When I was young, I really struggled to learn to tie my shoelaces. Though I was intellectually on track with my peer group in most other respects, it was not until I was 12 that I conquered the double knot – and only after much shame, trial and error, and pairs of Velcro trainers.
It was this formative experience that made me feel great empathy for Professor Stephen Hawking, leading elucidator of the universe, when he confessed to having his own intellectual kryptonite. Women, he said in an interview with New Scientist, were a "complete mystery" – one that he now devotes much of his time to contemplating. Time, I assume, that he might be applying to M-Theory – an actual mystery that Hawking is uniquely qualified to investigate.
But all is not lost. Because just as Hawking was able to explain the universe to those of us who were mystified by it in A Brief History of Time, it is my pleasure to be able to explain women to those who are mystified by us in a A Brief List of Five Obvious Points About Women Using Helpful Scientific Similes.
1. Much like individual fundamental particles, women and men are different, but also the same. Which is to say: women are unique, complicated, intellectual, emotional, sexual. We respire and we digest. Sometimes we are lovely. And sometimes we are horrible. This has less to do with our intrinsic womanliness and more to do with the fact that we are human.
2. Much like quantum physics, communication between men and women can be complex and confusing. Maybe it's because of the way our brains are wired; maybe it's because of the particular ways we are socialised to communicate. Probably it's a combination of the two. Regardless, the challenges of communicating with the sex opposite to yours can most often be overcome by being clear about what you are communicating, and asking questions about what you don't understand. Much like doing science.
3. Much like black holes, women do not destroy everything. Unfortunately, there are a lot of conservative people in the world who still believe that women – and particularly, their sexuality – are dangerous and destructive. Realising that this is wrong is a great first step to understanding that women are not so baffling after all. Allying with those who are working to combat the rampant human rights abuses that arise from this kind of ignorance is even better. Think of it as getting your PhD in women.
4. Much like physicists enjoy arguing, women enjoy sex. They just don't get precisely the same kind of enjoyment from it that men do. Still perplexed? Ask the women you have sex with to talk to you about it. Or ask a woman who you are not going to have sex with, but who is sympathetic to your mystification, to explain it to you. Read a book by a woman about sex. Examine a useful diagram in an anatomy textbook. Do not watch pornography online: when it comes to understanding women's sexuality, internet pornography is about as useful as a as an arctic geography textbook is for understanding multivariate calculus.
5. Much like scientists think creationists are lazy-minded, women aren't keen on men who make sweeping generalisations about our "mysteriousness". It's one thing to say that you have trouble understanding particular women you interact with, or to admit that you find romantic relationships challenging. But to say that we are all a mystery could be taken as someone positioning himself to dismiss and marginalise us; to imply that our opinions and ideas don't matter because we're intrinsically inexplicable. And that would be a disgrace. In future, if you are going to make a sweeping generalisation about women, try phrasing the sentence with the word "people" in place of "women". Does it make you sound daft? Maybe a little bigoted? It's OK. Few experiments work the first time.
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Comments
5 January 2012 3:09PM
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5 January 2012 3:10PM
Men are from Mars, women wish they would go back there.
5 January 2012 3:11PM
Cool. So the most effective thing to say to a potential lover is, "I would like to fuck you. Would you like to fuck me?"
5 January 2012 3:12PM
After reading that, I'm more mystified than ever.
5 January 2012 3:12PM
In that case I don't think I could handle a female physicist.
Do they, you know, do both at the same time ?
5 January 2012 3:13PM
Saying that Internet pornography teaches nothing about women is superfluous. Anyone who hasn't worked that out is a lost cause.
5 January 2012 3:14PM
It's quite brave of Stephen Hawking to admit that women are a complete mystery to him. I think many men (not just intellectuals with massive brains) have this problem, but few admit to it or actually feel a need to resolve it.
My tip would be talk to them more. Its only through engagement and communication that you will realise that we are not completely alien. Its something that I don't think can be studied. You won't learn how a woman thinks through reading a book - unless its her diary (in which case you're not a gentlman). Nor can you ponder gender - you need to get out there and speak to women.
5 January 2012 3:15PM
pretty much.
5 January 2012 3:16PM
Wow, trying to be funny, eh? This just reads as patronising.
5 January 2012 3:17PM
I just think Stephen Hawking has a history of playing "divide and rule" to be honest...
5 January 2012 3:17PM
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5 January 2012 3:17PM
1: Do not assume that you may speak in the same way to women as you can to men of your acquaintance. For example, it is often perfectly acceptable to refer to a male friend or workmate as a 'fat bastard', even to his face. It is unwise to refer to a woman as a 'fat bitch', whether to her face or otherwise.
2: Women may have different priorities and values. It is best not to make a fuss over this, or otherwise refuse to comply with requests that may seem unreasonable. Replacing such things as wallpaper, curtains, sheets, a cutlery set, suite of chairs or sofa cushions may seem mystifyingly important to the lady in your life, whereas you may wish to get a further decade or two's use out of them. Accept her requirements with good grace, as it will save you trouble in the long run.
3: From time to time, treasured old articles of clothing which you have always found to be useful and comfortable will disappear.
That's it. There's no explanation or justification.
4: Suaveness may be a virtue, but jocularity trumps it most of the time. Consider Eric Idle to be your model, rather than Roger Moore.
5: Ignore all the above if necesary.
5 January 2012 3:18PM
I don't think poor Mr. Hawking meant anything of the sort.
5 January 2012 3:18PM
The most confusing thing I find with some women (not all) when given the choice of dating a nice, polite young man (me, for example) or a raging arsehole with a history of raging arseholishness and treating their girlfriends poorly, they will go with said raging arsehole who will treat them poorly leading them to moan to their friends about not being able to find a nice guy. Explain that!
5 January 2012 3:20PM
Though sadly nothing in that Brief List of Five Obvious Points About Women addresses the basic question that men never never been able to get an answer to:
What do women actually want?
And that's the mystery.
5 January 2012 3:21PM
It's the old joke:
Man walks into a near-empty cafe and sits at the back. He places his order and gets out his paper, settling down in the peace and quiet. After a while, the door opens and a young woman enters. She passes the only other customer: a guy sat near the entrance. The guy says 'excuse me' and whispers something in the woman's ear. She pulls back, horrified, slaps the guy across the face, and storms out of the cafe.
Intrigued, the man wanders over to the guy. "Excuse me," he says, "but can I ask what you said to that woman that upset her so much?"
The guy says, "I asked her if she'd fuck me. I ask that of every woman I meet."
"Blimey," says the man, "you must get slapped a lot."
"I do," says the guy with a smile, "but I get fucked a lot too."
5 January 2012 3:22PM
I hope JHE is not confusing Stephen Hawking with Larry Flint like what Homer Simpson did...
5 January 2012 3:22PM
There's one thing still left unexplained. why is it a woman still has a headache after taking a paracetamol? lol
5 January 2012 3:22PM
warmachineuk
Hang on, you mean the lesbians in the flat downstairs aren't looking for a young man to join in with their bedroom shenanigans? This is worse than the day I found out about the Easter Bunny!!!!!!
5 January 2012 3:22PM
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5 January 2012 3:23PM
I've found that nothing annoys a woman more than inviting them home to see your equations and then actually showing them said equations.
5 January 2012 3:23PM
Brilliant.
5 January 2012 3:23PM
6. Sweeping generalisations about 'women' and 'men' are lazy-minded. Women are not all the same, with the same desires and tastes. Men aren't all the same either. A woman is a person who, among other things, is a woman. A man is a person who, among other things, is a man. (And by the way, there are also people in between, and both.) All those other things are as important as gender.
5 January 2012 3:25PM
That depends on what effect you are trying to achieve. If what you mean by "effective" is "likely to have a woman want to have sex with me", then the most effective way to achieve that is to be attractive to her.
Of course, there's a problem there, because in order to find out what would make you attractive to a potential lover, you might actually need to listen, whereas you were only asking about talking.
5 January 2012 3:25PM
Women want different things. Women are individuals, not a mass.
5 January 2012 3:25PM
I have to agree. This bit in particular:
Is just leaving itself open for the obvious 'replace women with men' line because this piece is trying to be a jolly piece about a throwaway comment by Hawking and instead it's a slightly sneery piece with a terrible punchline.
5 January 2012 3:26PM
Can I add a sixth
Much like politicians arguing across the floor of the Commons women will accuse men of making all sorts of lazy generalisations towards women, while making those exact same generalisations towards men themselves
5 January 2012 3:26PM
Exactly CharlieFarley.
The best way to understand women is to speak with them, drink with them and engage with them on an equal level as friends. And I don't mean that as 'engage with them on an equal level but secretly want to have sex with them'
I couldn't stand a night out without female company to be honest, and I don't mean that in any kind of pervy way. I count a high number of females amongst my friends, and a night out wouldn't be nearly as much fun without them and my better half.
5 January 2012 3:27PM
Perhaps it was just a little tactless to address this advice to a person in Stephen Hawking's position.
I'm sure this was an unintentional lapse, Ms Edelstein, which could be corrected by appropriate training in disability awareness.
5 January 2012 3:27PM
Hmm, that was worth reading to get to the 5th point, well done Jean.
As this is such a philosophical thread, I would like to present a concept for consideration which I hope is not completely out of place:
'much like if a tree falls in the woods and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a noise... if a man says something and there is no woman around, is he still wrong?'
(also, its meant in jest for the over-zealous among us)
5 January 2012 3:31PM
And when women say that men are only after one thing, they say it like it's a bad thing. What's wrong with being easy to please?
5 January 2012 3:32PM
writes an author whose magnum opus is based on pretty sweeping generalisations, dividing the whole human race into two categories, as if people weren't individual people first and foremost.
Some women are mysterious. Some men are mysterious. Some people are obvious. And there are all the shades in between, including physicists who make self-deprecatory jocular remarks about which one has to make a concerted, really intensive effort to take offence.
5 January 2012 3:32PM
As a man who is clueless when it comes to women this helped me very little.
5 January 2012 3:33PM
I've heard that women are quite good at some things.
5 January 2012 3:33PM
If it is wrong for a black person to make generalised remarks about white people , and their superiority, then is it not just as wrong for a female person to write an article explaining female persons thereby establishing a generalised belief about male people, which is that they do not understand women?
5 January 2012 3:34PM
So just to be clear here. It's not ok for men to make generalisations about women but it's ok for you to make massively sweeping statements about what women want?
The hypocricy is stunning.
5 January 2012 3:34PM
I'd be really grateful for a list of websites where I shouldn't watch this stuff.
5 January 2012 3:34PM
As a man reading this I am having difficulty in figuring out why this was tactless advice ?
the woman is basing her comments on something that Stephen Hawking has stated he finds to be mystifying.
5 January 2012 3:34PM
And this is the other icky thing about this piece. It ignores the fact that Hawking's is very seriously disabled and has been for some years, so part of Hawking said has to be taken in context of someone whose brain is trapped in a disabled body.
5 January 2012 3:35PM
My local branch of Sainsbury's knows how to deal with that. The shelf by the till has wine, headache tablets, lube, and condoms - in that order.
5 January 2012 3:36PM
E=MC²
( Easy life = Money/Chocolate²)
5 January 2012 3:37PM
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5 January 2012 3:39PM
The author assumes Hawking is leading a regular life like any able-bodied person would and hasn't been disabled and needing care for the majority of his life.
5 January 2012 3:40PM
Don't you find Sainsbury's rather pricey ? lol
5 January 2012 3:42PM
Ah, one of the difficult questions (that business about quarks and quantum theory is a piece of pish by comparison).
My 2 cents are as follows:
Cent 1: Many women see a unreliable/slovenly/boorish man as a challenge. "I'll fix him, I'll make a man of him" they say. In many cases, they subsequently end up realising that they have bitten off more than they can chew (please do not interpret this literally).
Cent 2: Whether through having been raised in an atmosphere of chauvinism, female submissiveness, or even active violent misogyny, many women appear to cling to the notion that said unreliable slovenly boor is somehow a "Real Man". I have female friends and even relatives who are actively displeased when I go to help with the washing-up or chop vegetables. Apparently I should just sit in front of the TV eating snack food instead...
5 January 2012 3:44PM
With 2 failed marriages behind him - one (reportedly) with an abusive wife - it's hardly surprising he's confused !!
5 January 2012 3:45PM
"From time to time, treasured old articles of clothing which you have always found to be useful and comfortable will disappear.
That's it. There's no explanation or justification. "
There is both an explanation and a justification..
Explanation
that which you deem treasured and comfortable is likely to be threadbare, holey, washed out, stained, shrunken and mishapen.. In a word, an ancient rag.. that you insist on wearing to the mortification of your missus who knows most tramps wouldn't even wear it.
Justification
to stop you wearing the rotten rag...
5 January 2012 3:47PM
Very good piece! Witty, clever and spot on!
Only: women like to argue too!
5 January 2012 3:49PM
Thunderchild hasn't canged his records for a year?!!! That is so ..., I'm lost for words...
5 January 2012 3:49PM
Jesus, if Stephen Hawking can't understand women, then I've got bleeding no chance.