Sexism – a form of stereotyping that dates back to the creation of agriculture when the division of labor first occurred.
Labor was mainly divided in regards to gender: men hunted, women gathered. That was a smart concept at the time, and there’s nothing wrong with dividing work to fit people’s capabilities and improve efficiency. But since then, genders have only become more and more separated, even to the point where people joke about how to “speak boy” or “decipher girls". Well, it has been done. Someone made the guidebook.
According to Yang Liu, men and women conceptualize things differently, like how we converse, view ourselves and view romantic relationships. She wrote a guide to the sexes: "Man Meets Women", a picture book comparing how men and women think and act in society. I have analyzed people around me and used the data to come to conclusions on the juxtaposition of the two genders. All findings are based on the people I live around and go to school with – none are my own beliefs.
The first image refers to the amount of luggage brought on a trip. The man only had one bag, whereas the woman has bags upon suitcases along with a purse. Based on my trip to the airport, this is mostly true. While most men only have one piece of luggage, a woman would have at least two. If you were to ask some women why they bring so much, you’ll probably find an answer along the lines of, “You’ll never know what you’ll need,” or that they also pack hair care supplies, makeup and other toiletries most men don’t use.
The next image in a self-image. It shows an out-of-shape man viewing himself as though he has an average body size, while a woman with an average body size imagines herself as fat. Unfortunately, since primary school and until now, I hear girls who look perfectly fine complain about being fat, whereas men rarely talk about their weight, and if they do, it is more in terms of muscle mass than fat.
A girl once told me she goes through the whole day sucking in her tummy to appear skinnier, while a boy openly spoke about his fat rolls. On the rarer side of events, a boy has also told me that he wanted to be very skinny, and some girls who could care less about how they look have made jokes about their weight.
This picture depicts how men talk to men versus how women talk to women. While observing men’s conversations, I noticed they're usually straightforward, as in, “Because A, B happened." Women, on the other hand, spoke like, “Because of A, I did C, which caused E, leading to D, oh, I almost forgot, B…”
Women’s conversation seems like a journey – one that can hold a lot more ambiguity than a man’s. Men say what they need to say with few tangents, but when girls talk, by the end of it all, you wouldn't even remember what the original conversation was about.
These are only three of the pictures from the book. You can check it out on YouTube, or buy it on Amazon. Find your own conclusions about the images, or see what other people think about them. Do you think any of these images might apply to the men and women you know and live around? It's fun to analyze how different genders can be in ways we don't really notice.
