YOU ARE UNIQUE!

Women are people-oriented

From birth, females are more tuned in to other people than men are. Studies have shown that a female baby is more reactive and responsive to other human beings than a baby boy. Baby girls smile more. They are more responsive to the cries of other babies in the nursery. They start crying along with another baby more readily than baby boys do.

Baby girls babble more in response to the sight of a human face. At the age of three months, girl babies show great interest in and pay attention to photographs of human faces. Male babies, at the same age, can’t quite distinguish between photos and simple line drawings of both normal and distorted faces. All stimuli are equally acceptable to male infants, while girls prefer photos of human faces. There’s an innately stronger “other people” bias in even the smallest female.

Women form love bonds

A love bond or attachment bond is a force which unites people together. A love bond is characterized by strong and enduring affection. It’s the protective influence that a parent wants to have over a child. It’s the cement that causes a friendship to endure.

Obviously, by definition, men and women both form love bonds; but they seem to mean much more to women than they do to men. Perhaps it’s because a woman is people-oriented, or because of her ability to give singular attention to a relationship, that she places so much more of herself into a love bond than a man does.

Women are powerfully invested in their relationships. They derive a sense of self from these vital emotional connections. Their inner selves become intertwined with others. The way they secretly view themselves and appraise their self-worth is in terms of relationships.

Women are not as aggressive as men

Men seem to have an inborn masculine “aggression factor.” Some would put it this way: men are always ready to fight. Contest is the pattern of life for them. Man has a need to conquer and achieve. He is an activist – an experimenter, an explorer, a builder, a competitor.

Although there are individual women who equal or surpass men in ability to do many of these things, women generally lack the drive to do them. A women finds her fulfillment more in “be-ing.” She does not always have to be doing something or always proving herself. She can conquer, but she finds it much easier being herself.

This sense of being gives her many lovely qualities. It makes her warm and sympathetic – something that someone who is always competing finds difficult to be. To say that women do not have a drive toward aggression is not to say that women do not have aggressive feelings. Far from it! Women experience aggressive feelings, and they can be aggressive when necessary; but there is an innate aggression factor within men that women as a whole do not possess.

Okie okie, sounds like we are one up on men but wait a minute…sometimes our very “qualities’ can cause us to come into depression…

- Depression and the people factor

To be people-oriented is to be tempted to translate success in terms of what others think. Good feelings about ourselves become dependent upon the esteem of those around us. A woman’s feelings of well-being, her sense of worth, are hostage to the attitudes and approval of others or perhaps one very important person.

Depending on what other people think is dangerous. To constantly depend on and evaluate oneself in terms of what others think makes a woman in danger of losing her identity and therefore very vulnerable to depression.

- Depression and the love bond factor

A woman puts so much of herself into her relationships. She cements herself o the ones she loves. And very often, without even realizing it, her very identity gets wrapped up in her love bonds. Depression occurs when important figures leave, the inability to establish another meaningful bond with a peer-partner; a friendship that is growing distant, etc..

A woman’s love bonds are her joy, but they can also be her sorrow.

- Depression and the aggression factor

Both men and women experience aggressive feelings, but they don’t handle them the same way. Because men are hormonally primed to conquer and to do, they tackle the setbacks in life in a similar way. When men fail, their nature is to fight, to challenge, to endure. When women experience setbacks or failure, they respond emotionally or become depressed. Women may feel powerless to do anything and react by withdrawal and silence.

For those who see themselves as powerless, depression can even be a way of power in itself. Sometimes, a person will see that when she is depressed, people pay attention to her – friends, husband, family members, etc. In seeing their reaction, she subconsciously begins to see depression as a tool for power.

Okie, I got this from “Understanding a Woman’s Depression” by Brenda Poinsett. This is just a fraction of what was written in order to understand and appreciate our uniqueness. Have you ever heard the men say, “It is difficult to understand a woman?.” Anyway, I think we can truly enjoy our uniqueness in knowing we are all made different and in order to build lasting relationships, we need to have our expectations found in Christ alone.

I think we can come out of depression sooner when we come to terms with our sense of loss – real or perceived and find our security, self-worth and significance in Jesus. It is in receiving from Him that we truly feel secure, and out of that we are able to bless others in our relationships and friendships. No man or woman can fulfill all our needs…though relationships are important in discovering ourselves and finding our place in His body. By the way men have their unique qualities too...next write-up lah..hehe....no one is "better" we just need to celebrate our differences, not moan over them k!

Psalm 62:5-8

My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge, is in God.
Trust in Him at all times, you people;
Pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us.

-jo-