Thursday, February 19, 2009

A bit rich

Why men can't apologise - Times Online

A female "relationships expert" says (citing one example) that men have trouble saying "sorry".

The comments are already flowing in the other direction:
What a stupefyingly assumed, breathtaking generalisation of an entire gender based solely on one person's own prejudices and the singularly thin example of one incident! How do I know this? My girlfiend would rather lose an arm than say sorry!
And it is true that, in my vast range of relationship experience (hahahaha,) one important lesson learnt is that women do not generally feel a need to apologise for things said or done when feeling even slightly hormonally grumpy. Men, on the other hand, are expected to pretty much apologise for everything.

I doubt I am unique in this finding.

2 comments:

TimT said...

Maybe Kevvy should do an apology on behalf of all men in parliament to follow up with his apology on behalf of all non-aboriginal Australians... if you're onto a bad idea, why stop?

Caz said...

Come on, guys would save years of time if they just spat out "so sorry, so very sorry" every now and again instead of using up years of their time 'explaining' / justifying / rationalizing.

Women aren't any better at saying sorry, but they don't use up hours with tedious explanations.

This comment jumped out:

Recently, Aboriginal men in Australia have publicly come to the conclusion that saying sorry for past misdeeds towards their womenfolk is the best part of healing. They admitted their need for love and support to help them move forward. That, to my mind, is the essence of civilised progress.

Tony E. Warner, Bletchley, UK"


When the hell did that happen?

I imagine that if all Aboriginal men apologized to all Aboriginal women and children for past and present treatment - and meant it & promised not to ever do it again - that would have a greater practical outcome than any apology that Rudd or any other white person could ever make.

It would also make global headlines. No such meaningful gesture or action has been tried by the original inhabitants of any "invaded" country.