The Men we carry in our Minds – Analysis

This paper provides a critical analysis of Scott Russell Sanders' The Men we carry in our Minds, discussing the disconnect between the perception of men and women, and the importance of empathy. The author argues that there is a visible disconnect between the average man’s perception of women, and the average woman’s perception of man. The highlight of his argument is the ability of the person to reflect on the issue when presented, rather than act on it defensively. The ability of the protagonist to empathize with the viewpoint of women, even as he sympathizes with the hardship faced by men all through life is a welcome attitude in bridging the disconnect between the two genders.

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The Men we carry in our Minds – Analysis
In this piece of writing, the author Scott Russell Sanders presents a male perspective of
the usual elephant in the room - gender issue – which everyone sees but hesitates to speak about
(Davis, Davis and Bullock 329). The protagonist of the writing is a young man, who as a boy has
seen men play majorly two roles – soldiers and toilers, and is both amused and thoughtful at the
female perspective of man and his lifestyle. Upon conversation with his female friend, he finds
out that the general opinion of women on men is not good, and that men are to be somehow
guilty for the hardships of women. As it contrasts with his viewpoints, the author provides his
thoughts in the form of a reflection, which forms the main idea of the paper. In this paper, a
critical analysis is provided on the argument, and the evidence provided, and its strengths and
weaknesses analysed.
The author puts forth his argument that there is a visible disconnect between the average
man’s perception of women, and the average woman’s perception of man. As the protagonist
reflects upon the lives of men and women he has seen, he assumes that all men were destined to
do hard work, and women holding the family fort ahead. However, as he sees women catching
up with education and workforce, it would be hard managing both the household and the
workplace. When countered with the female perspective that men are sometimes the reason why

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the females struggled to come to the fore, he reflects on the entirely contrasting world outside of
his understanding, which he hasn’t known before. This viewpoint is put forth by Cotter, Hermsen
and Vanneman(258-289), in their paper, where the authors explain the shift of the workforce
from male dominated to egalitarian. Sanders attributes these disconnect to the different lifestyles,
upbringings, and exposures people of both genders have been subject to, which has shaped their
views.
The highlight of his argument is the ability of the person to reflect on the issue when
presented, rather than act on it defensively. The ability of the protagonist to empathize with the
viewpoint of women, even as he sympathizes with the hardship faced by men all through life is a
welcome attitude in bridging the disconnect between the two genders. In a study by Arnocky and
Stroink (1-14), the authors have attributed empathy as a characteristic which is present more in
women than in men, and even though men are known to empathize, they sympathize more with
their own gender. The explanation of why men and women feel differently about each other is
the article’s major strength. The author however has seen the world from only one perspective,
that of a struggling man who has had it hard in life, and is oblivious to the different strata of
people around him. In the paper by Alesina, Giuliano and Nunn (469-530), the authors focus on
the workplace dynamics of both men and women, and present siomilar results.
The upbringing of the protagonist makes him feel that though both genders have had it
hard, it is the working call male gender that suffers most. This makes him perceive that the
women of thee house have had it easy, and that if asked to choose, he would choose the women’s
role. This is clearly a reflection of the limited exposure of the individual, and this is one
important weakness in the argument of the author, which stems from a skewed observation. This
point is supported by Marks, Lam and McHale (221-234), and Kay, Matuszek and Munson
(3819-3828), where the authors reiterate on the perception of gender roles in children being

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largely influenced by the parents and older people in the family. From the article, we can state
that it is important to view the world from a variety of lenses, which would eliminate
confirmation bias, and enable one get rid of stereotypes, so as to experience the world with all its
variations.
In this essay, Sanders has done a great job by trying to put forth the point of empathy
across the gender barrier, and the fact that there are both men and women who are both
struggling and privileged, and that the struggles of one do not trump that of the other. Thus, we
can conclude that if we open our minds to the varied viewpoints the world presents, we will
empathize with every person’s struggles, and thus, we can make the world a better place to live
in, sans superiority and inferiority complexes.

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WORKS CITED PAGE
Alesina, A, P Giuliano and N Nunn. "On the origins of gender roles: Women and the plough."
The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2013): 469-530.
Arnocky, Steven and M Stroink. "Gender differences in environmentalism: the mediating role of
emotional empathy." Current Research in Social Psychology (2010): 1-14.
Cotter, David, Joan Hermsen and Reeve Vanneman. "The end of the gender revolution? Gender
role attitudes from 1977 to 2008." American Journal of Sociology (2011): 259-89.
Davis, Roger N, et al. Essay Writing for Canadian Students (MLA Update). Pearson, 2017.
Kay, Matthew, C Matuszek and Sean Munson. "Unequal representation and gender stereotypes
in image search results for occupations." Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference
on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM. ACM, 2015. 3819-3828.
Marks, Jaime, Chun Bun Lam and Susan McHale. "Family patterns of gender role attitudes."
Sex roles (2009): 221-234.