Male Answer Syndrome

http://www.profitablehospitality.com/public/images/MAS%20Male%20Answer%20Syndrome.pdf

This is one of the latest thought provoking questions i have been asked.

~What is common between men and tiles?

"If you lay them well first time, you can walk all over

them all your life". I found this excerpt as I was emptying my bookshelves.

It is called `Male Answer Syndrome: Why Men always have opinions,

even on subjects they know nothing about' -- by Jane Campbell

(from Utne Reader, Jan/Feb 1992) "In the animal kingdom, males exhibit what is known as "display

behavior" in order to attract females and to ward off rival

males. They thrust out their chests, ruffle their plumage, and

generally try to appear more impressive than they really are. On

nature shows, this is comic. It appears comic, too, when it shows

up among humans: the guy in the Camaro with all the gold chains,

say, or Vanilla Ice's haircut. Lately however, it has been

discovered that display behavior is much more common among humans

than had been previously believed.

Have you ever wondered why:

* Men who have never been west of Kentucky can tell you

about the mentality of the Japanese?

* Men who can't pay their credit card bills have a plan

for dealing with the national debt?

* Men who aren't on speaking terms with their families

know how to achieve peace in the Middle East?

* Men who flunked high school Physics can explain whta

went wrong at NASA?

* Men who haven't had a date in six months know what

women really want? Try an experiment: Ask my friend Jeff, who spends his

weekend fixing up his Harley, and watching female mud-wrestling,

how he thinks political autonomy will affect the economies of the

Baltic States.

His brow will furrow; he will purse his lips

thoughtfully. "It's interesting that you mention that...", he

will begin, and then he will come up with something -- probably

nothing remotely feasible, but something. This behavior--the chronic answering of questions regardless of

actual knowledge--is known as Male Answer Syndrome. The

Compulsion to answer varies from person to person, but few men

are happy saying "I don't know". They prefer "That's not what's

important here". They try not to get bogged down by petty considerations such as

"Do I know anything about this subject?" or "Is what I have to

say interesting?" They take a broad view of questions, treating

them less as requests for specific pieces of information than as

invitations to expand on some theories, air a few prejudices, and

tell a couple of jokes. Some men seem to regard life as a talk

show on which they are the star guest.If you ask, "What is the

capital of Venezuela?" they hear, "So tell us a bit about your

early years, Bob".

Sometimes this expansiveness is appealing. If you ask a

woman "Wy does Mary Hart wear those sweaters?" she will shrug

helplessly, acknowledging taht some things are simply unknowable.

A man, on the other hand, will come up with a few theories (she

is related to the designer? color-blind?). Men have the courage

and inventiveness to try to explain the inexplicable.

But Male Answer Syndrome (MAS) is by no means harmless,

as my friend Pauline discovered at the age of 8. She had found

that eating icecream made her teeth hurt and asked her father if

Eskimos had the same problem. "No", he said. "They have rubber

teeth". Pauline repeated this information in a geography lesson

and found herself the laughing stock of the class. That was how

she learned that a man, even if he is your own father, would

rather make up an answer than admit to his own ignorance.

Later in life women run into the same problem: Men can

speak with such conviction that women may be fooled into thinking

that they actually know what they are talking about.

A woman who finds herself in the midst of an impassioned

argument about glasnost may suffer from an eerie sense of

displacement. Has a weird time-space warp landed her in the

Kremlin? No, she's in the mailroom with Dave and Bob, who she

knows for a fact read only the sports pages.

My friend Jeff (he of the Harley) is full of expertise on

subjects as diverse as global warming and Elvis' current

whereabouts. In reality however, he is an expert at only one

thing: making a little knowledge go a very long way. For him

answering is a game, and not knowing what he is talking about

just adds to the thrill.

Expressing skepticism can be highly inflammatory. Even

mild-mannered Abe Lincoln types may react to "Are you sure about

that?" as a vicious slur on their manhood and find themselves

backing up a ludicrous assertion with spurious facts.

Many women actively encourage male answering behavior.

There is in the feamle a correlative condition known as the Say

What? Complex. Women who behind closed doors expound eloquently on

particle physics may be found, in male company, gaping at the

news that the earth is round.

MAS tends to be mild until puberty; boys begin to speak

with authority on matters of foreign policy at the same time that

they start to grow facial hair. And there is a growing consensus

among scientists as to how MAS developed: Since killing woolly

mammoths and attacking enemies with rocks are now frowned upon,

and since shirts open to the navel are not appropriate in every

social occasion, men prove their masculinity by concocting

elaborate theories about football.

Growing awareness of MAS has led some to call for a

moratorium on all male-female conversation. This is alarmist. But

care should be taken. Womwn must remind themselves that if a man

tells them something particularly interesting, there is a good

chance that is particularly untrue. "