Gender War of Words: Why a Man Should Never Argue with a Woman

There are three women in our household. The youngest of them is six years old, a kindergartener, and I can't even win an argument with her. My son does no better. He loses argument after argument with his mom, older sister, and younger sister. He uhms, ahs and uhs, and climaxes his loss of words with a frustrating sigh...just like his dad.

Feeling his pain, I self-talk, "I know, Son. That's just not our strong suit when facing the female species. It took me decades to learn that. I hope you learn it much sooner. That's why I rarely argue with your mom anymore. I have lost verbal battles too many to count."

It all starts in the mind, and one would think the man should have the edge here. Not so fast. We are talking something much more useful than IQ ranking. The male brain may be 9% larger than the female's, but the female brain has "10% more neurons located in the part of the brain that is responsible for language". Not only that, but the hippocampus, the part of the brain that handles emotions, is larger in women than in men. And that's the root of our verbal disability.

That scientific reality makes it futile for a male to go tongue to tongue against a woman. Yet the average Joe keeps stumbling into debates with a woman, thinking he stands a chance at winning the verbal bout. He enters the wordy arena aiming to argue facts and figures, but the female comes armed with a quiver full of instincts, intuition and emotions...these make for an arsenal of much superior weapons.

Here is what fools guys into thinking they can take on women verbally. Typically a man is strong with his hands. Since he fights best with his hands, he wrongly concludes he can fight just as well with his words. Then he discovers the woman is strongest at the tongue level; she’s a champion and a giant at waging words, wielding tongue.

A man's limited vocabulary matched up against a woman's unlimited vocabulary is a prescription for male defeat and female triumph almost every time the two engage in an argument.

Women can follow numerous trails when arguing, while men are one-track in their argument. A woman can change subjects several times during an argument and still find her way back to what the argument was about to begin with. A man, on the other hand, gets lost the very first time the subject of the argument changes. It's like a guy getting lost on a trip; he yearns for a map, but in the heat of an argument, there is no such thing as a verbal map, no equivalent of a MapQuest or GPS.

Look, man, the dust has settled, and the chips are in: In every argument with a woman, she WILL have the last word. Since scoring the last point is often a man's definition of winning, he has lost the gender war of words before it even starts, since it is a predetermined fact that the woman will have the last word just about every time. And in those few exceptions which she may give you the last word, she will make sure you pay a high and lingering price that will deter you from seeking the last word during the next round.

I teach a biblical manhood class called Genesis Men, and my advice to the guys is simple: Never argue with a woman. Unless you enjoy being tongue-lashed. Unless you don't mind scrambling for words, then becoming empty of words, then getting to throwing fits and fists as you get verbally whipped by the girl, who's just scratching the surface of her vocabulary reserve. Give it up, man. You can't win. It's her game. It's her arena, and she owns the floor. Why prolong the agony? Hurry up and lose the argument, because she’s designed to be an argument champion over her male counterpart...naturally.

Source quoted: families.com