Man and a Woman: A Yin and Yang

It’s still fresh in my memory the answer of 2008 Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza in her question “Does a man or a woman live and easier life? ”- “actually there’s not much difference about how a woman or man lives but rather they differ on the way they think. Man thinks the easiest way to get to the point is to go straight. Woman, not exactly, they go through many curves and fixed it”. This answer is just one among the many answers on how to differentiate a man between women. In the field of hard sciences, the difference between a man and a woman is far way varied.

It is usually differentiated through sex or the possession of certain organs and hormones that make them unique. Man or male is characterized by possessing the male genitalia which composed of the testicles, the penile gland and of course Adams apple. Women or female is otherwise characterized by the possession of uterus, ovary, and vagina. In terms of the Hippocratic eye, there are different hormones and chromosomes that discriminates both sexes- chromosome XY for male and XX for female (York 2008).

In the society, one can easily differentiate a man from a woman by the way they act, they dress and they appear in public. A man usually is short haired contented with t-shirts and pants or tuxedo for the elite while women are often long haired, fond of having fancy dresses with playful colors and distinguished by their high pitched voices as contrast to male with a distinguishable baritone voice. During the olden times, in terms of gender and socialization, a masculine is usually viewed to be brave, aggressive, and bread winner while a feminine is usually calm, conservative, and responsible in child rearing.

Tracing the history, women in the olden days are considered as one among the lower society wherein they are not allowed to vote and their only profession is to become a plain housewife. In the ancient times in Asia and Europe, women are often the subjects of slavery. In Japan, once a woman has been married to a man, she no longer free. Her work is just centered on family rearing and farewell assistance to the husband. The only way to escape from the marriage is to commit hara-kiri or the virtue of killing themselves.

In the Philippines during the sultanate period, only the son of the king or sultan can inherit the land and women are just for marriage rites and are just means to procreate through pregnancy. The worst thing is that they are not allowed to rule the land. In contrast, Egypt is known to have women rulers before man became the ruler. One good example is Cleopatra who ruled the ancient Egypt and who have man as subordinates (timemagazine. com 1972). But with the rise of industrial revolution, feminists became more gender sensitive and gender equality had been on the rise.

Now, there had been widespread gender stereotyping such as female police enforcers, pilots, soldiers, and the existence of working moms and even female engineers. In addition, there is an increase of women politicians and rulers and believe it or not that the Philippines being a democratic republic had some sort of girl power because they had already to female presidents whom actually won through people power revolution. Tracing the history is likewise one way of differentiating man between women based on their family roles and social responsibility. The existence of pluralism in nature allowed varied responsibilities of a man and a woman.

Delving deeper in differentiating man and women is through their matter of feelings. Men are thought to be pride and full of ego. Women are the exact opposite as they are more patient and unruffled. Usually in a family a woman/wife is usually the mother of all chores in the house doing all the laundry, cleaning, and preparing food except if a there is a hired nanny, but still a nanny is a woman. On the other hand, those of the man usually sips coffee while reading the daily news and eats the breakfast and then go to work. Going back to the answer of Miss Universe 2008, it would be nice if we cite some examples.

Man thinks that the easiest way to get through a point is to go straight. I might as well agree on that. When a man goes to off a particular thing in the department store, he goes exactly to the rack or place where it is located, grabs it and pays it over the counter immediately. Women don’t, they actually took many more time visiting every lane of the shop and fit all things that she thinks it’s nice for her and grabs unnecessary things forgetting what to buy. This only means that man is more straightforward on everything. When he wants an answer, he wants it immediately. When he takes orders in a restaurant, he wants it in a brisk.

Women are more patient and complicated, they are the ones who usually start the husband-wife fight because of their hasty tongue who usually nags and nags until both of them gets pissed off. Among all of these opposite characters, I still view man as being a yin and a yang, a perfect opposite but a perfect combination. Every imperfection of a man can be complemented by a woman and every woman’s flaw is complemented by a man. That is why there is the existence of marriage, to unite both the ideals of a man and a woman and to live together as one body and being separate entities.

A man and a woman are created complementary to work and help each other. Each sex/gender represents a function in a society. There has been a saying that “No man is an island”. Truly no man is alone because there is the existence of a woman. Every human beings life is like a puzzle, it will only be completed when the remaining pieces are there. A woman therefore is never complete without a man, which maybe her father or her lover. Likewise a man is never complete without there woman, which is his mother and his lover.