Women will argue because they are not listened to or put high on a man’s list of priorities.Īs we noted to begin with, the criticism that often greets this book is that it increases the division between the sexes. Men will argue because they do not feel trusted, admired, or encouraged and are not spoken to with a tone of trust and acceptance.

Gray’s ultimate aim – conscious or not – is to make women feel better about their subordinate place in a hegemonic masculine culture.īefore taking sides, we must first describe the book. His millions of readers, caught in a marketing blizzard, are blinded to the alternatives and the fact that gender roles are actually culturally conditioned. Gray is particularly insidious, these critics say, because he never presents his views as a theory, simply saying ‘this is the way things are’ (biological fact). Sex-role theory, of which Gray is a prime exponent, says that men and women are by nature very different, and that gender forms the core of a person’s identity. Websites have sprung up with titles like A Rebuttal from Uranus (Susan Hamson) arguing that Men Are from Mars institutionalises sexism. Under the microscopeĪ good story, but do John Gray’s books in fact liberate? A feminist critique of his writing is easy to make. Gray took the manner of his father’s death as a sign for what his work was about: liberating people by telling them about the emotional release buttons within their grasp.

His brother suggested that he extend his arm further, to see if maybe he couldn’t touch the hood button. In the darkness he ran his fingers over the dents where his father’s fists had hammered, and put his hand through the space where the tail-light had been knocked out for air. When coming back home for the funeral, Gray asked that he be locked in the trunk to see what it must have felt like. Gray Snr had died of heat asphyxiation in the trunk of his own car. They made it to the car after the third call, but by then it was too late. Police responded to two reports of an abandoned car, but bad directions stopped them from finding it. His father had offered a lift to a hitchhiker, who promptly robbed him before locking him in the trunk of the car. In a nutshell: Before we can treat each other as individuals, we must take into account the behaviour differences of the sexes.īefore Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, John Gray wrote a book entitled Men, Women, and Relationships.

Mars and venus john gray