© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
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The French say, “Vive la difference!” That's a good starting point. The alternative is the so-called “war between the sexes.” It is not what we call a civilized war. No prisoners are taken, and the Geneva Convention does not apply. But unlike the aforementioned Vietnam War and World War Two, there is no draft law. You don't have to put a uniform on and head for the front lines if you don't want to. And why would you want to? The “enemy” may be of a different gender, but we're all the same species. When you wall in the other gender, you wall in your own at the same time.

Both genders play intricate roles in human society, and the demands of these roles take their toll. Women and men in modern societies often come to a turning point where they want something more than the set role into which they have been born. No one wants to read their life as if from a script. The woman does not want to live out her life as a baby factory; the man rebels against being a workhorse. True civilization calls for better things. Societies where women are suppressed today are almost always stagnant. That is no coincidence.

Many of the people who made America great left a good deal of baggage in the Old World. Although for centuries women lacked the basic legal protection they now have, in reality the responsibility they took on in the new country gave them a good deal more power than they had enjoyed in the old. Female energy is as responsible for the rise of American civilization as male. Women's liberation is not a symptom of an age of plenty that provides room for “that kind of thing.” The opposite is true. Without the frame of mind that calls for women's liberation, we wouldn't have an age of plenty in the first place. Social attitudes and law have to catch up with reality, not the other way around.

No, men and women are not exactly the same. But they are two halves of the same human whole. When circumstances allow, each can have a positive influence on the other. One of the problems between genders is that they tend to need each other. Human beings often become frightened of losing independence and autonomy when they perceive they have a need. If you mix in sexual attraction, love, and a broken heart now and then, you get quite a bubbling brew.

Once again the solution involves the old standbys: Positive Matrix Interruption and Shock leading to a Trope in the form of an attitude shift. You cannot escape gender. You still notice that the other person is of the other gender, but it becomes more of an outside attribute, more of an incidental, as you learn to look to the whole human being. And there are two sides to this. You, also, have a gender. The more deeply ingrained and automatic your own gender reactions are, the less room you have for your individual human attributes. Your being can only be so much at any one time. It pays to use yourself and build yourself efficiently and knock down as many walls as you can while the knocking is good.

Exercise: Gender Differences

• Start a conversation with someone of the opposite gender. Try to make the conversation as profound as possible. Avoid the subject of gender or how men and women get along.

• Listen to both the other person and to yourself. Try to remain sensitive so you can listen for gender differences between the two of you (areas where a person of the same gender as you would probably have said something else or approached an issue from a different vantage point).

• As you listen for the differences, latch on to the similarities. In what ways does the difference between you fade and the common human experience you share come to the fore?

• Repeat the exercise with someone of the same gender as you.