Waffles and Spaghetti: A Roundabout Discussion of Cognitive Clashes Between Genders

Have you read "She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink"? It was written by a man reflecting on how his subtle, constant disrespect of his wife drove her to leave him. He explains that his habit of leaving empty glasses by the sink was, in his mind, justified, which caused him to ignore his wife's requests that he not do it, as he believed that if it didn't bother him, it shouldn't bother her. He refused to understand why it meant anything to her and usually doubled down on his position in response to her expressions of hurt feelings, realizing too late that what she truly wanted from him was for him to take her seriously and stop doing something that consistently bothered her. "The glass situation," he writes, "could be ANY situation in which she feels unappreciated and disrespected by her husband."

There's a saying that I've often seen make its rounds in the sort of Facebook posts my great-aunts share that goes something like, "men's brains are waffles and women's brains are spaghetti." That is to say, men tend to keep things compartmentalized while, for women, everything is connected. Although the intention of the saying stands to justify gender differences on a basis of them being innate, the observation isn't very far off. Usually, people mix up the cause and effect of inequality, that the system exists due to the characteristics of the people within it rather than the other way around. But I digress.

My stepfather, ever the type to corner people into circle-talking "debates," once asked me why my mother fights with him the way she does. "Whenever I do even the smallest thing," he said, "she blows up and starts bringing up stuff I did weeks or even months ago. How is that fair?"

"Because the thing you did that started the fight probably relates to the past things, especially ones you never apologized for," I replied, knowing he hasn't given a sincere apology in the entire time I've known him. "She's not furious that you did one very small bad thing today. She's mad that you've been doing these small bad things repeatedly, for years, and then you tell her she's ridiculous for being upset about them and keep doing them. She's not yelling at you for one small thing. She's yelling at you for a very big pattern that shows her you're not willing to change in the slightest to make her happy and respect her."

To be honest, I forget how he replied to that.

My partner and I have done a lot of talking recently (and I apologize for bringing up my partner so much in this class, but I've never had such an in-depth look into the mind of someone raised with masculinity, and they gave me permission to write about them for this class anyway so it's fine) about communication and the differences in how we think. I notice that a lot of women tend to grow frustrated when they expect the men in their lives to make connections that the men don't end up making. Because to us, this ignorance seems willful. Undoubtedly, it sometimes is--testimonials of men will show that they learn how to play dumb to get out of doing things--but often, it's just not how they think. Does this absolve them from having to make an effort? Absolutely not. In communicating to my partner, I sometimes find myself tediously spelling out how, when I bring up one thing, I am also trying to highlight another related thing. Like how I sent them "She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By The Sink" and had to tell them, outright, that I was sending it because the article eloquently explains why I take issue when they rebut my requests by trying to out-logic me.

When I notice these sorts of gender differences, I try to figure out why they exist. Normally, there's an obvious sociological reason for what makes masculine personalities different from feminine ones. But I can't quite figure out waffles and spaghetti. Why do men tend to see things more literally and divorced from context? Why are women more likely to see the "bigger picture"? I'm still not sure. Perhaps it's related to labor; just looking at household chores, men are more likely to be associated with isolated, immediate tasks such as making repairs, while women maintain the cleanliness of a house, a task that is constant and multifaceted. Perhaps, then, waffles and spaghetti are more relics of the cult of domesticity.

The concept of the "gendered brain" caused by DNA is being debunked more and more as time goes by. However, that does not mean adults don't have gendered brains. Profound differences exist between the psychological foundations of men and women, shaped by pervasive gender socialization that starts before birth (gender reveal parties, am I right?). Which begs the question: can men unlearn this compartmentalized way of thinking in order to adapt to domestic life? Can waffles ever become spaghetti?