NLP and Our Instinctive Voice - Part 1

WOMEN DANCE BACKWARDS

Robin sat in a bar recently pretending to read a newspaper and listened to a group of well dressed, well spoken, apparently well educated men sorting out the world. It took them about 10 minutes to find a solution to their company's woes, another five minutes to vent their frustration at being too junior to put their plans into action and another 20 minutes to develop a strategy to fix the world's economic difficulties. Then they started talking about women. That topic took a bit longer. This long deliberation was due, according to them, to female inconsistency rather than their own inability to empathize and understand.

Although they had had a few drinks and the clarity of their conversation declined every round, they were certain there was not a man alive who could understand how a woman's mind worked. And there was not a woman who would ever be able to understand a man. Following another half hour of heated debate which degenerated into a critical assessment of all females, one very demonstrative man waved his hands about and said, as though he had stumbled upon the ultimate truth, 'And do you know the worst thing about women? Well, I'll tell you what the worst thing about women is. I've heard them talking at their coffee mornings. Whenever they get together all they do is bitch about men.'

It is obvious that men and women are different. That has been openly acknowledged since we hunted with spears, apart from a couple of decades this century when in our efforts to acknowledge men and women as equal we have forgotten that people can be different and equal as well. The works of Shakespeare and other great writers show how differently men and women respond to situations. The way laws have been made, the right to vote and many other social, political and legal examples demonstrate that historically not only have men and women been recognized as different, but they have been deemed - by many men - to be unequal. Physical size has given men the right to dominate in most human fields, even those where size is a handicap.

As a young child Robin asked his mother why there were mummies and daddies. Probably fearing a question about the facts of life, she said that mummies had long hair and danced backwards. Even then, Robin knew that did not answer his question, and what was more, she said it in a way that left him feeling that there was much more to discover.

Many people see men and women as being like chalk and cheese, or oil and water, forever incompatible, forced together with the greatest of pleasure for reproductive reasons only. Certainly our biological instincts and drives have a major influence on the relationships we form. As part of our genetic inheritance we seek sex, not only for pleasure but also at a deeper level to continue the species, to leave our mark in the world through our children. Sex is one way we can achieve immortality. But finding a mate is often portrayed as an act of cunning and manipulation, a combination of stealth and enticement in pursuit of someone you wished you could do without - man the hunter and woman the prey.