51: Do Women and Men Support Each Other Differently?

Roula (00:00)
I love this one because I had a conversation with my husband about it and he is so right, so right.

Rosie (00:02)
shit.

Mm-hmm.

Roula (00:21)
here's the thing. When a woman has a problem in something, she goes to her friends, girlfriends, and the girlfriend supports her in a way it amplifies the problem. Men, when they have a problem or they look ridiculous or they did something wrong, the same for girls.

They go to their male friends and their male friends is like, what are you stupid? How do you do something like this? And so men, when they give feedback to each other, they don't their support and not in validating how you're feeling, even if it's wrong or what you did. But women, we validate each other even if what we did is wrong or should not should be different. So my question here.

Rosie (01:02)
Mmm. Mmm.

Roula (01:08)
Okay, this is what I wrote. Two women support each other in an oblivious way, while men bring it straight up and make fun of each other, but not in a bully way. So what do you think?

Rosie (01:21)
You sure it's not a

bully way? I have issue with both because I feel like the approach, we're being stereotypical, but the approach of men you're referring to is very dismissive. It almost invalidates what you're coming to them and you're saying you're having a hard time with. Whereas the example you're giving with women, it just makes the situation worse. You're just going, oh my God, that

Roula (01:42)
This is women

with women and men with men, okay? Yeah.

Rosie (01:45)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it makes it worse. Okay, first of all, I think the number one thing you should do if someone's having a hard time is upset about something. Yes, validate them, be on their side. Go, yeah, that fucking bitch shouldn't have spoken to you like that. my God. Yeah, stuff them, muh, muh, muh. And then you need to actually bring it back down. You've had your rant, it's being validated. And then it's like, okay, let's work through this. Let's not.

continue in this negative spiral of it's all them blah, blah, blah. Let's try and problem solve it. That's what I like. I want to solve the fricking problem. I don't want to feel worse. But then when men are talking with men and they go, oh, what an idiot. That was so stupid. Ho, ho, ho, ho, Okay. Maybe that's funny. Not like that. No. No, I'm being, I'm being very silly. I just, I think.

Roula (02:39)
We're being very sexist

today.

Rosie (02:41)
We are being sexist. is. This is true. But we're leaning into that sexism. Again, I think it can be helpful to make light of the situation. That can be a useful coping mechanism. But then you gotta face reality. Eat your Mandarin like Rula is right now. Face reality. I can hear you peeling it. I can hear you peeling it.

Roula (03:02)
How did you know? Like you don't even see it on the camera

Rosie (03:11)
This woman is obsessed with mandarins. It's her, it's her sustenance for Jim. I think there's issue with both. Okay. I think initially it can be helpful to make fun of it. It can be helpful to have a bitch fest, but if you're going to a friend, at least for me, I want help working through the problem. So if someone comes to me, I want to help them work through it.

Roula (03:16)
Come on, go back to the topic.

Rosie (03:39)
But maybe that's just me. Rula, when you go to your girlfriends, are you wanting to work through the problem? Why do you go to them?

Roula (03:49)
when I go to my girlfriend with my problem?

Yeah, I'm looking for a different perspective. I'm not looking for someone to solve my problem. I'm looking for a different perspective, insight. And I have to do maybe now we're older, we give more real insights. But when I was younger, no, we didn't. And I'm even older. I see I'm in this group of all midlife women and

Rosie (04:01)
Mm-mm. Insights, yeah.

Roula (04:22)
when they complain about something, I see like tons of messages coming in supporting them, supporting them, supporting them. And I'm like, OK, but there is another side for the story. There is something that she's not doing or she's not talking about. It cannot be that she's right in everything she's saying.

Rosie (04:32)
Yeah.

Hmm.

You know, something I struggle with, cause I agree, but sometimes you just want someone to listen and you just want to vent. You don't want to hear their perspective. You just want to word vomit and get it all out. So I've realized sometimes I need to ask my friends, Hey, do you just want me to listen or do you want some advice? And often they just want me to listen. So I just shut up. don't give my unsolicited advice, even though I probably have very strong opinions.

Roula (05:12)
agree with this. At a certain point, you can only listen to a certain extent because when what you're listening to is just becoming something you don't agree with.

Rosie (05:18)
true, then you gotta say shut up.

Mmm.

Roula (05:26)
Then what? Are you still going to support or are you going to say, OK, I know you're not looking for an advice, but OK, but let me make it lighter, lighter. So let's say you have. sorry. You have like drawn your eyebrows in most ridiculous way. OK. And you went to your girlfriend and your girlfriend look at you and think they look amazing. I love them. And then the boyfriend of the girlfriend is thinking.

Rosie (05:28)
Yeah, this is true. Okay. All right.

Yep.

my

Roula (05:56)
They look fucking ridiculous and no one is telling her.

Rosie (05:57)
No.

Yeah.

Roula (06:01)
And

this was actually the trigger of the question with my husband, is that he was telling me, if I see my friend like wearing something ridiculous or doing something to himself, I would tell him, man, this looks ridiculous. And so guys are very flabbergasted by how we support each other, even if it looks ridiculous.

Rosie (06:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's a tough one. that's tough. Cause it's not nice being told it's ridiculous, but also you'd kind of want to hear it. You'd be like, why the hell did you let me go out in public if you thought it looked ridiculous?

Roula (06:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yup.

Rosie (06:43)
That just

makes me think of my eyebrows in the early 2000s. It was very popular to have very thin eyebrows, like one or two hairs thick. Was that a thing in the Netherlands? Yeah. Took me ages to actually grow them out. They were so thin Roula my God. I look back at photos and go, holy crap.

Roula (06:54)
Sure, yeah.

But everyone had them thin. It wasn't like... Yeah, if you didn't have them thin, you would be looking ridiculous. If you had normal, like your normal eyebrows that you didn't peel them all out of, you would look ridiculous. All right, so let's go back. Let's go back to my question.

Rosie (07:07)
Yeah. I guess it was good in the day, wasn't it? But I don't like it now.

Yeah

What was it again?

Roula (07:28)
It was, is it true that women give each other support in an oblivious way just to support each other's rather than bring it straight up like men do it together?

Rosie (07:39)
Hmm.

Roula (07:48)
We don't know. We don't know.

Rosie (07:49)
Yeah,

I don't know. And I don't even know if I agree with those stereotypes. My answer is I don't know. I have issue with all of it, but I don't have the answer.

Roula (08:00)
Okay. All right. Can I say more or no, no, no, I do. I do. Of course. I mean, that's your answer. You're free to answer. I think that with some people we have different kind of relationship where we feel more confident and in the right place to give it straight up what we think with other people. It's not that easy.

Rosie (08:03)
You don't like my answer? Yeah, of course you can. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Roula (08:26)
So it's really how that person, our relationship is this person open. I really like to think like it's always a two street and I'm in a position where I have very much times. I don't know how I'm making the sentence where I am asked to listen and not advice or not give my opinion, especially when you have teenagers or young adults, they just want you to listen.

Rosie (08:31)
Hmm.

Mm-mm.

Right, yeah.

Roula (08:56)
At a certain moment, you wonder until when, because as a human being, you want to say something. And yes, we tell each other, be a good listener, then ask if they want an advice, exactly what you said in the beginning. But for grownup ladies, yeah, I think that we should be like, just tell them, tell them how they screwed up. Tell it straight.

Rosie (09:01)
Yeah.

Of course.

Grown up ladies? What's that mean? Tell it straight.

Yeah, stop beating around the bush. You are a pretty blunt person, but I appreciate that about you.

Roula (09:32)
sometimes.

Rosie (09:33)
all the time. If I say something you don't like, you say, Rosie, no. That's it, no. Anyway, I don't think we answered the question, but it was a good conversation. It was a hard one. Yeah. Let us know.

Roula (09:36)
Alright!

It's a hard one.

Bye!