[women] this blog's opinon of them

Woman and man as one
Together hear us roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And we know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause we've heard it all before
And we've both been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep us down again
With their divide and rule and all
Divided we will fall
But if we merge one with the other
Then you'll see us soar

[humanizing Helen Reddy, returning her to some sanity]

The often unspoken artificial conflict between men and women would have to be the most boring time waster ever devised. Why does the youth/age, gay/normal, black/white, anglo/non-anglo or blonde/brown-haired divide not dominate political discussion instead?

Why must battle lines be drawn along gender lines? Who hijacked the political agenda and created serious rifts where there needed be no serious rifts? Who stuffed kids’ heads full of this rubbish over two generations and have now achieved their result of mutual mistrust and intolerance?

A woman can multitask, she has an approach of onwards and upwards for the most part, each step needing to be an improvement on the last, she has a certain perspective in business but so does a man. Men can, for the most part, find lateral solutions, they bring a sort of blunt realism at the same time that they bring out the softness in a woman.

There is no doubt they can bring out the best in each other, once they are secure in themselves, in their own sexuality, in their roles in the relationship, in the desire to build up, rather than break down, the other partner. Only a good man can get a woman purring like a kitten; a good woman can really ensure a man’s happiness better than anyone.

There are those sad people who would constantly emphasize and carp about the gender divide and how woman is a thousand times better than a man. Bollocks. There is a range of aptitude with both sexes – poor quality men and poor quality women plus the opposite.

I say blur the differences, look for the common ground, embrace the power of man and woman as one team of two. Today was a case in point. There were a dozen of us in a room, mainly men but some women. I got talking to some of the men, we found common ground and it was good. Before that, I’d been walking along the road, a car had stopped and the chap asked if I knew where the centre was. He offered me a lift.

Pleasant. Rewarding.

After it was all over, a lady and I started conversing and swiftly it went to stage two. Smiles abounded on both sides, we covered many topics and there was also that X factor that I’ve never been able to pin down. There is most certainly a male-female chemistry and those who would play that down puzzle me. It’s equal, it is compl-e-mentary, coml-i-mentary at the same time and it’s biological. It is good vibes.

Contrast that with a different conversation between two people. They chat and within the first few sentences he gets an earful of how much better women are than men, how women are oppressed and so on. What chance is there, given this level of bitterness, that any sort of meaningful relationship could build up? Seriously – what chance?

So that’s my opinion of women – I feel at ease around them whilst they see themselves as human rather than as female warriors, which allows me to be human rather than scathingly anti-feminist and there’s always a je ne sais quoi in relations with the majority I’ve known, even before we start to get into the … ahem … other aspects of the equation.