When We Read “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus”

I’d heard about this book years ago. You can’t really ignore how creative and funny the title of the book is. But I never got around to reading it. Last week, when I saw it at the library, I couldn’t help but check it out. He and I decided to read it together. I was curious to see how the book would help us communicate better and understand each other’s differences.

To start with, the title isn’t just a title, the author literally uses the example of how men and women are from two different planets, which is a different perspective as to show why it is so hard sometimes for one gender to understand the other. The author John Gray, goes on to point out that men and women need to be more aware of their differences and stop trying to turn things around their way because that is the way things are in the respective planets of origin.

To be honest, we were surprised at how the book caught on so well as to the times we could misunderstand each other and we interpreted what the other was saying. We both could hear each other say: “Yes, that’s true.” The book also went on to give tips as to how to deal with difficult things to say to your partner and what would be the right time to say it. It was eye-opening to know that while women felt better talking about their problems and saw it as building relationships when they shared their problems to others, men rarely talk about their problems unless they want to ask for help; they’d rather solve it on their own. Women also feel ignored or rejected when men refuse to tell what their problem is and talk about it, when in fact they just want some time alone to think about it. This little behavior alone, I’m sure, has caused problems in many households.

It was refreshing to find out about the different perspectives and what the phrases men and women use actually translate to. However, at several points in the book though, we found out how the author generalized both genders. Granted emotional support and talking are very important to a woman, her ambitions and goals are not less important than her feelings, as he states in one of the chapters. Men might be more uptight when it comes to their feelings but men should not feel insulted at the thought of emotional support all the time. The book somehow, at several points, despite clarifying what men and women really mean when they say certain things makes it seem like women are oversensitive and needy who only really care about their feelings and men are egoistic who'd rather be alone.

I get that the book was originally published in 1992, and it was way ahead of its time, I’ll give it that. And of course, you can’t possibly tell how all men and women behave. You can only take what is useful to you from the book. That’s what we’ve decided to do.

Is this book a good idea to understand your partner better? Yes, to a certain extent. Would this book have been a huge hit if it were published in the current time: No.

I'm going to leave a link to a pdf version of the book here:

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.pdf