Christian Couder's Blog

In the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus book, there are many other great parts. For example there is one about how men give points that shows that forgiving a man is a good way to get a lot of points.

If he has made a mistake and feels embarassed, sorry, or ashamed, then he needs her love more; therefore he gives more points if she responds by being supportive. The bigger the mistake, the more points he gives her for her love.

There is also a whole chapter about love letters.

When we are upset, disappointed, frustrated, or angry it is difficult to communicate lovingly. When negative emotions come up, we tend momentarily to lose our loving feelings of trust, caring, understanding, acceptance, appreciation, and respect. At such times, even with the best intentions, talking turns into fighting. In the heat of the moment, we do not remember how to communicate in a way that works for our partner or for us.

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These are the times when talking does not work. Fortunately there is another alternative. Instead of verbally sharing your feelings with your partner, write him or her a letter. Writing letters allow you to listen to your own feelings without worrying about hurting your partner. By freely expressing and listening to your own feelings, you automatically become more centered and loving. As men write letters they become more caring, understanding, and respectful; as women write letters they become more trusting, accepting, and appreciative.

Writing out your negative feelings is an excellent way to become aware of how unloving you may sound. With this greater awareness you can adjust your approach. In addition, by writing out your negative emotions their intensity can be released, making room for positive feelings to be felt again. Having become more centered, you can then go to your partner and speak to him or her in a more loving way - a way that is less judgmental or blaming. As a result, your chances of being understood and accepted are much greater.

After writing your letter you may no longer feel a need to talk. Instead you could become inspired to do something loving for your partner. Whether you share the feelings in your letter or you just write a letter to feel better, writing down your feelings is an important tool.

Here is yet another speech I gave at my Toastmaster club on the 24th of April 2013. It is based on the great content I found on the following web sites:

• Wikipedia entry about the Stereotype Threat
• Where are the role models for British girls?
• Girls go geek again

In some of my previous speeches, I talked about the media. In other speeches, I could have talked about them too. What I often said or could have said about them is that the picture they show about many important things is very different from reality.

In this speech I will first explain why there is such a big difference between reality and what the media show. Then I will talk about an important example which is the relationship between media and the situation of women in our society. I will eventually talk about what we can do to improve things.

To explain the difference between reality and what the media show, I need first to talk about stereotypes. Even if we all say that we don't believe in stereotypes, we are all affected by some stereotypes. There are psychological tests that show this.

For example one stereotype that exists is that men are better than women at maths. And a test that shows how it affects us is the following: some female students with the same average math grades are given a math test. Before the test some students are given an article about what it means to be a woman and the other students are given an article that has nothing to do about genders. The result of such tests is that the women who have been given the article about what it means to be a woman will perform worse than the other students.

In psychology this way that stereotypes affect all of us is called the stereotype threat. It affects everyone, regular people and people in the media.

So people in the media are affected by stereotypes and also to please their audience they have an incentive to conform to the stereotypes of their audience. So they will show or tell things that are more likely to conform to them.

The result is that there are vicious circles that reinforce stereotypes.

In many cases there is a race to the bottom, as in the case of english tabloids, or the fact that science nearly completely disappeared from mainstream media.

In other cases, like for example about violence, there is a complete disconnection with reality, because the way it is shown in the media now has nothing to do with reality.

Another important case of reinforced stereotypes is the situation of women in our society. I am going to talk specially about it, because as a guy working with computers I am often asked these days by women why aren't there more women working with computers.

What is funny is that there are not many women asking why aren't there more female electricians? Or more female mechanics? Though only one percent of the electricians and 2 percent of the mechanics are female.

Of course it's not very difficult to become an electrician or a mechanic, it doesn't require an advanced degree in anything. So the reason there are not many women is of course that there are very few women attracted by these jobs.

In the same way 10% of the people studying electrical engineering are women versus 30% of those studying aeronautics or space engineering. So, for some reason, aeronautics and space engineering seems much more attractive than electrical engineering for women.

In some east european countries there are also a quite high percentage of software engineers who are women (30%), compared to western european countries. This is because the soviet propaganda used to show a lot of men and women doing the same technical work.

In the UK, one country with a very low percentage of women in software engineering, there are now organisations dedicated to campaign against heavily stereotyped and limiting role models for young girls.

One of them is called Pinkstinks. It focuses on promoting "real" female role models who achieve "real" things.

The woman who founded this organization says things like: "British culture has been totally pornified. Men think it's normal and expect young women to not have any body hair and, god, if she does, she must be a hairy lesbian. Society now thinks it's empowering for women to go to pole dancing classes on a Saturday morning, encouraging them to make the most of their femininity - what type of irresponsible message is this sending to our young girls? That you have to conform to what the sex industry wants, in order for you to be accepted as a real female?"

She says there is a disturbing situation in Britain, where people are celebrated just for being famous, making young girls believe these are the type of women they should be looking up to and aspiring to be.

"We call it pinkification. Girls are taught literally from when they're born that what you look like is the most important thing in life. You must look perfect and girly to be a WAG, model or reality TV star."

So what are the solutions to the problem that media reinforce stereotypes?

First we should try to address the root causes and not the simptoms.

Also this problem should not be mixed with sexism or racism. When people are doing worse in a test, because they think they are not a good fit for what they are doing, then blaming the people evaluating the results of the test is counterproductive.

And I don't think that any strict solutions like quotas could work.

My opinion is that they have a lot of problems. For example you cannot realistically force female students to become electrical engineers if they don't want to. No more that you can force women to become electrician or mechanic.

Or that you can force men to attend saturday morning pole dancing classes. Toastmasters meetings might get male speakers with more exciting body language, but it will not prevent the race to the bottom to continue.

My opinion is that there is no simple solution. One of the best way is to educate people, especially young people and people in the media about the stereotype threat, and about the way the media are reinforcing the stereotypes.

Some studies says that teaching people about the stereotype threat before a test is sufficient to eliminate its effects. One other way is to teach people that the amount of effort spent to learn something is much more important than any other stereotype related criteria. And there are other ways like self affirmation and making everyone feel welcomed.

This means that everyone should know that even if it looks a little bit more difficult to succeed in a field, when you go against a stereotype, it is certainly possible, and it can be made much easier.

And it is a good way to affirmate oneself to do something that goes against stereotypes and often it gives bigger and more meaningful successes.

To conclude I would say that it's everyone's responsability to recognize that stereotypes exists, that media are often reinforcing them, that they are a problem because they contribute to perpetuate some inequalities, some myths and some unhappyness.

The real solution is to make people aware of how stereotypes work, and the ways like self affirmation and emphathizing the role of effort that can reduce them.

And also everyone can and should do what Gandhi suggested that is: be the change that you want to see in the world. So go against the stereotypes you don't like. Don't let them constrain you in any way. It is the modern way to fight for liberty.

Because if we don't do that then it means that we condamn ourselves to have our lives more and more unconsciously constrained, to let a few others decide what we should do for a living and what we should eat, how we should look like, how we should behave, who we should love and how, and in the end what we should think.

Related to giving and receiving, an interesting part of the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus book, is the question of what we should give to please our partner.

The author says that women like to receive gifts of love frequently and that "no matter how big or small a gift of love is, it scores one point; each gift has equal value". Men often don't understand that and focus their energies into big gifts.

Among the many things that can score points with a woman the author lists:

• Resist the temptation to solve her problems - empathize instead.

• Validate her feelings when she is upset.

• Whenever her feelings have been hurt, give her some empathy and tell her "I am sorry you feel hurt." Then be silent; let her feel your understanding of her hurt. Don't offer solutions or explanations why her hurt is not your fault.

• Call her from work to ask how she is or to share something exciting or to tell her "I love you".

• Display affection in public.

• Pay more attention to her than to others in public.

• Surprise her with a love note or poem.

• When listening to her talk, use eye contact.

Then the author says:

"It's magic when a man does little things for his woman. It keeps her love tank full and the score even. When the score is even, or almost even, a woman knows she is loved, which makes her more trusting and loving in return. When a woman knows she's loved, she can love without resentment."

"Doing little things for a woman is also healing for a man. In fact, those little things will tend to heal his resentments as well as hers. He begins to feel powerful and effective because she's getting the care she needs. Both are then fullfilled."

This part of the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus book explains how women can learn to receive by setting limits.

As a man experiences limits, he is motivated to give more. Through respecting limits, he automatically is motivated to question the effectiveness of his behavior patterns and to start making changes. When a woman realizes that in order to receive she needs to set limits, then automatically she begins to forgive her partner and explore new ways of asking for and receiving support. When a woman sets limits, she gradually learns to relax and receive more.

Learning to receive

Setting limits and receiving are very scary for a woman. She is commonly afraid of needing too much and then being rejected, judged, abandonned. Rejection, judgement, and abandonment are most painful because deep inside her unconscious she holds the incorrect belief that she is unworthy of receiving more. This belief was formed and reinforced in childhood every time she had to suppress her feelings, needs, or wishes.

A woman is particularly vulnerable to the negative and incorrect belief that she doesn't deserve to be loved.

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Because she is afraid of not being supported, she unknowingly pushes away the support she needs. When a man receives the message that she doesn't trust him to fulfill her needs, then he feels immediately rejected and is turned off. Her hopelessness and mistrust transform her valid needs into desperate expressions od neediness and communicate to him the message that she doesn't trust him to support her. Ironically, men are primarily motivated by being needed, but are turned off by neediness.

At such times, a woman mistakenly assumes that having needs has turned him off when in truth it is her hopelessness, desperation, and mistrust that has done so. Without recognizing that men need to be trusted, it is difficult and confusing for women to understand the difference between needing and neediness.

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For women, not only is needing others confusing but being disappointed or abandoned is especially painful, even in the smallest ways. It is not easy for her to depend on others and then be ignored, forgotten, or dismissed. Needing others puts her in a vulnerable position. Being ignored or dispointed hurts more because it affirms the incorrect belief that she is unworthy.

Sometime ago my wife and I were given a DVD in french about a ''Mars and Venus'' show by Paul Dewandre. We watched the DVD and found it very funny, very true and very insightful. This DVD is based on a stage show that Paul Dewandre has been running very successfully in France and french speaking countries since 2006.

Paul Dewandre based his show on the very famous Mars and Venus books and relationship couseling teachings by John Gray.

So I decided to buy the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus book by John Gray. This book has sold more than 50 million copies and it was the "highest ranked work of nonfiction" of the 1990s. I found this book to be quite different from Paul Dewandre's show, but very true and insightful too.

What I find very interesting is that the book is based on the following idea:

Gender insight helps us to be more tolerant and forgiving when someone doesn't respond the way we think he or she should.

The above idea is the first thing that is highlighted in the Introduction to the Paperback Edition. And what I like about it is that it talks about being tolerant and forgiving. There are many blog posts on this blog about forgiveness.

Other interesting ideas hightlighted in the Introduction are:

We too easily blame our problems on our partners rather than our own approach.

Gender differences show up the most after getting involved in an intimate relationship, having children together, or when we are under a lot of stress.

Men often complain, She is over-reacting and women complain, He doesn't listen!

When we correctly interpret a situation it is never as bad as we thought.

Here is yet another extract from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Fatima appeared at the entrance to the tent. The two walked out among the palms. The boy knew that it was a violation of the Tradition, but that didn't matter to him now.

"I'm going away," he said. "And I want you to know that I'm coming back. I love you because ..."

"Don't say anything," Fatima interrupted. "One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."

But the boy continued, "I had a dream, and I met with a king. I sold crystal and crossed the desert. And, because the tribes declared war, I went to the well, seeking the alchemist. So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you."

The two embraced. It was the first time either had touched the other.

"I'll be back," the boy said.

"Before this, I always looked to the desert with longing," said Fatima. "Now it will be with hope. My father went away one day, but he returned to my mother, and he has always come back since then."

They said nothing else. They walked a bit farther among the palms, and then the boy left her at the entrance to her tent.

"I'll return, just as your father came back to your mother," he said.

He saw that Fatima's eyes were filled with tears.

"You're crying?"

"I'm a woman of the desert," she said, averting her face. "But above all, I'm a woman."

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From that day on, it was the desert that would be important. She would look to it every day, and would try to guess which star the boy was following in search of his treasure. She would have to send her kisses on the wind, hoping that the wind would touch the boy's face, and would tell him that she was alive. That she was waiting for him, a woman awaiting a courageous man in search of his treasure. From that day on, the desert would represent only one thing to her: the hope for his return.

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"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."

The man was speaking the language of alchemy. But the boy knew that he was referring to Fatima.

Here is another extract from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I love the way he describes this kind of encounter.

Finally, a young woman approached who was not dressed in black. She had a vessel on her shoulder, and her head was covered by a veil, but her face was uncovered. The boy approached her to ask about the alchemist.

At that moment, it seemed to him that time stood still, and the Soul of the World surged within him. When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke - the languagethat everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certanly an omen - the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert.

It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming commited. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it's easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

Maktub, thought the boy.

The Englishman shook the boy: "Come on, ask her!"

The boy stepped closer to the girl, and when she smiled, he did the same.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Fatima," the girl said, averting her eyes.

"That's what some women in my country are called."

"It's the name of the Prophet's daughter," Fatima said. "The invaders carried the name everywhere." The beautiful girl spoke of the invaders with pride.

The Englishman prodded him, and the boy asked her about the man who cured people's illnesses.

"That's the man who knows all the secrets of the world," she said. "He communicates with the genies of the desert."

The genies were the spirits of good and evil. And the girl pointed to the south, indicating that it was there the strange man lived. Then she filled her vessel with water and left.

I saw this story about a boat being seized by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) a few days ago and it looks to me like the result of an unfortunately very usual lack of forgiveness.

What is kind of funny, or sad depending how you see it, is that I am sure both of the people involved, the male writer who want his boat to cross the Canada/USA border, on one side, and the female DHS agent who seized it, on the other side, are both thinking that they are acting in good faith, that they have done what they could to nicely solve the problem and that most of all they didn't accept what the other asked for because of their integrity.

If you look at the comment you will see a lot of them saying things like: "Integrity! It’s so refreshing, thank you." But I am sure the colleagues of the DHS agent are also praising her for her integrity, because she did not let the guy get away with his boat without signing the form as is.

But I don't think it is really integrity that is at stake in this case. Because it is not a corruption problem at all. It is just a question of an amount on a form that might be a little different from what it should be. And in fact even that is not sure because it might have happened that the conversion rate on that day was exactly 1.00, so that it was exactly the same amount in canadian and american dollars. Or something else. It might even just be a simple misunderstanding.

That's why I think the problem is really a problem of big egos. It would have been a very small effort to do what the other asked, but no, both of them chose not to compromise.

It makes me think that even if we manage to take care all the technical problems in the world and to live in a world of material abundance, there will still be many people who will find a way not to be happy because they will be so upset about this kind of problems.

Why don't people realize that a little bit of forgiveness is really needed and goes a long way in those cases?

Instead it looks like people prefer to escalate these problems to their lawyer or boss, and to accuse the other side of things like "I’ll probably get droned now, too" or "The officer in question vilified by this rich individual now has to endure all the grief posted here and elsewhere by Mr rich guy".

How long will it last? What do they expect? That they will become heroes this way?

And what the next step is going to be in this way? Is the DHS agent going to sue the guy for harassing her on the Internet? Will the guy be tortured by DHS agent at each airport?

Can't they realize that the real solution is to overcome their fear, forgive and talk to each other, to find a simple, cheap and effective compromise? And can't the other people around this story realize this too?

On Sunday the 10th of February 2013, so nearly two weeks ago, a very nice young guy died at home from an heart attack. We had been working in the same team since August 2010 when I joined Murex, my current company.

In fact during my first few weeks at Murex, I worked mostly with him learning about a software he was responsible for. Mark knew an incredible amount of thing about the build, the production, the release and the version control systems and tools used in the company. He used to help me, everyone in our team and even in the company very often.

He was also very nice with everyone. When we asked him how he was going, he very often replied "Very, very well!" with his large usual smile. He had a very nice low voice with a charming lebanese accent.

After I came back from a 3 day trip in Lebanon for work in 2011, he asked me a lot of questions about how I liked everything there, what I had learned to say and things like that. I regretted that I hadn't had the time to learn a lot, because if I had, I could have discussed more with him. Everyone talking to him feeled warmly appreciated.

Mark was single, but his father and sister came from Lebanon. There was a short ceremony for him on Thursday, the 21st of February, yesterday morning, just before his body was repatriated. Many very sad colleagues and friends attended.

It is in those kind of moments that you regret a lot not having said to the person how much you liked or loved him or her before.

Here is another extract from the book Aleph by Paulo Coelho. This part of the book is when Hilal forgives.

'We can never wound the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched, even when we have everything we need in order to be happy. If only we could be entirely here, as if we had just woken up on planet Earth and found ourselves inside a golden temple, but we can't.'

'I don't see why I should forgive the man I love. Or perhaps only for one thing, for never having heard those same words on his lips.'

A smell of incense begins to waft towards us. The priests are coming in for morning prayers.

'Forget who you are now and go to the place where the person you always were is waiting. There you will find the right words and then you can forgive me.'

Hilal seeks inspiration in the gilded walls, the pillars, the people entering the church at that early hour, the flames of the lit candles. She closes her eyes, possibly following my suggestion and imagining some music.

'You won't believe this, but I think I can see a girl, a girl who isn't here any more, but who wants to come back...'

I ask her to listen to what the girl has to say.

'The girl forgives you, not because she has become a saint, but because she can no longerbear to carry this burden of hatred. Hating is very wearisome. I don't know if something is changing in Heaven or on Earth, if my soul is being damned or saved, but I feel utterly exhausted and only now do I understand why. I forgive the man who tried to destroy me when I was ten years old. He knew what he was doing, and I did not. But I felt that it was my fault, and I hated him and myself. I hated everyone who came near me, but now my soul is being set free.'

This isn't what I was expecting.

'Forgive everything and everyone, but forgive me too,' I ask her. 'Include me in your forgiveness.'

'I forgive everything and everyone, including you, even though I don't know what crime you have commited. I forgive you because I love you and because you don't love me, I forgive you because you help me stay close to my Devil, even though I haven't thought of him for years. I forgive you because you reject me and my powers are wasted, I forgive you because you don't understand who I am or what I am doing here. I forgive you and the Devil who touched my body before I even knew what life was about. He touched my body, but distorted my soul.'

She put her hands together in prayer. I would have liked her forgiveness to have been exclusively for me, but Hilal is redeeming her whole world, and perhaps that is better still.

Her body starts to tremble. Her eyes fill with tears.

'Must it be here, in a church?' Let's go outside, into the open air. Please!'

'No, it has to be in a church. One day we'll do the same thing outside, but today it has to be in a church. Please, forgive me.'

She closes her eyes and holds her hands aloft. A woman coming into the church sees this gesture and shakes her head disapprovingly. We are in a sacred place, the rituals are different here; we should respect the traditions. I pretend not to notice and feel relieved because Hilal, I realise, is talking with the Spirit who dictates prayers and the true laws, and nothing in the world will distract her now.

'I free myself from hatred through forgiveness and love. I understand that suffering, when it cannot be avoided, is here to help me on my way to glory. I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and all rivers flow into the same sea. That is why I am, at this moment, an instrument of forgiveness, forgiveness for crimes that were committed; one crime I know about, the other I do not.'

Yes, a spirit was talking to her. I knew that spirit and that prayer, which I had learned many years ago in Brazil. It was poken by a little boy then, not a girl. But Hilal was repeating the words that were in the Cosmos waiting to be used when necessary.

Hilal is speaking softly, but the acoustics in the church are so perfect that everything she says seems to reach every corner.

'I forgive the tears I was made to shed, I forgive the pain and the disappointments, I forgive the betrayals and the lies, I forgive the slanders and intrigues, I forgive the hatred and the persecution, I forgive the blows that hurt me, I forgive the wrecked dreams, I forgive the still-born hopes, I forgive the hostility and jealousy, I forgive the indifference and ill will, I forgive the injustice carried out in the name of justice, I forgive the anger and the cruelty, I forgive the neglect and the contempt, I forgive the world and all its evils.'

She lower her arms, opens her eyes and puts her hands to her face. I go over to embrace her, but she stops me with a gesture.

'I haven't finished yet.'

She closes her eyes again and raises her face heavenwards.

'I also forgive myself. May the misfortunes of the past no longer weigh on my heart. Instead of pain and resentment, I choose understanding and compassion. Instead of rebellion, I choose the music from my violin. Instead of vengeance, I choose victory.'

'I will be capable of loving regardless of whether I am loved in return, Of giving even when I have nothing, Of working happily even in the midst of difficulties, Of holding out my hands even when utterly alone and abandoned, Of drying my tears even while I weep, Of believing even when no one believes in me.'

She opens her eyes, places her hands on my head and says with an authority that comes from on high.

'So it is. So it will be.'

A cock crows in the distance. That is the sign. I take her hand and we set off back to the hotel, looking around at the city that is just beginning to wake up. She is clearly somewhat surprised by what she has said, but for me, her words of forgiveness have been the most important part of my journey so far. This is not the final step, however. I still need to know what happens after I finish reading that letter.

We arrive in time for the breakfast with the rest of the group, pack our our bags and head for the train station.

'Hilal will sleep in the empty berth in our carriage,' I say.

No one makes any comment. I can imagine what's going through their minds, but I don't bother explaining that it is not at all what they think.

'Korkmaz git,' says Hilal.

Given the look of surprise on everyone's face, including that of my interpreter, the words are obviously not Russian.

'Korkmaz git,' she says again. 'In Turkish that means "he goes and is not afraid".'

I didn't know that "git" means something in Turkish :-)