Battle of the sexes

This article supplies useful background info for my post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/06/24/sex-lies-and-conversation/01cb17ba-1af7-4bf4-8a02-3d1b6c11648f/?utm_term=.9565c103a700

In social relations, it's natural for an individual to use himself or herself as the frame of reference. The default setting is to relate to another person as if that person were me. How would I respond if I was them? Not putting myself in their shoes but putting them in my shoes.

Normally, men and women are psychologically different (although there's lots of overlap). As a result, it's natural for women to relate to men as if they were women, and vice versa. It's natural for a man to use male psychology as the frame of reference when relating to women. By the same token, it's natural for women to use female psychology when relating to men. 

But because men and women normally have a different psychological makeup, that fosters false expectations, misunderstanding, and frustration. Because members of the same sex tend to think alike, they don't have to adapt to each other to the same degree when relating to members of the opposite sex. Marriage requires a degree of mutual adjustment that isn't required for two or more male roommates.

This is why it's good for husbands to maintain some male friendships outside of marriage, as well as for wives to maintain some female friendships outside of marriage. Your spouse can't fill that role. 

Relating to members of the opposite sex is a skill that has to be learned in a way that's not the case when relating to members of the same sex. In marriage, that requires a willingness on both sides to respect and cherish the psychological differences between men and women, discover the differences, and accommodate when necessary. Strike a balance, but don't require men to be like women or vice versa. That's important in marriage, parenting, and education. 

Feminism doesn't think women should ever have to take male character traits into consideration. That's toxic masculinity. All the change must come from the male side of the ledger. That attitude probably has a mirror image in the reactionary world of the Manosphere. 

To some extent we seem to be evolving into a society of lifelong bachelors and spinsters where women live alone in the company of dogs and cats and cellphones while men live alone in the company of sexbots and computer games. That's what happens when biblical values are abandoned.