← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Differences Between Men and Women
00:08:42
Are men and women really that different? And if so, what do those differences reveal about how we relate to one another? Fr. Mike Schmitz explores how the differences between men and women are not reasons for division, but reminders of our need for one another. Rather than pitting the sexes against each other, our unique strengths and perspectives can help us pursue truth, navigate difficult decisions, and flourish together.
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There's a lot of organizations, a lot of individuals who seem to just want us to be angry at each other. And I want to know why. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension presents Multiple groups have done an experiment like this. They would take some men and women and they would watch these other group of people playing cards or playing a game. And if someone was playing the game fairly and they were unfairly shocked, like some kind of like mild shock, that was unfair. They were, they were playing the game just, just fin. Both the men and the women had negative emotions about this thing. Then when they showed people playing and they were cheating at the game and those people were shocked, it turned out it seemed like that largely the men had a positive response to this. They were like, good, this person was doing something unfair, they were cheating, and so they're breaking the rule. This is the consequence. Whereas women had negative, overall negative responses to that as well. So again, when it, when it was unfair, clearly unfair, both men and women experienced this negative emotion in response to the shock. When it was fair, though fairly administered, though, the men had a sense of positive response to it and the women had a negative response to this. Now people have extrapolated this and said things like, again, it's a broad strokes. It's really broad strokes. It's not one of those things. Like, here's a single one test. This is what all women do, all men do. Not that the case. That's not the case. What some people have said is that men were more kind of rule oriented where women were more people oriented. So if men would see, okay, these are the rules that were broken, great, here is the consequence. Whereas women would still have that negative emotion because even if the rules were broken, they would identify more with the individual, the person, and say, well, there's someone who's suffering, even if it's justly someone suffering. And so maybe the old stereotype, or maybe it's cliche, or maybe it's actually true that men are largely oriented more towards things and women are largely oriented more towards people. Anyways, the point of this is this. I heard people who are making, looking at this, these, you know, these kinds of experiments and saying, well, here's how men react to this and here's how women react to this. And then using that experiment to pit men and women against each other, that's that sense of saying, well, see, this is the reason why men need to be not in these kind of roles because look at how, how quickly, how quick they are to be Cruel. Look at how men, how quickly they are to jump to this, you know, mildly painful, but still painful consequence of breaking the rules. Now, on the other hand, because like women, oh, my gosh, even when someone is doing something wrong, they're not going to be willing to enforce the consequence of this. And so that sense of saying this is so fascinating to say, just because when men and women are different, they're being pitted against each other. Now, whenever something like this happens, I think one of the first questions we have to ask is a, Is it true? That's. That's. That's the first thing, right? Um, because again, as I said, it's not like there's one necessary, one singular experiment that's demonstrated this. Also, it's not 100% consistently true. Also, the extrapolation in the sense of what's the interpretation of this data is this. Are we coming to the accurate conclusions about the differences between men and women? But beyond that, we get to ask the question, what does this tell us? And what does this not tell us? I think there's something about some people who are very, very quick to grab on to, here's a tendency in men's behavior that would say, okay, that disqualifies them, or here's a tendency in women's behavior that, oh, that disqualifies them. And whenever I see that, I always wonder, who is it that wants to reduce either a man's role in culture or a woman's role in culture? Because you could see that and say, again, they're disqualified. You need to be able to administer consequences. Now, I would say on the side, my mom, she did not shy away from consequences, even painful consequences, when it came to breaking the rules. All this with a grain of salt. The main part, the main point I want to just try to call into question is when people present information like this to us or they're trying to make a point, what are they trying to accomplish? If they're simply trying to accomplish the battle of the sexes, if they're simply trying to accomplish taking a side, if they're simply trying to accomplish getting angry at each other, the question I have to ask is why? What do they gain? This is one of the questions we get to ask because there's a lot of organizations, a lot of individuals who seem to just want us to be angry at each other. I want to know why. What do they gain by us being mad at each other? What do they gain by us looking at the results of certain experiments and coming to the conclusion that some people can't be trusted. Men can't be trusted to administer justice because they'll be too vicious. Women can't be trusted to administer justice because they're going to be too gentle. What if it's this? What if the results of these experiments reveal something more helpful and more true? What if these experiments reveal that we need each other? Rather than saying men can't be in this role or women can't be in this role. What if it means that actually we need both men and women to be in these roles? What if it means that no, there needs to be Men here are willing to make these hard decisions, but they also need to be tempered by women who are bringing into mind and calling to mind that we need to be human as well. That even in the administration of justice we can't forget our humanity. Likewise, that even when dealing with humans there are consequences to behavior. Maybe then, rather than an experiment like this disqualifying either group, maybe what it does is highlights the fact that we need each other. And I wonder if it's not just for men and women. Maybe it's for people who would be more conservative on one hand and others would be more progressive on another. Maybe we need each other. Maybe we need to listen to each other. Maybe rather than discounting what the other person has to say, what we need to do is try to find common ground and really, really, really engage in conversation that unpacks where we disagree. So we don't just dismiss someone, but we engage and come to a place of deeper truth. This feels like a sermon of some sorts, and I apologize for that. But it seems to me that there's a lot of not listening to each other or if we're even trying. It's like talking past each other. I don't think that any of these experiments reveal that we don't need anyone. I think if they reveal anything, it's that we need everyone to actively participate, to have free speech, to listen to good arguments and to identify bad ones. To seek for the truth and the good and the beautiful together. Because everyone will have a different perspective. But we're all having these subjective perspectives on something that's objectively true or objectively good or objectively beautiful. Which means that if we keep talking with each other, if we keep engaging with each other, if we keep engaging the objective, then all of those subjective perspectives will arrive at the truth. They'll arrive at the beautiful, they'll arrive at the good. I believe this. I believe that if we continue to really engage, then we may arrive at a place of unity. Because if there's anything that objective truth and objective goodness and objective beauty can do, I think it can unite us, even if we have subjectively different perspectives. So once again, I don't think any of these things mean we don't need anyone. I think what they mean is that we need everyone. I don't know if that makes sense. If it does make sense, let me know. If it doesn't make sense, where am I not making sense? And put it in the comments below. Like Share, subscribe and from all of us here at Essentially presents My name is Father Mike. God bless.