Sensitivity

As I lay in bed watching the corny Jennifer Aniston flick "Friends with Money", the movie made me ponder whether women are really overly sensitive. In the movie, one of Jennifer's rich friends is having marital problems. In one scene she and her husband are working and he sees her eat a cookie or some type of junk food and he turns to her and tells her that her ass is getting fat. She, of course, is appalled and asks him why he would say such a thing to her. He says because he thought she would want to know. She then proceeds to ask him if he would want to know if, say, he had perpetual bad breath. He responds yes he would want her to tell him. He says it wouldn't hurt his feelings at all. So she runs to her other friends and cries about it.

I know that no woman likes being told that she is fat or becoming fat; but are we oversensitive? Throughout time women have always been viewed as the weaker sex and highly emotional creatures prone to sudden outburst; even though we endure more pain than men. We have to endure labor pains, menstrual cramps, menopause and many other physical conditions merely because of our sex. We have had to endure being raped and treated as property for ages. Ye we are considered "fragile" creatures. How is this possible?

I'll tell you how; because we are more open to showing our emotions than men. We are willing to cry and say when our feelings are hurt. We don't see this as a weakness but rather a characteristic of our humanity and a natural form of expression. Yet when we cry because someone calls us fat we are being "too sensitive”. Women as a whole are more in tune with their emotions than men, which is part of the reason why we don't want sex when we are unhappy because for us sexual intercourse is an emotional event not just physical. So that's why we are hurt when you don't call the next day. Most women can't detach their emotions from events.

A woman's sensitivity to another's comments and actions may stem from low self-esteem or self-confidence. I believe the more confident a woman is the less likely she is to take a criticism to heart because she knows who she is and her worth. Often when someone is treated unkind and told disparaging remarks when a child and never made to feel worthy of love; he/she lacks the self-confidence to handle criticism, even constructive criticism.

Another factor to consider is that when society tells us that we aren't beautiful or smart just because we look or act a certain way we become self-conscious about such things or even obsess over them; which is why so many young girls suffer from anorexia. The world has told you that if you don't conform to the standard than you are nothing and to have that ideal re-affirmed by others is a major blow to the psyche and then we wonder why women are so sensitive about things like their weight and looks. Our society has made us that way. We never asked for it and we don't get any pleasure from it. So please stop telling us we're "too sensitive" because we didn't ask to be emotional creatures or for society to make us self-conscious.

My last point I want to make is that when you feel as if you need to point out a fact that will obviously hurt the feelings of the person it's directed toward, there is usually a healthy way to do so which will minimize any hurt feelings. When telling someone something unpleasant you have to take into factor the personality of that person. If the person is a shy meek person with little self-confidence than the direct blunt approach will not work. You will have to use more tact and handle them gently unless you want a mess on your hands. Always think about the person you are confronting and not yourself this will lead to more healthy communication and happier lives.