“You know, what his wife did was out of line,” I said.
“Well yeah, I guess, but that’s only because she made him feel that way!” she responds.
“That’s besides the point though, what she did is still out of line.” I replied
This is an interaction that I’ve faced a lot in my marriage or some other similar variation of one. Having a wife and two daughters led me to conclude: even though I’m a man, I can’t rationally understand some aspects of what it means to be a woman.
You’d think this would be obvious, but it’s not.
Because fundamentally men and women function differently. At the core of things, I’ve noticed that in interacting with men, we tend to focus on ideas, but with women the focus veers towards people. When having a discussion with my wife or the other women in my family I noticed a tendency to move things from an “idea” perspective to a “people” perspective. This would frustrate me to no end as a man.
Now some may think that this is illogical on women’s part. And although I would contend that it is, it’s only so if you view the world with cold rationality. However, fortunately, women don’t view the world that way. It’s not that they don’t have the capacity to understand rational logic, obviously not. Rather, it’s not the main mode and method by which they view the world. This is a strength and not a weakness and I’ll explain why soon. This is similar to how men are not cold pure rationalists. They are not without emotion or empathy, but we can see that men are indeed more aligned with a method of operating which falls closer to the spectrum of cold rationality.
I sort of imagine it like this diagram below.
It is for this reason why I as a man have always had a hard time understanding certain aspects of what it means to be a woman and the difficulties that they bear. Let’s take the hijab. From an idea perspective as a man, I think “what’s the issue in covering your hair, it’s a fard, you have to do it.” This is true. That being said, I am unable to understand the difficulties women face because men don’t care about judgment or the attention of people in the same manner that women do. It’s not easy for me to understand women’s difficulties. In a similar vein, I’ve heard many women say, why can’t the men just lower their gaze? Similar to how many men are incapable of understanding certain struggles that women face, similarly many women are unable to comprehend many challenges that men face. There will obviously always be some exceptions to this such as some women who are expert logicians and some men who are amazing caregivers. Those are exceptions that prove this rule and what I’m discussing here is the average man and woman in a normal healthy society.
For example, the drive for fulfilling sexual desires in a man is directly related to an idea and a specific need and often times has nothing to do with people. This is the reason why you hear of stories of men cheating on their wives whom they love in order to fulfill a pleasure. Even after cheating, they sincerely and genuinely do love their wife and usually say something to the effect of “it was just a mistake”. The inverse is almost never the case. Women don’t usually cheat because of sexual desire. It’s almost always the case because they found certain things lacking in the men that they were with and had in a sense lost a portion of their emotional connection.
Allah ﷻ has asked men to control this desire knowing that it is very difficult for many of them. Likewise, Allah ﷻ has asked women to control their fear of judgment and desire for acceptance knowing that it is very difficult for many them.
I mentioned earlier that women not being cold rationalists is a strength and not a weakness. The reason why people initially read that sentence and feel icky about it is because we have been fed a steady stream of content that says that greater physical strength and greater rational logic/intelligence are the only indicators of success. Women may not be as physically strong as men, but they are able to empathize and care for individuals such as their children, husband, parents, and friends in a way that many men are incapable of doing. Women may not have brute rational linear logic on the same scale as an average man but there are things about intelligence that women far surpass men such as the ability to multitask, listen, or perform rote memorization. This is why you’ll find many female Muslim Scholars in the past who were experts in the fields of Hadith or Hifz of the Quran, but few who were experts in Aqidah or Logic.
Being a man, I am given the responsibility of leading and guiding my family, including my spouse and the other women of my family. Understanding the ways we view the world has allowed me to approach these struggles with rahma (mercy). In addition, conveying these understandings to my spouse, she has been able to approach my struggles as a man with rahma as well and without judgment.
We ask Allah to guide our minds and our hearts to what is true and correct.
And Allah knows best
