Your own voice

So, I was watching a British psychology experiment on TV.

They have a person give six year old children these huge boxes saying “Here's a present. Open it up.” The kids’ eyes light up and they open up the box but inside there's nothing but a single, pre-used pencil or perhaps a single odd sock. When they ask the child “Do you like your present?” most of the girls shyly force a smile and say “Yes, thank you.” In contrast, when the boys got the sock they would say “Is this it?” and if they got asked “Do you like it?” they answer “No way!”

In another experiment, they got the same kids to drink some juice that had salt in it. The ones who simply said “Yuck!” the moment it passed their lips were mostly boys. As for the girls, they would clearly scrunch up their faces but, when they got asked “Is it yummy?” they would whisper “yes”.

The conclusion:

Where most girls will give a “polite” answer, most boys, without worrying about politeness, will express their true feelings and these differences between the attitudes of men and women are already apparent in six year olds.

This was a huge shock - the gender gap already exists at the age of six!

The boys casually told the adults in the experiment exactly what they were thinking but the girls hid their true feelings and answered “politely”.

It's about having an obligation to thank an adult who gives you     a  present, no matter what it is, and replying “yes” when asked if juice that has been tampered with is tasty, right? Because that's what it means to “be polite”.

Obedient and deft at handling such situations, these girls have already mastered the art of such “manners” at the age of six and speak and act exactly as they are expected to in accordance with both the time and the situation. And the validation they then receive from adults further incentivises these girls’ “polite” behaviour. A child who doesn't say thank you, or cries out “yuck” is a child who is rude and is ignorant of proper manners...

But, this is all really very strange.

Why should they have to say thank you after receiving a solitary, unmatched sock? Wouldn't it be better if they did clearly say “yuck!” having being made to drink something filled with salt?

According to the American therapist Beverly Engel, there are a number of cultural, physiological and psychological factors contributing to women being largely incapable of expressing their own true feelings. Even among the most successful business women, artists, and actresses in America, there are lots of cases of women marginalising themselves, acting against their own interests and being unable to express their true selves when around men. Such is the reality of America which looks at first glance like “the country where women can best put themselves on a level playing field with men”.

Engel labels such women “Disappearing Women” and there are remarkable differences in the degree to which this happens depending on the country and the culture. Just as there are women who are completely covered from head to toe and are not permitted to even leave the house without being accompanied by a male, there are also women like those in this country who worked together with men and were the very first to secure a woman's right to vote. But, that doesn't necessarily mean that each and every one of these formidable women is able to express their true selves completely openly.

It is said that from a young age girls are taught to make those around them happy, even at the expense of themselves: the experiment from before is a perfect testament to that. As long as women continue to be modest and be a support to those around them at home, at school and out in the world, they are going to be praised for being ladylike, attentive and mindful and the chances of anyone seeing anything wrong with this state of affairs are rather slim.

And let’s say you keep this up when you're in a relationship and you play it safe and do your best not to rock the boat. Then you get betrayed by the man who you've sacrificing yourself like this for or your body starts to waste away from self-neglect... it's when it gets to that point that we see what's wrong.

   Why have I been keeping myself underfoot this whole time?
   Why couldn't I say that I needed to think about myself more?     
   Why did I let this keep going on for so long?

That moment of realisation is the first step on the road to self-empowerment.

There are people who, when they hear that “divorce rates are high”, see it only as a bad thing, but the way society works is not that simple. It is by the very fact that oppressed and enslaved peoples rise up that we have civil wars and it's when the existing establishment needs to be brought down that things end up changing. Between a woman who is suffering through a marriage because she's afraid of having to stand alone and a woman who has plucked up the courage to take that first step towards finding out who she really is, you can't simply compare them and say which of them is better off or which one of them is happier.

But there's been that realisation - your soul might say “I'm kind of ready”.

You switch from being on auto-pilot to manual control. And then you start asking yourself all sorts of questions.

   Is this something that I really want to do?
   Can I actually say what I want to say?
   Can’t I be more assertive now?

If the present in the giant box is just a tiny pencil, it's normal to be shocked and say “Is that it?” If the adults appear to not know that their juice tastes bad, isn't it better to help them out and tell them “this is gross”?

That's real communication.

Let's set our voices free! 

[You can find the original article in Japanese 「自分の声」 here. ]

Unspoken Expectations

The new carpet in my house is all done. Weeks of preparation paid off, and when it came the actual laying of the carpet on the day it was done before I knew it. The softness of the wool beneath my bare feet feels amazing; spreading out like a starfish on carpet pre-warmed by the sun – ahhhhhhhh, it’s all done.

Right away, I get up and start tidying things away back into the cupboards and onto the bookshelves where they belong. Everything slots back in nicely, as if all my things are now back home after a long time away. All of a sudden I realise it's somehow night-time already. I'm hungry, but physical limitations being what they are, I don't feel like actually making anything.

My daughter's living with me at the moment and a thought pops into my head - “She could make me something tasty for dinner...” She texted me earlier in the day saying “All going well?” so maybe she’ll be heading home early and will cook something for me. Surely she knows that I've been working for ages, all leading up to today, and I'm tired and...

Let's say it was you. What would you do at this point?

 

Would you wait for them to guess how you're feeling and come home for you?

Or would you ask them to come home early and do the cooking?

The old me would be the first one - it’s only natural that they should understand how I’m feeling – I shouldn’t have to come out and actually ask for such things.

I think there’s probably been lots of times when I’ve not said anything and waited for others to do something for me. Perhaps I thought that when it comes to family that you’ve been living with for a long time, these sorts of feelings somehow can be conveyed telepathically.

“Here, have some tea.”

“The bath’s ready!”

“I made some soup.”

Not only at home, but also in the workplace, people who are mindful and notice such things are considered to be “able”.

“I’ve already made some copies of those documents, just in case.”

“Everything’s booked up through to next week.”

These kinds of able people can read any kind of situation instantly and take the initiative. Then, when someone’s bad at doing that, it’s like “Can’t you do anything unless I spell it out for you?” In a “culture of consideration” people make a virtue out of being attuned to people without them having to say anything. However, there’re lots of way in which this can result in misunderstanding, disappointment and a whole web of all sorts of feelings. And the closer they are to you, the higher the chances are that this will happen.

            He’s my husband; he’ll understand.

            She’s my wife; I won’t have to say anything.

            With my dad, surely….

            She’s my daughter; she’ll understand what it’s like.

But there’re a lot of husbands who don’t know how their partner feels and wives who have to be told how things are and this results in disappointment, anger and sadness.

“I shouldn’t have to say anything, they should be able to tell what I’m thinking!”

If you think about it, that’s a huge expectation.

Perhaps these kinds of expectations are carried over from a time when people lived together in single-clan villages and were always around each other. But now, in a society where everyone moves around and everything’s so complicated and things are changing all the time, it’s near impossible to divine what those around us are thinking or what kind of mood they’re in at any given time. I had these sorts of expectations of my non-Japanese husband and, long story short, it didn’t end happily ever after.  

But, once we notice that we’re putting all these kinds of expectations on the people around us, it dawns on us that we are in fact ultimately responsible for those things that we would be blaming them for.

This is good news because you can’t change other people, but you can change yourself. Instead of not saying anything and putting the expectation on other people, you can try actually telling people what your needs are. If you’re expecting someone to do something for you, and they don’t follow through, then you’re already going to be too disappointed and angry to calmly tell them what it is that you need.

So, when you’re thinking “Man, it would be great if they did this for me”, try something new and say “Could I get you to do this?” If asked gently like this, they might just answer with “Sure!” Even if you get told “no” don’t get all angry and be like “Why not?!” Say “Come on, this is what’s going on and it would be really helpful if I could get you to do this for me” and clearly communicate to them what your needs are. If you still get a “no”, ask their reasons for saying that. If you have conflicting needs at that time, then you can try negotiating.

Real communication is something that takes time and patience. I’ve put a lot of years into it and I’m only now getting to a point where I can do it right.

So, on that night, I sent my daughter a text and made my needs clear. “The carpet’s all done. It feels so nice! But I’m really tired, so can I get you to take care of dinner? Takeaways is fine – I just want to eat something delicious.” Next thing, I got her reply of “Sure!” and she came home an hour later with some delicious Lao food - and all was well throughout the land.

I think me enjoying the food I’d asked her for and appreciating her, saying “Oh, I was so tired. Thank you so much for buying this for me” had a much greater educational effect than would be had from me silently expecting things and then lecturing her saying “How inconsiderate can you be? You should…..”

What do you think?

 [You can find the original article in Japanese 「無言の期待」here. ]