5.4. MEN AND WOMEN

 

5.4.1 Introduction

Read the text and say if you agree with the author and why.

Why men make rotten patients

 

Most men make dreadful patients. When they have a headache there is trouble if anyone makes a sound.

When a man has flu he lies in bed while his wife waits on him hand and foot.

When she has a pain in her chest she happily accepts being told there is nothing seriously wrong. He remains miserable and convinced that he has heart trouble.

When he has been ordered to rest that’s just what he does, complaining bitterly if there is no one around to stir his tea or find him a handkerchief. She is expected to carry on looking after the rest of the family – even though she has been told to take things easy.

In addition to being mentally less able to cope with illness men are physically not as fit as women. Men are more likely to drink, smoke and eat too much and take too little exercise.

The man who dons his track-suit and jogs to the pub every night still does far less exercise than his wife who has to cart the groceries from the shops, handle the washing and lug the vacuum cleaner up and down stairs.

Most men know they are not as fit as women. So when they’re ill they’re frightened. Their fear is reinforced by the knowledge that a woman’s life expectation is longer than a man’s. Although today’s women drink and smoke more and take on greater responsibility than in the past, the number of years by which they can expect to outlive a man is increasing.

Men are more likely to die in accidents and of lung cancer. They’re more likely to commit suicide and die of heart disease.

It’s not just illness that makes men such rotten patients – it’s fear!

(Dr Vernon Coleman, The Daily Mirror)

 

5.4.2 Listening

A

Can you think of any situation which provokes extreme emotions? Do men and women react in the same way in such situations? You are going to hear a discussion between a man and a woman about male and female attitudes to being ill. Before you listen to the tape, read the following statements. As you listen, decide whether the statements accurately reflect what the woman says or not.

 

1. The woman thinks that men believe they never have mild illnesses.

2. She expresses sympathy for injured football players.

3. She believes that most men try to hide their reactions to pain.

4. She thinks that men do not like to take time off work through illness.

5. She thinks that men prefer to be looked after by their mothers when they are ill.

6. She believes that women, unlike men, accept that they will experience some pain in life.

7. She thinks that women expect their partners to look after them when they are ill.

 

Activate

B

Listen again and check your answers. What is your reaction to the woman’s views? Are the ideas expressed in the text similar to those in 5.4.1? Or do these two texts contradict each other?

 

5.4.3 Reading

A

Read the article. What does the writer think about men crying in public? Do you agree with the writer’s view? Why / Why not?

 

Big Boys Do Cry … and They’re Heroes

 

Wimbledon 1992 will be remembered as the year the champion, his coach and his girlfriend all broke down in tears, and the winner and runner-up hugged each other on court in full view of 500 million spectators all round the world. 

Is Andre Agassi heralding a new type of hero, the one who openly weeps and so tugs at the world’s heartstrings? How many of us watching also felt a tear come to our eyes as we witnessed his reaction?

Open displays of emotion, of course, are becoming common in world-class sport, at least among the younger players. We’ve seen it among football players for the past few years. But so far, it’s only the men who are shedding public tears. Women seem to be getting tougher while men are increasingly allowing their vulnerable sides to show, and not being ashamed of it, either.

According to Dr Brian Roet, author of ‘A Safer Place To Cry’, men who can openly weep are the lucky ones, the emotionally healthy people. A common newspaper expression for people who are trying to cope with strong emotions is that they are ‘fighting back tears’. This is taken to mean that they are being brave. But how much braver if they can let the tears flow and allow everybody else to know what they are going through.

Tears, Roet says, represent so many emotions: ‘They are a natural form of expression, like laughter. They can convey a multitude of feelings, such as happiness, sadness, loneliness, fear, relief, anger, or frustration, and such provide healthy pathways to the outside world.’

‘However, for some strange reason society has designated this expression of emotion to be unsuitable and the feelings are forced to remain underground.’ Many people, he says, have an overbrimming lake of tears ever ready to flow just under the surface, yet they do their best never to let them come out, at least in public.

After 15 years in general practice, Dr Roet came to realize that the inability to shed tears and show emotion was behind many of the illnesses he had been trying to treat. He now feels that providing a ‘safe place’ to cry is far more helpful to his patients than dispensing drugs. Many have not cried for years and at first are ashamed when the tears start to flow but, he says, it’s only when tears can come that emotional healing can take place.

‘I hope that people will learn to respect tears. As we learn to laugh and cry naturally, without fear of guilt, we develop peace of mind and tranquility that provides a healthy basis for the rest of our life.’ But he admits he remains unable to shed them himself. ‘The only safe place for me to cry is in the cinema, where the tears well up and flood over the most trivial situations.’

‘I believe now that I was told so much as a child that boys don’t cry that this imprint has sealed my tear ducts, except out of sight in the darkness of the make-believe cinema world.’

Sporting stars who break down in public remind us that there is nothing wimpy, nothing weak or loser-like about the ability to shed tears. Men who can cry easily are the real winners in life, those who are at the same time confident and sensitive.

Agassi’s tennis is wondrous, but it’s his ability to cry and remind us that he is fully human rather than just a tennis robot that will turn him into a world-class heartthrob.

Women always warm to a man who can cry. And perhaps the new breed of weeping sports stars will give other men ‘permission’ to cry, so that tears can become as natural a form of expression as smiling and laughter.

 

Interaction

B

Express your views on the following:

 

1. Seeing somebody’s tears makes people feel awkward and embarrassed. It’s bad manners to burden others with your problems.

2. Women are getting tougher because men are getting weaker.

3. Some people use tears as a weapon, a means of pressure on others.

4. Crying doesn’t give any relief; moreover, it ruins your beauty and causes headaches. 

5. To keep your emotions to yourself is much safer.

6. We all are human. If you feel like crying – why not?

 

5.4.4  Listening

A

Translate the text below and study the counter- arguments that follow.

‘It’s high time men ceased to regard women as second-class citizens’

 

This is supposed to be an enlightened age, but you wouldn’t think so if you could hear what the average man thinks of the average woman. Women won their independence years ago. After a long, bitter struggle, they now enjoy the same educational opportunities as men in the most parts of the world. They have proved repeatedly that they are equal and often superior to men in almost every field. The hard-fought battle for recognition has been won, but it is by no means over. It is men, not women who still carry on the sex war because their attitude remains basically hostile. Even in the most progressive societies, women continue to be regarded as second-rate citizens. To hear some men talk, you’d think that women belonged to a different species!

On the surface, the comments made by men about women’s abilities seem light-hearted. The same tired jokes about women drivers are repeated day in, day out. This apparent light-heartedness does not conceal the real contempt that men feel for women. However much men sneer at women, their claims to superiority are not borne out by statistics. Let’s consider the matter of driving, for instance. We all know that women cause far fewer accidents than men. They are too conscientious and responsible to drive like maniacs. But this is a minor quibble. Women have succeeded in any job you care to name. As politicians, soldiers, doctors, factory-hands, university professors, farmers, company directors, lawyers, bus conductors, scientists and presidents of countries they have often put men to shame. And we must remember that they frequently succeed brilliantly in all these fields in addition to bearing and rearing children.

Yet men go on maintaining the fiction that there are many jobs women can’t do. Top-level political negotiation between countries, business and banking are almost entirely controlled by men, who jealously guard their so-called ‘rights’. Even in otherwise enlightened places like Switzerland women haven’t even been given the vote. This situation is preposterous! The arguments that men put forward to exclude women from these fields are all too familiar. Women, they say, are unreliable and irrational. They depend too little on cool reasoning and too much on intuition and instinct to arrive at decisions. They are not even capable of thinking clearly. Yet when women prove their abilities, men refuse to acknowledge them and give them their due. So much for a man’s ability to think clearly!

The truth is that men cling to their supremacy because of their basic inferiority complex. They shun real competition. They know in their hearts that women are superior and they are afraid of being beaten at their own game. One of the most important tasks in the world is to achieve peace between the nations. You can be sure that if women were allowed to sit round the conference table, they would succeed brilliantly, as they always do, where men have failed for centuries. Some things are too important to be left to men!

 

The counter-argument: key notes

      

* Women are militant, they shout louder because they have weak case.

* Even now, they still talk like suffragettes.

* It’s nonsense to claim that men and women are equal and have the same abilities, as women have a different biological function; are physically weaker; different, not inferior, intellectually.

* It is impossible to be wives, mothers and successful career women.

* They are unreliable: employers can’t trust them. It is not their fault: they leave jobs to get married, have children.

* There’s great deal of truth in light-hearted jokes: e.g. women drivers. Women are less practical, less mechanically-minded.

* Most women are glad to let men look after important affairs; they know that bearing and rearing children are more important.

* That’s why there are few women in politics, etc. They are not excluded; they exclude themselves.

* Anyway, we live in woman-dominated societies: e.g. the USA, Western Europe.

* Who is the real boss in the average household? Certainly not father!

* Men are second-class citizens and women should grant them equal status!

 

Comprehension

B

Say whether the author shares these points of view.

 

1. An average man has a high opinion of an average woman.

2. Nowadays women are not less educated and qualified than men.

3. Women continue the sex war as they don’t feel equal to men.

4. The author likes light-hearted jokes about women.

5. Women cause fewer accidents on the roads, because there are fewer women-drivers in total.

6. Women are a success in their careers as well as in running their  houses and taking care of their children.

7. Men are hypocritical when it goes about women’s abilities and rights.

8. Women don’t follow any logic.

9. Women politicians are solving all national and international problems.

10. At present suffragettes talk louder and become militant.

 

Interaction

C

Act out a row between a man and a woman over the equality of the sexes, using expressions from the texts.

 

5.4.5 Reading

Read the text and give definitions to the words and word-combinations in bold.

 

Are Men Lazy?

(By Arne Flaaten)

Why does it seem like men make more mess that women do?

Maybe we do make more mess in some places but we usually keep it neat and tidy where we work or where we have our hobbies. We mess more when we are in ‘female territory’, where we for some reason feel that we are guests. And why do we feel like guests in some areas?

Often the woman occupies the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom. She often decides how it shall look. She buys the curtains, she chooses the colours, she makes the food and so on. What would happen if the husband tore down the curtains and said they were tasteless and looked horrible? I guarantee there would be trouble in the air. If the opposite happened, she took down the curtains, nothing much would happen. We, men, are somehow used to that. We would adjust to the new curtains in ‘our’ room. We do not feel that we mess in our own domain, when we are guesting in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom or the bedroom. It feels like it’s not our responsibility; we have never decided anything in there, anyway. It is difficult to make men feel responsibility in an area where the woman has the last and counting vote. Why do men always delay practical work at home?

Most women have heard our excuses: I will do it tomorrow. Does it have to be now? Maybe tomorrow.

This is not because we are lazy, but more like a reaction against a command. We wish to have something to say about things, and the very least we can do is to decide when to do it, since we are not in the position to decide if it should be done. We know it is the best time, right now, but do not like that she decides all the time. It is also annoying always to be asked to do this and that. And there is no difference in her voice whether she comments her little boy or her husband. The woman often uses the same tone whether she is angry with the son or the husband. She takes the role of a parent towards both. We immediately remember our mother when she was angry. We do not need a new mother. (Maybe we wish one in some cases but it does not do either any good.) Men need to free themselves from the nice and easy life together with their mother, where there was no responsibility for anything. So, if a wife keeps up this mothering thing, she either gets a new son or angry husband.

Why do not men feel satisfaction when cleaning?

We do not feel any satisfaction while cleaning up in her world. That is also why we would rather do it later. When we do it, it is to please her, not ourselves. While we discuss whether to do it or not, she often already has begun to do it herself. And now nothing can stop her. Now she will go on until she is finished, and maybe a little bit more. She needs to make herself just a little bit angrier and to hug herself. She is now the martyr, and enjoys to feel the hate against him and put another little note in the ‘black book’.

Give us some of your domain and we will feel different about it. Do not expect equality in the cleaning thing while we are in hostile territory. Give us half of the rights, and we will do half of the work. Take a look at these rooms. Does it seem like a man is living there? When a man moves out, the only thing different in a home is that there is more space in the wardrobe, and the house would be even cleaner.

Then there is a woman who has heard about this, and declares that from this minute he has half the rights and tells him to go on with it. She has totally misunderstood. One must start from the beginning and make some choices. Do I need a husband, or do I need a butler? Am I ready and willing to take the consequences by giving my husband the right to decide how the bedroom should look like?

 

5.4.6 Synonyms

A

Provide the related words to the following:

 

 

Opposites

B

Give the opposites to:

 

 

Collocation

C

Supply collocations to the words and make up your own sentences with them.

 

 

5.4.7 Idiom

A

Working in pairs or groups, decide which of the three example sentences uses each word or phrase correctly.

                                                              

1. iffy  

a. He may or may not get the job, it’s all rather iffy.

b. If you’re going to the Post Office, could you get me a large iffy bag so that I can send Mum her present?

c. The new manager’s great – really iffy.

 

2. in-depth

a. I was really in-depth when I lost my brother’s credit card.

b. She’s got a new in-depth CD player.

c. The commanding officer gave an exclusive in-depth interview to the Time magazine.

   

3. couch potato

a. I’m starving – let’s go and get a couch potato in the High Street.

b. Switch the telly off, for goodness’ sake. You’re turning into a couch potato.

c. She doesn’t say much but she’s got a lot of couch potato.

 

4. whinge

a. I don’t want my bike to be stolen; I must get a whinge for it.

b. He is always whingeing about how unlucky he is.

c. He was whinged on charges of corruption.

 

5. gutter press

a. People’s lives are ruined every day by the gutter press.

b. When you buy an old house you usually have to have it gutter pressed.

c. He was wearing a gutter press shirt and blue jeans.

 

6. trump card

a. Thanks for the trump card and the flowers – they cheered me up.

b. Trump card losses and mortgage debt are crippling the economy.

c. Her trump card is that she’s the only one who speaks Russian.

 

7. drop somebody in it

a. My mother-in-law needed a lift to the station so I dropped her in it.

b. You really dropped me in it when you told Susan about the party, you idiot! I told you I hadn’t invited her.

c. We used to be friends and then one day Nick just dropped me in it.

 

8. bumbag

a. I’m not going to work here for peanuts – that’s a bumbag deal.

b. I hate this haircut – I look like a bumbag.

c. She reached into her bumbag for her bus fare.

 

9. earth shattering

a. We had to use a bulldozer for the earth shattering when we reshaped the garden.

b. Lots of people left the disco because the music was so earth shattering.

c. At two o’clock they got the earth-shattering news – they had won the lottery!

 

10. sit-up

a. I did 50 sit-ups then went for a run at lunchtime.

b. Sit-up properly at the table and don’t slump.

c. He was sacked for not doing something he hadn’t been asked to do - it was a complete sit-up.

 

11. comeuppance

a. We celebrated with a huge comeuppance at my house.

b. I can’t stand his comeuppance – he’s so arrogant.

c. She finally got her comeuppance for being a poor leader when she lost the election.

 

12. sound bite

a. The journalist used a 30-second sound bite from the protesters in her report on the demonstration.

b. Nick intends to go climbing in the Himalayas, but only if he is in sound bite.

c. I like your new trainers – they’re sound bite!

 

Interaction

B

Make up situations on the topic of the unit using idioms above.

 

5.4.8 Translation

Read and translate the extracts from fiction books. Could you give some advice to the characters?

 

1. Toby got to his feet with a little grunt of discomfort. Louise watched him limp to the stairs. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’

‘She’s a public nuisance,’ Toby exploded suddenly. ‘I’ve had a bloody awful afternoon. I’ve sprained my ankle running after her and I’m no further forward at all. She’s rolled me over for a hundred pounds and all I have to show for it is an absolutely wasted afternoon.’

Toby’s wife would have been familiar with the irritable tone of Toby’s voice. He was intolerant of physical discomfort and on camping holidays if it rained, or if he scraped his knuckles or banged his elbow, he would be suddenly gripped with temper, which only comfort and sympathy could abate. But Louise had never seen him like this before. His tone with her was always urbane, and detached. Toby scowling and red-faced like a crossed toddler was a new less attractive Toby. He always laughed at her misfortunes, laughed affectionately, as if they did not much matter and she was silly and rather endearing to make such a fuss. But now, in his own discomfort there were no grounds for comedy. 

2. Like many women of her generation who were converted to feminism in the early1970s, Kerry had fought valiantly to appear tough and masculine. In the process she had lost much of her femininity but acquired little masculinity. She did not look tough, determined, cynical, as she might have wished; merely tired and discouraged and angry.

                          

5.4.9  Opinion

How much is the average Belarusian housewife worth?

 

How much is the average British housewife worth? The answer is £600 a week.

An insurance company has carried out a survey to find out the value of a housewife’s work.

 

It seems that she is on call for 90 hours in a seven-day week, working as a shopper, waitress, nurse, driver, cook, cleaner and child-minder. Taking employment agencies’ standard fees for these jobs, the insurance company has calculated that a housewife’s work is worth £32,031 a year – more than the salary of a bishop, a divisional fire service chief or a second division footballer.

 

5.4.10 Discussion

A

Answer the questions and discuss different points of view.

 

1. How do you understand the equality of men and women?

2. Do men an women in Belarus have equal rights?

3. The higher the professional position, the fewer proportion of women can be found there. Can you give reasons for it?

4. Do men take fewer responsibilities about the house? Why does it happen?

5. Do you agree that men should do an equal share of household and family responsibilities?

 

B       Are there any grounds in these jokes?

                                                              

• Why  does a woman work ten years to change the man’s habits and then complain that he’s not the man she married? (Barbra Streisand)
• Chumps always make the best husbands. When you marry grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don’t hesitate. All of the unhappy marriages come from the husbands having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him. (P.G.Wodehouse)

 

5.4.11 Speaking

Below you can read some extracts from ‘hot-line’ letters. Which if them touched you most? Can you offer any solutions to these problems?

 

Falling to pieces         My family seem to be falling to pieces. My parents argue over the silliest things. I’m sure they’ll split up soon. And my four brothers really go on at me because I haven’t got a job and have to keep borrowing money from Mum. But I never have any luck with jobs. I feel so lonely, I spend all my time just sitting at home.

 

She must end it       Some weeks ago my sister-in-law told me she was having an affair. My brother has his faults, but I love him. She and I are also very close. I told her she must end the relationship. The man is married with a loving wife and has three wonderful children.

She promised it would stop but it is still going on. She even had a weekend away with him – thanks to my covering up – so that she could finish the affair. But it seems they just had a great time together instead.

What should I do to end this situation before someone is hurt?

 

Will he be faithful?     My lover and I are in our early forties and we are both divorced. We intend to get married but I’m not sure that he’ll be a faithful husband.

As well as his ex-wife, he has two other women friends whom he sees quite often. When I object, he says his friends are not my business and he’ll keep on seeing them when we’re married.

I have one or two men friends, who he says are no concern of his, but I plan to give them up if we get married. And that’s the difference between us.

Should we get married?

 

Should I tell my father?       Some time ago my father went to live with another woman. But my parents are still good friends and my father is very good about looking after us.

A few months ago my mother met another man. I was glad at the time because she was very lonely. Now I don’t think it was such a good idea. He has a horrible temper and the other night he actually hit my mother. She begged me not to tell my father, which I wanted to do.

She refuses to give the man up and says I don’t understand, even though I’m fourteen. She must be really lonely to want to go out with such a pig. I know my father is still fond of her and I think that if he knew what was happening he might even come back. Do you think I should disobey her and tell him?

 

Extra lessons      I’m 17, and I’ve fallen in love with my maths teacher. He’s in his first teaching job since he left university, and there’s only about ten years’ difference in our ages. Recently he’s been giving me extra maths lessons after school and yesterday he asked me out for a drink. What should I do?

 

Mum’s a slave       I have just been spending a week with my parents, who are a happily-married couple in their fifties. What worries me is that my father has a very old-fashioned attitude to housework. He really treats my poor mother like a servant. She has a bad heart, and it makes me angry to see her carrying in heavy loads of shopping, doing all the cooking, cleaning and washing, and so on. Should I speak to my father?

 

5.4.12 Writing

Develop the ideas expressed in the texts and exercises. Write an essay reflecting your views on the problem.