"A man would rather have another man’s jealousy than another man’s respect"

By: Kelly

A friend of mine shared this quote with me and told me that it is true of men and asked if it was true of women. I can answer fully that this is not true for women. Men and women have very different ways of viewing jealousy. For men, jealousy is almost a sign of respect. It is more difficult for a man to distinguish between jealousy and admiration than it is for a woman. Just think about it- men are natural competitors and always get into arguments or discussions where they each try to prove that they have the upper hand. I remember the first time I realized that boys did this- it was in kindergarten. I sat at a table with two boys and they would have conversations along these lines:

Joey: “I have five dollars.”
Mark: “Yeah well my mom gave me ten dollars.”
Joey: “Yeah well I bet you don’t have one of these” *pulls out Batman lunchbox*
Mark: (clearly racking his brain for a lie that will elevate his status above Joey’s) “That’s nothing- I have my own Batman costume and everything!”
Joey: (blatantly lying at this point) “I have my own Batmobile!”
*boys start wrestling* Meanwhile…*Kelly rolls her eyes and thinks about stabbing herself with a pencil*

I remember even then thinking how silly it was that boys did that- I didn’t realize it at the time but it’s another form of the classic arguments guys have about whose is bigger. When a guy sees another guy who has what they want- the girls, the status, the traits, the stuff- they don’t look down on that guy or tear him apart. Once they recognize defeat, they establish a grudging respect and admiration. I didn’t understand at the time that the way boys handle jealousy is much more civilized than the way girls handle it.

Girls fight dirty. They take jealousy as a personal assault and do everything in their power to tear the other girl apart. Girls dehumanize those they are jealous of and make them into evil villains while elevating themselves to the status of saints. They feel threatened by the girl who seems to have everything so they try to take those things away through backstabbing gossip. This is one reason why I laugh whenever I hear people say “If women ran the world there would be no war”. I actually think men are the more merciful leaders and that if women ran the world, it would be even more of a bloody mess. Guys are able to move on once defeat is declared and respect the enemy while girls are like elephants- they never forget and never stop at just getting even. Think about it- how many negative adjectives do we have that are distinctly feminine? Catty, ditzy, shallow, bitchy…Now how many negative adjectives do we have that are distinctly masculine? Barbaric, vulgar, obnoxious, ass. The female adjectives describe the way girls are two-faced with their sharp tongues and loose lips while the male adjectives describe the simplistic and straight-forward way that guys approach life. So for men it might be true that jealousy is almost a higher form of respect, but for girls, it is very dangerous to be the one everyone envies.