Why Do Men Claim That It Is Difficult To Understand Women?

It is very difficult to understand women.  How many times have you come across this phrase? I guess many because men love to echo the stereotype that women are too complex beings to be understood by their 'simple-minded' kind. But do you agree with this?

Do you really think it is difficult to understand women? Or is it just an excuse put up by patriarchy for not letting women keep their individuality and point of view on the table?

Recently, I came across a tweet which stated, “There’s a book called “Everything men know about women”- it is a book of 120 blank pages.” This tweet was in sync with the notion that men rarely know what women want in their lives which is why they are never able to reach the mark of equality in needs, desires and ambitions. Men either undermine women by not taking their ‘high’ ambitions seriously. Or they just don’t listen to women in the cacophony of mansplaining.

But women are not complex beings with unnatural expectations. Like men, we have aspirations, desires and requirements. It is just that men and society are not ready to accept them and thus use the garb of complexity to completely dismiss what we want.

Wondering how to understand women?

The first reason why men don’t understand women is that they don’t try to. In other words, men don’t understand women because they don’t listen to them. They never try to understand what women want and overpower their voice by mansplaining. For example, men don’t understand the need for women to have a job even though their husbands are working because they are not ready to listen to a woman’s ambitions and dreams. They are not ready to understand that women too need ">financial independence even though men are ready to provide for them. If men tried to give women’s voices and opinions a space in their minds, it would not be difficult for them to relate to and understand what women want.

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Secondly, women are never allowed to speak. In our society, women rarely have the freedom to speak up about their needs and desires. They are expected to know when to be quiet. For example, society is still mystified and intimidated by orgasms in women because it never allows women to speak about their sexual desires. Women are expected to offer sex as a duty to please men and not see it as a pleasure-seeking activity that they can enjoy on their own.

The third reason why men don’t understand women is the fact that they have been conditioned to imagine women in a certain way by patriarchy. Men are brought up to believe that women never speak up want they want and always remain submissive toward men. And if they do, they are either bluffing or are being deviant. But when women deny their submissive position and demand equal rights, men get baffled. They are not able to relate this empowered version of women to the image that they have already built in their minds. Basically being brought up in a patriarchal environment, men are not able to identify with real women who are far different from the stereotypes that they have been fed.

So dear men, will it not be better that you first check on these reasons before complaining about why women are so complex? Will it not be better if you forget patriarchal conditioning that makes women’s demanding nature a complex one? When women are always expected to understand and empathise with men, then why can’t men try to understand women? It is not women who are complex. They very well know what they want and what they want to say. Patriarchal conditioning has fogged male mindset due to which they are not able to understand what women want even though women are screaming at the top of their voices.

Views expressed are the author's own.