was no appreciable difference between the clothing and hairstyles of men and women. Illustration 4 shows an example of this.

Illustration 4: Unisex clothing (from: Portnoy, 1986)

Of course, attempting to erase the outward differences did not work, first of all because these often cannot be denied and second, because they are essential for mutual attraction so partner relationships can be formed. In this book on sexual selection, Charles Darwin (1871/1981) made it absolutely clear that outward characteristics are of fundamental importance for attraction between people.

For years, pregnancy was also something to get through as unobtrusively as possible so as not to get in the way of women’s emancipation. In order to make her emancipation possible, a woman has had to give up her right to concentrate on herself and give the growing child inside her priority during pregnancy. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a pregnant woman can display her fertility by accentuating her belly with a colored scarf, originated from the need to support the belly and relieve the back muscles. However, the point of departure is still that she should continue to function ‘normally’ until shortly before the delivery. During the first few months, the woman is expected to work problem-free, even though these months often make many demands on her body. Pregnancy leave has been won in rich countries, but in many countries it is still a luxury or kept to a bare minimum.

In Quito Ecuador, a doctor whose wife was studying to be a general physician and was in the period of her internship, was told that when their child was born, she had two days maternity leave, and thereafter was obliged to go to work again.

In addition, protection of the unborn child is of great importance, certainly during the first few months. It is very important for the fetus that the pregnant woman should avoid stress. More and more studies clearly show that stress causes the mother to produce hormones that end up in the fetus’s blood. This results in an increased risk of behavior problems in these children (Buitelaar et al., 2003; De Weerth et al., 2003; Huizink et al., 2002; 2004; 2012; Delfos, 1997/2012). We are, however, no longer attuned to showing real consideration to pregnant women. Within the framework of women’s emancipation it was actually important to deny that pregnant women are vulnerable and that pregnancy is accompanied by discomfort. Women did not (and sometimes still do not) particularly appreciate it if people showed them consideration because they were pregnant. In the past it was also more of a necessity to take pregnancy and birth into account because of the risk of stillborn children and the high mortality rate of women during childbirth. One of the reasons for the huge increase in women’s average life expectancy over the twentieth century is getting the mortality of women during childbirth under control (Meslé and Vallin, 1989a; 1989b). Chapter 4.I will go into this further when talking about the life expectancy of men and women.

There are also places in the world where attention is paid to the necessity of caring for children: In several countries the parental leave (general) + maternity and paternity leave (around pregnancy) is very high, such as the Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovakia, Spain and Poland they have some three years of ‘pregnancy leave,’ and in Sweden some 18 months of pregnancy leave for husband and wife (see Illustration 5, p. 30). The paternity leave is not very long, but fathers taking leave is of key importance for female labor force participation, enabling families to reconcile work and family responsibilities and child development. The motivation for uptake of this leave, however, depends on the compensation. The uptake of parental leave by fathers in Europe is low (Van Belle, RAND Europe, 2015).

There are many examples like this where people are expected to function normally even though circumstances stand in the way of doing this. The pressure on people to function as normally as possible and aim at equal achievement is perhaps one of the factors that has resulted in an increase in stress among people in the Western Countries. We would have expected a decrease of stress because most people can amply provide for at least their basic life needs and in addition their chances of development are substantial. Nevertheless, the pressure to function on a stable high level has increased. Consideration for weaker members of society is relegated to the background, also because these weaker members are harder to identify as such. Sometimes it seems like the disappearance of visible differences has made showing consideration for each other unnecessary. Still, in order to be able to show consideration for others, we have to understand what is going on inside of them.

Illustration 5: Comparison of the maximum combined maternity and parental leave entitlement (light blue and turquoise) with paternity and parental leave duration (dark blue and blue) per EU member State in weeks. ‘Duration parental leave for fathers’ thus reflects the case where all the available shared parental leave is taken by the father, and ‘duration maternal leave’ reflects the case where all the available shared parental leave is taken by the mother. Greece Pr/Pu= private and public sector, respectively. Period 2012-2014. (Belle, RAND Europe, 2015)

Understanding one another

We find it very difficult to understand another person. It usually takes us our whole life to discover the most obvious truths about people and to embody them, even about ourselves. From our intensely human limitations, we view the other from within our own, strongly egocentric perspective. As a result, we measure up the behavior of others according to our own yardstick and use this to try and understand it. No matter how different the other’s behavior is, we tend to explain it in terms of our own. For example, when we are accustomed to expressing our interest by asking how the other person is doing, we tend to ascribe a lack of interest to the other if he or she does not ask us this question. This is very common in communication between men and women. A woman can accuse the man of a lack of interest if he does not ask her how she is doing, while the man expects her to bring this up herself if she wants to. A footnote is that he is less open to all the details but probably would prefer to hear only the main points, not the rest.

The self-evident assumptions from which people operate in their contacts with each other form significant hazards that can result in disturbances in communication and in time it could bring about problems in the relationship. The difference in linguistic performance can give rise to friction between partners of different sexes. In the area of putting our feelings into words, there is a great difference in linguistic performance between men and women and this is often experienced as painful. For women, putting thoughts and feelings into words (their own and those of others) is often in the foreground, and they generally focus on this activity. For men, putting thoughts and feelings into words (especially those of others) does not usually take top priority. This does not mean men are not able to do this – many men show they are indeed capable of putting feelings into words rather well – but it is not their preferential behavior.

Later we will explain what preferential behavior means and which behavior is more preferred. Certainly from the perspective of women, it often seems men would rather avoid this activity, even though for many men, ‘less able to do this’” would be a more correct formulation, or “take more time to find the words.” Tannen’s (1990) sociolinguistic study on differences in linguistic performance gives an excellent insight into these differences.

Tannen (1990) describes the differences in communication between men and women. Women often feel criticized and lectured to by men; they experience men’s behavior as ‘patronizing, as acting bossy” as pedantic’. On the other hand, men feel that women ‘complain’ and are ‘unclear’. Tannen goes so far as to call the differences between men and women ‘genderlect’ to indicate that both sexes have their own ‘dialect’ belonging to the world in which they live. According to her, there is a fundamental asymmetry in communication between men and women.

Differences between people are of great significance for daily contact. These differences come into being because of a wide range of factors: aptitude, heredity, maturity of the central nervous system (brains and the nervous system, CNS), life history, upbringing, socialization, the social-geographic situation, the cultural group a person belongs to, the century in which a person is born, education and the working situation. In this way all sorts of unique patterns emerge within humanity and every person grows into a unique individual. Even between identical twins- who have the same genetic material and have been given more or less the same hereditary aptitudes – there are differences, even in the way they developed within the uterus. One fetus, for instance could have a better position than the other in the womb, which becomes apparent from the child’s medical condition, including weight. Birth order also makes this clear, ‘strong’ children are born first.

The most fundamental difference between people is indeed the one between men and women. The most invasive difference as well, because men and women have an entirely different basic role in the continuation of humankind. Although both a man and a woman play their roles when conceiving a child, the largest role (gestation, giving birth and breastfeeding) is played by the woman. As an extension of this, responsibility for bringing up the child is usually the domain of the woman. For this reason, getting food and protecting the nest are traditionally assigned to the man. Even when these roles are no longer necessary and can be changed around, the biological make-up of humans continues to remember the original situation.

Emancipation

The difference between the sexes has always been the cause of fierce struggles. It has led to the oppression of women by men, and to women’s aggression – albeit indirect – towards men. For centuries, the central focus of attention was on men. They held this dominant position until the nineteenth century, when women started to receive more attention, and in the middle of the twentieth century the emancipation of adolescents began. Society started to undergo a fundamental rejuvenation that could be felt even in companies and universities, where the old guard was being let go. At the end of the twentieth century, the emancipation of the child began. By this time, the convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by all the world’s countries, was ten years old (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989). Age differences were becoming blurred and this became clear even with clothing and outward appearances. In the nineteenth century, there was customarily no difference in clothing for boys and girls until they were around three years of age, see Illustration 6. This also corresponds exactly with the way children develop: only at the age of three or four they become aware of whether they are a boy or a girl and become aware of sex differences.

Illustration 6: Are these children girls or boys? It could be either one, because until they were three or four years old, boys and girls wore the same clothes (Source: www.openluchtmuseum.nl/ Educatie, 2004)

Even though the differences between men and women and boys and girls are now more visible, the differences between men and women remain the subject of fierce debate.

In the nineteenth century women came to occupy a more central position, and in the Netherlands women were given the right to vote in 1919.

In the Netherlands, the right to vote is made up of ‘the passive right to vote’ (the right to stand for election) and ‘the active right to vote (the right to vote). The right to vote to directly elect representative governing bodies was developed from a right of the male elite – only those men who paid a certain amount of taxes had the right to vote (1848, expanded with other property qualifications in 1896) – into universal suffrage for men (1917) and universal suffrage for women (the right to stand for election in 1917, the right to vote in 1919).

Just as the general right to vote provided an important impetus for the emancipation of citizens and the ‘common man’, the right to vote for women gave them a definite place in society. Until women were given the right to vote, they were like second-class citizens, as were the non-elite men. The first large-scale emancipation movement was made up of ‘suffragettes,’ women who went out onto the street to demonstrate in favor of women’s right to vote. According to them, suffrage (the right to vote) for women was inevitable because men and women possessed the same intelligence, and because of this the same possibilities for political thought. In Illustration 7 the founders of the suffragette movement: mother and daughter Pankhurst.

Illustration 7: Founders of the suffragette movement in England. On the left, Emmeline Parkhurst, who in 1889 established the Women’s Franchise League. Her daughter Christabel Pankhurst, on the right, set up the more militant Women’s Social and Political Union in 1903 (Source: Popperfoto/Alamy)

For centuries men’s power played a dominant role. The fact that women can indeed wield power and do have leadership qualities becomes clear when we consider the many examples of the women ‘behind the scenes,’ who exercised power through their husbands. The expression ‘behind every strong man is a strong women’ is based on this.

A good example of a ‘strong woman behind a strong man’ is the wife of Pythagoras. He was a famous mathematician who left us Pythagoras’ theorem among other things, see Illustration 8.

Illustration 8: The theorem of Pythagoras: In a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two other sides. Put another way: a² + b² = c²

Pythagoras’ wife, Theano, was also a mathematician, and after his death continued to run the school with her daughters. However, because everything was published under his name, it is unclear exactly which contributions Theano left behind. Another example is that of Emmy Noether (1882-1935), a highly gifted mathematician who helped Albert Einstein (1879-1955) with the mathematics for his theory of relativity. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed into the university where her father was a professor of mathematics. Because of her brilliance, she was later admitted as an unpaid assistant. The credit she received much later came in the form of a small salary and a crater on the moon (!) which was named after her, see Illustration 9.

Illustration 9: Left: Emmy Noether (1882-1935); right: Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

(Source: US Library of Congress Science Photo Library)

As a result of the battle of the sexes, attention for the differences between men and women has been marked by a number of different ‘fashions.’ The oppression of women was only possible by making sure women were not given the opportunity to develop their talents. An educated woman cannot easily be silenced. For a long time, education was a matter for and by men.

Another method of oppression was to emphasize and exaggerate certain female characteristics and to present these as bad for society. On the one hand, women were given the right to vote and allowed to pursue an education, but on the other hand their hysteria was stressed.

Some of the difficulty we have in accepting the differences or similarities between men and women in the areas of behavior, intellect and feeling is caused by the fact that focusing or not focusing attention on these differences and similarities has a political and economic function. For example, accepting the similarity that women are intelligent means their right to education. Focusing attention on the differences between men and women also means a re-evaluation of standards and values. Accepting that women are more empathic than men in certain aspects is a negative moral judgment of men on this subject, and means a reassessment of the importance of aggression. Empathy is being considered of great importance for society, although aggression will always be considered as a more basic drive, in case of physical danger aggression will be the first motive for behavior before empathy.

The reader probably feels less resistance to the sentence on education than to the sentence about empathy and aggression. In most countries, whether women are intelligent beings with the same right to education as men is no longer up for debate. Less widespread is the idea that women possess characteristics that are positive from a social point of view and that could result in a positive shift in standards and values, and this meets more readily with resistance – certainly with the resistance of men with more competitive attitudes, as it easily arouses a competitive urge in men. Women will find less attractive the idea that although women are intelligent beings, their good school performances are caused for a large part by non-specific factors such as diligence and perseverance, as we will see in Chapter 4.

Still, it is unavoidable that when there are differences, one time it will be to the advantage of the one and the next time to the advantage of the other. The fact that we find it difficult to accept this does not change the truth.

But not everything gets turned upside down now we are to re-examine the differences and similarities between men and women. When there is a disaster, ‘women and children first’ is a standard that has stood the test of time because over the centuries there has been little criticism of accepting that in principle men are physically stronger. Although in the world of sport there was (and still is) talk of ‘catching up’ in spite of this, differences remain.

During the twentieth century, the emancipation of women has been high on the world agenda. This has resulted in a decline in the number of areas where women are utterly oppressed by men and also the scope of the oppression is decreasing. Since human existence began, the differences in societal integration have never been so small. Because of this it makes it seem as if the emancipation of women has been achieved. However, emancipation has primarily taken place as an attempt by women to be treated the same as men, and to be able to get the same jobs for equal pay. Attaining the same social position as men was an important motivating factor of the women’s emancipation movement of the twentieth century.

To make emancipation based on equality possible, it was important for women to be equal to men, that there should be no differences between men and women. It was – and often still is – ‘politically incorrect’ to talk about the differences between men and women. One will quickly be accused of ‘biological determinism’ and of ‘reinforcing traditional roles,’ the latter being almost considered a curse.

Where differences in the brain have been found, people have endeavored to erase their significance. An example of this is Van den Wijngaard (1993), who postulated that the psychological and biological dynamic interaction between the biology of brain and hormones, the environment and behavior makes the differences more or less disappear and makes them of minor importance she believes. This is quite a postulation when so many differences in mutual interaction would lead to total similarity, and differences being of minor importance. But it is a conclusion that fits the feminist fight.

With respect to brain differences it is not so much about structures than about organization. Emancipators will still have to invest time and energy before acceptance is gained for the idea that a role is a framework, within which a person may or may not feel comfortable, where a person can either conduct him- or herself according to this role and that it is a right to do this.

Talking about the differences between men and women is a sensitive subject. In today’s society, the original evolutionary roles and activities are no longer so prominently in the foreground. This does not mean that because of this we have also lost our evolutionary baggage. Neither does it mean that different tasks should no longer be carried out. The original evolutionary ‘equipment’ means that men and women are, to a greater or lesser degree, still suited to carry out certain tasks, especially in the area of procreation and child-rearing. However, as we will see, this evolutionary baggage particularly influences their inclination and interest for these tasks.

At the start of the twenty-first century, the true emancipation of women as women has scarcely begun, the same holds for men, here too emancipation lags behind. In contrast, over the course of a century considerable advances had been made in the emancipation of women as human beings. Women were given the right to vote, the right to an education and the right to equal treatment.

Despite all the rights that have been gained, there remains still a difference between the right and its implementation. The work done by women is still underpaid when compared to men and usually has less status For the economy as a whole, in 2015, women’s gross hourly earnings were on average 16.3% below those of men in the European Union and 16,8 in the euro-area. Across Member States, the gender gap varied by 21 percentage points, ranging from 5,5% in Italy and Luxembourg to 26,9 in Estonia. (Antelo, 2016) Bailey and colleagues (Bailey et al., 2016) speak about a remarkable but slow change in the USA: women making up half of the employees; earning 80% of men’s wages; the pay gap at the top is large. It is difficult to obtain research findings from China, but the comparative study of Liu in 1992 showed that there is a wish for work participation of women in the three cities Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Of the three cities Hong Kong was the least emancipated. The traditional role of women giving priority to their families was strongest in Hong Kong. 45% of women in Hong Kong agreed that women should avoid being more successful in work than their husbands, while only 13.4% in Beijing agreed (Lui, 1992). Women are significantly less represented in positions of power in The Netherlands (Leyenaar, 2004) and also in the USA for instance (Bailey et al., 2016). In the Netherlands, which is seemingly quite an emancipated country, at the start of the twenty-first century the percentage of female full professors, grade A posts, is still one of the lowest in the world, at 16,2% in 2013 (Antelo, 2016). However, the female students are beginning to outnumber the male students in the universities. Women comprised between 40% and 60% of PhD graduates in all European countries in 2012. There are sex differences in the sense that women are less often a graduate in engineering, manufacturing and construction in 2012. There is a faster growth of number of women than of men in ISCED, 6th level (High education) (Antelo, 2016); in the USA more women than men enroll in and complete college (Bailey et al., 2016).

The way in which women’s emancipation took place in the last century obstructed the actual emancipation of men. It also has resulted in an increased workload for women and means that in principle they have been given a new task while for the most part continuing to take responsibility for the old, pre-emancipation tasks (Brinkgreve, 1992). For the benefit of the emancipation of women, the fundamental differences between men and women were glossed over and denied for years.

We find it difficult to link ‘different’ and ‘equivalent’ together; we tend to consider ‘different’ as ‘unequal’, and ‘unequal’ as ‘inequivalent.’ The search for the same, equal treatment rather than equivalent treatment has meant that, for a long time now, the differences between men and women have stood in the way of true emancipation. Equal treatment means just as many women as men in a given profession with equal pay. Equivalent treatment means, for both men and women, the same opportunities for achieving their desired professions and accepting possible differences in professions, and that these will be accompanied by equal pay and appreciation.

The differences between men and women are persistent. Once again, with a new medium such as the computer, men and women have shown they are different with regard to interest, agility and talent for the various sectors. For example, men have proven to be more interested in how the computer works (hardware), while women are more focused on using the computer (software) (Crutzen, 2000).

For a long time it seemed as if showing consideration for pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and child-rearing would stand in the way of women’s emancipation. People acted as if it were not necessary to take into account menstruation and problems related to menstruation such as migraine. Some facts: 60% of women suffer from more severe migraines around the time of menstruation; 10% to 14% of women only have migraines around menstruation; migraines decrease after hysterectomy (the removal of the uterus); migraines decrease during pregnancy (Makis, 2003). Migraine is quite a frequent disease: 1 billion in the world, 1 in 5 women, 1 in 16 men, 1 in 11 children; women suffering much more frequently from migraine than men. (American Council for Headache Education, 2017).

The idea that typically female tasks and conditions would stand in the way of emancipation resulted in most of the differences with men being glossed over, silenced and suppressed. A secret emancipation developed, often against the interests of the women. Women tried to keep their undervalued talents away from the foreground, sweep their female ailments under the rug and as much as possible and disguise their affinity with caring for children.

The differences between men and women were long explained in terms of socialization: that is the way in which men and women are raised and are taught which roles they are expected to play in society, especially the male and female roles. Socialization is of course an important factor, but socialization does not cause the differences. Important differences are passed down as hereditary aptitude and these go further than just the visible differences. Maybe it is more sensible to consider that perhaps socialization tries to connect with the basic structures. Although socialization might unfairly accentuate the differences between men and women and cause talents to be overlooked, the differences nonetheless bear witness to fundamental conditions of men and women. This means that women are not given opportunities to develop their talents, and men and women barely get the chance to develop their domestic care tasks.

The emancipation of men and women has taught us that although many differences are reinforced by socialization, we are becoming increasingly convinced, in part as a result of scientific research that basic differences do exist. However, together with the structural greater physical strength of men, the value judgments attached to the differences between men and women have meant – and still mean – that in many different areas, women are subordinate to men.

Women are the “hard workers” of the world. Galjaard (1994) cited the concise statement by UNICEF in this regard:

As long as food for and education of girls comes second to boys, as long as women eat the least and work the hardest, as long as the demand for birth control is only filled by the abortionist, as long as most babies are born without assistance – this is how long it will take that bearing children will result in the death of one young woman every minute

With regard to sexuality, it has been virtually impossible for women to really bring this to the fore because the male image dominates so strongly.

The imprisoned liberated woman

The oppression of female characteristics has given an impetus to the emancipation of men and women, in particular to the emancipation of women as men’s equals. It is logical that the next stage of this emancipation movement would mean that specific characteristics of men and women will once again be done justice. We have already explained that the emancipation of women was brought about in part because women tried to disguise their own specific characteristics: on the one hand, asserting themselves as women, but on the other wanting to show that being a woman is completely the same as being a man.

In 1993 a conference was held on Postpartum Mood Disturbances (Marcé conference). The most important of these mood disturbances is postnatal depression. It was amazing to hear the researchers there stating that postnatal depression had nothing to do with hormones: the reason had to do with changes in living situation and the loss of work. No one seemed to be asking why men do not suffer from postnatal depression the way women do. And not a word was said about the blues most women suffer from a few days after delivery as a result of a drop in the production of certain hormones. During a review of the conference, people spoke in terms of a necessary ‘coup’ against researchers who viewed hormones as the only cause for postnatal depression.

It was also possible to dismiss the differences between men and women because the discovery of the birth control pill by Gregory Pincusin 1960 meant that the menstrual cycle could be suppressed. When making love, women no longer had to be afraid of getting pregnant. It was completely incorrect to explain women’s hesitancy to have sex as primarily the fear of pregnancy. The pill represented the emancipation of women – fifty years later people start to have their doubts. It can be questioned whether the pill brought only benefits to women – or whether it also accommodates men’s wishes and has become a paradoxical chastity belt. Although women can make love without fear of getting pregnant, the pill suppresses her natural desire, which arises around the time of ovulation. The possibility of preventing pregnancy with the pill has prevented many unwanted pregnancies. However, the incorrect inference that the pill would raise women to the same sexual level as men has done a great deal of harm to women, to men, to the sexual development of men and women and to the formation of relationships.

In the twentieth century, the sexual revolution of the 1960s has not yet resulted in the true sexual emancipation of women. Women’s lust is expected to measure up to that of men. This is perhaps women’s greatest prison in what is known as the emancipated part of the world.

On the threshold of the twenty-first century there was once again room for acknowledging the differences between men and women. Within this framework, it is important to reflect on these differences once again.

Sexuality is a fundamental difference between men and women and in the course of time people looked for solutions for the problem. As a result of sexual revolutions big shifts have been brought about with their blessings and curses. The first sexual revolution emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century, the second in the middle of the twentieth century and the third announces itself at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Delfos, 2008/2010). In Outline 1 the three sexual revolutions are brought together with their character, the group that brought about the revolution and the new necessary element to make the revolution possible. With each revolution the blessing and the curse are explained. In the twenty-first century it is not so clear what the blessing would be and therefore a question mark is entered in the outline.

Outline 1: Three sexual revolutions (Delfos, 2008/2010)

The first sexual revolution came along at the middle of the 19th century (Shorter, 1977). People changed from arranged marriages, aimed to achieve social security, to marriages founded on love. This started with the middle and higher social classes because it needed financial security. The blessing is that true connections become possible; the marriages are based on contact, connection; the curse is that love is not enough; one has to build on upon that. The second sexual revolution came along at the middle of the twentieth century. Sex was taken out of marriage to try to experiment and discover sexual compatibility between partners. It was the revolution of youth, and needed the contraceptive pill, because procreation was still within marriage. The blessing was the discovery that love is not enough, the curse is that sex since has been immersed in hypocrisy. Then in the twenty-first century a third sexual revolution announced itself. Sex is being released from the relationship. This is the populistic revolution where everything is allowed and the internet is an instrument. The curse is that releasing sex from relationships is harming the forming of a deep connection in relationships; a blessing is not evident, because people know that this the case, but do not dare speak out honestly about sex.

How this book is structured

This book makes clear the differences and similarities between men and women in their relationship to each other in general and in heterosexual and homosexual relations in particular. It is not our intent to present a list of differences and similarities, but instead to place these within a coherent whole with respect to each other in their mutual relations. While attention will be paid to the evolutionary point of view, we will seek to transcend a strictly evolutionary, reductionist thought in terms of behavior in the light of the costs and benefits for procreation. One of the ways this will be done will be to place elements in mutual relationship, the meaning of one element in relation to the development of another. For example, a woman’s empathy is necessary for the continued existence of the new-born child, but this same empathy has another side: the ability to manipulate, which can sometimes mean a person is nor considerate enough of the feelings of others, but also the tendency to ignore herself.

The basic assumption of this book is not that everything has developed optimally among humans; also, some developments – including the optimal ones – have other sides that see to it that men and women complement and complete each other. It is along these lines that the maxim for this book was chosen, the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry writer of the philosophical fairy-tale The Little Prince, in his work Lettre à un otage [Letter to a hostage] (1943):

Far from hurting me, you complete me when you differ from me.

Diversity is a blessing and it is sad when it becomes regarded as a curse when it comes to men and women. The differences between men and women will be placed within an overall framework which will make it possible to understand such things as fear, aggression, depression, psychosomatic complaints, self-reflection and communication. This has consequences for the way in which we give form to emancipation and the way in which we bring up boys and girls.

Following this introduction, the book opens with a chapter on the origin of the differences between men and women and the way in which this differs from animals (Chapter 2). Next, a framework of concepts is presented in order to clearly show predisposition and the way this is expressed in behavior. This also makes clear where men and women overlap and the scope for emancipation (Chapter 3). This is followed by an explanation of how men and women differ, which is made up of three parts: 4.I, 4.II and 4.III, and how they respond to danger and deal differently with their anxieties (Chapter 5). The response to danger, including how they handle stress hormones, has consequences for how men and women suffer from psychosomatic complaints, and is brought together in a psychosomatic model (Chapter 6). The differences between men and women have an effect on the way in which we bring up boys and girls and how we give form to emancipation (Chapter 7). The book concludes with an epilogue (Chapter 8). Each Chapter ends with a number of focal points which contain the chapter’s main ideas.

The book uses a number of new concepts, which are included in a glossary (in the appendix); the appendix also contains extra information on a number of subjects.

The subject of sexuality, although at the bottom of everything, is only dealt with in part. This subject will be covered more fully in a separate book (with the working title of Human Sexuality).

There are examples from real life throughout the book, including examples from the author’s own therapy practice. All of the names have been changed to protect the anonymity of those involved.

This book has been written in the ‘we’ form, used traditionally by scientists to express that new knowledge is always based on old knowledge, on acquired frameworks of thought. People are not always aware of this, and the use of ‘we’ is like a tribute to already discovered knowledge. As Newton (1675/6, p.416) so eloquently put it, ‘If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.’ The body of knowledge has been built during centuries, piece by piece, and much is forgotten or dismissed when it did not serve the purpose of the time spirit. This is why certainly also the ‘old’ research is presented to give insight into the breadth of the knowledge and the way it has evolved.

The aim of the book

Through insight, the intention of this book is to cultivate respect for and understanding of the quality of the differences and become sensitive to the similarities between men and women. Respect and understanding as well for the kaleidoscopic effects of the differences and for the way men and women can complement each other and the interchangeability of behavior.

Another aim is to offer a scientific framework and a new theoretical framework within which both differences and similarities can be placed and understood. The differences between men and women and people as a whole do not consist of individual pieces of information, but interlock with one another like the teeth of a cog. Each behavior has its counterpart and its complement towards others. A talent for empathy – to place oneself in another person – has the counterpart that the talent can be used to manipulate. A technical-abstract aptitude has its counterpart in egocentrism, through which men take too little of another person’s feeling into account.

It is not our intention to describe how all men and all women are, lumping everyone together. These are general lines, and about the ‘average’ man and the ‘average’ woman – or much better yet a female pattern and a male pattern. Men can possess female characteristics and vice versa. But if you examine the entire range of characteristics contained within one person, the structure defined is still often one that is ‘male’ as opposed to ‘female’.

Although a woman can be mathematically and technically gifted, the way in which she develops feelings of guilt – among others – will ultimately show itself to be a female pattern. A man can have female tendencies like interest in clothes and make-up, but in his sexuality, for example, he still acts like a man. With regard to the differences between men and women, it is about how the patterns of elements are interrelated.

The aim of this book is not to provide a list of differences between men and women. It is precisely this that prompts comparisons based on a single aspect, and then everyone will know a woman who has a certain ‘male’ characteristic and a man who has a certain ‘female’ characteristic. It is about the pattern of characteristics. When a woman has a male characteristic, this characteristic is imbedded in a pattern of characteristics that in their interrelatedness are fundamentally female by nature, and the other way around, the same also holds for men. This book will also elaborate on the fact that from an evolutionary point of view, ‘male’ and ‘female’ have to be interchangeable and that because of this the similarities are necessarily great.

Focusing attention on the differences between men and women also means attention for the behavior’s origin and the importance of predisposition. Every person has his or her own unique pattern of heredity aptitude factors that either can or cannot be expressed because of the circumstances while growing up.

A person’s hereditary aptitude is certainly not always converted into behavior; conditions play an important role in this. We know to what extent this has been the case with women’s emancipation: it turns out women can do so much more since they are given the opportunity to develop their aptitude. But it often also takes place on an individual scale.

A Vietnamese refugee ran into problems at school. He very much wanted to pursue a technical career because he would then be able to earn his own living in the new country. However, he did not manage to get passing grades in the classes he found so important. Psychological tests revealed his creative talents – he had never said a word about this himself and never thought about it because in his country of origin artists had no future prospects; he had never considered it as a possibility, not even in the new country. His talent was unmistakable, but undeveloped. When he was given every opportunity to do so, his talent broke through.

Whatever the surroundings offer in terms of possibilities, the basis for the behavior remains the hereditary aptitude that determines the margins of development. In the example of the Vietnamese artist, although he was given every opportunity to develop his technical abilities and was greatly motivated to do so, his aptitude was too limited and his performance could only be below standard. In the area of art, however, he had great prospects.

The idea of predisposition makes us feel as if we have to accept this and that change is not possible. Nothing is further from truth and this holds for both men and women. Acknowledging the differences between men and women from the position of hereditary aptitude actually creates the space for change. Attention for the innate differences can make us more sensitive to the limitations of the capacity to change behavior, but also to the way in which behavior should be changed. And more important, as the example of the Vietnamese refugee shows, it makes room for development in another area.