[di meliora]

Paul Dobransky, M.D., expands on a Fox News blog article written by Suzanne Venker entitled: The War on Men. Venker says:

It is precisely this dynamic – women good/men bad – that has destroyed the relationship between the sexes. Yet somehow, men are still to blame when love goes awry. Heck, men have been to blame since feminists first took to the streets in the 1970s.

But what if the dearth of good men, and ongoing battle of the sexes, is – hold on to your seats – women’s fault?

You’ll never hear that in the media. All the articles and books (and television programs, for that matter) put women front and center, while men and children sit in the back seat. But after decades of browbeating the American male, men are tired. Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/...#ixzz2EdIfcTDl

Reading Venker's article is a requisite to a better understanding of what Dr. Dobransky says. I like Dobransky's article because it discusses a pet peeve of mine: polls, generalizations, stereotypes, heuristics and the like. Dr. Dobransky states:

Exceptions Don't Make the Rule

Venker's post was surprisingly brief, but not surprisingly casual. It was a BLOG post, not a doctoral dissertation. Remember that this is only a blog too.

She started with a real research finding - correction, only a poll - from the Pew Research Center that states since 1997, there has been a decline in male opinion that marriage is important to their lives - from 35 to 29%, while for women in the same demographic of 18-34 years old, the importance of marriage in their lives rose from 28 to 37%.

This is certainly notable, but is it surprising? Not to many men.

Perhaps we could have instead begun by looking at the percentage of male subscribers to bridal magazines and the percentage of wedding planners who are male. Could it be natural that the topic of marriage is just not that much on men's radar? Could it possibly be that the statistics are perfectly fine with men in the poll, and to them, not a crisis?

What set off so many critics of Venker's casual observations of a notable, but to many men, not an earth-shattering statistic?

She had labeled women "angry and defensive."

Which are notable characteristics of angry, defensive people - certainly not all women, but perhaps true only of those who wrote her with such hostility.

The real cause of this stir - beyond the obvious pain that exists between men and women, and in many marriages - is that boundaries have substantially blurred between journalism and journal-writing, and between science and opinion.

This, like hers, is once again, just a blog.

Awash in information of all types and with various levels of credibility - we the readers may not know how to process it all, or where to file it in our heads. Should we even have to label a blog, "credible?" It's someone's opinion, and opinions are not facts. They're personal expression hopefully worth having a civil dialogue about.

Yet if we are going to read or write something that's about science or sociology, then on either side of the page we'll have to come to grips with this - that an average of human behavior is not the same as its distribution over a spectrum of diverse individuals.

In other words, interpretations of polling numbers aren't meant to be a personal affront to any particular individual.

The "average" male behavior or female behavior may not even have an individual who even falls on that average. There will always be lucky or unlucky "outliers" on either side of an average - depending on what, in your personal opinion, is "lucky." Maybe some men who avoid marriage don't consider themselves outcasts of society, but instead, lucky.

That is, unless and until they find a relationship that makes it feel far better to be married than single. Let's also not forget that by subtracting from 100, a whopping 63 percent of women age 18-34 in the poll feel that marriage is not one of the most important concerns in their own lives.

Venker wondered aloud about such taboo, personal, subjective impressions of these polling stats as, "Could women be at fault for the declining interest in marriage by men?" And in her anecdote describing a "subculture of men" as saying they aren't interested in marriage because "women aren't women anymore," it's pretty likely that more than a few female readers took her curiosity personally, not statistically.

Averages do say something useful about a population, but for those offended exceptions to the rule - outliers to the average, exceptions do not make rules.

You just might be, or could become, exceptional. So don't let these statistics alarm you. You're an individual and very possibly, the rules don't apply to you. And that's the only thing that could win a "War on Men" if it even exists, by transcending the very idea it exists. http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/112640

Dobransky thereafter expresses his views at length about "Man-language" and its counterpart. I am not in agreement with all he says. Then, again, Dobransky acknowledges he is putting forth his personal views.

He concludes with an anecdote from his grandma that ends:

It's easy to forget that men love women and women love men when you're told they're at war...

Maybe we aren't really.

Maybe we could choose curiosity about each other's differences instead of hostility about what we don't understand in each other.

Maybe, as Grandma said, "It doesn't really matter, because we love each other so much."

We can't change society, but we can make choices as individuals as singles and together as couples.

So if the statistics bring you down, or make you grouchy, "Just hold your tongue," as Grandma said. And remember:

It only takes one great partner to find happiness.

The only wars that are winnable are the ones that couples take on together - as a team.

We don't have to change all of society to find that one person.

I enjoyed the articles, especially because I am an individual and not a poll number or generalization.