Men, Woman And Auto Affairs

In her book “Everything Women Always Wanted to Know About Cars, But Didn’t Know Who to Ask” (Doubleday, 304 pages, $10.95 paperback), author Leslie Hazleton makes fun of the different ways that women and men look at their cars.

For example, she writes, men “see cars as machines” while women “see cars as an integral part of their lives.”

When considering a specific model, “men focus on power” while women “focus on reliability.”

Women, she claims, “are honest and forthright when they talk about cars,” while men “feel they have to pretend to know all about cars.”

Women, too, “talk cars by their experience in them: what happened in and around them, people and places.” Men, though, “talk cars by the numbers: cylinders, horsepower, 0-60 mph, all that tech talk.”

Finally, Hazleton writes, women “think of cars in terms of a relationship (which might be why they have a sense of humor about them”). Men, on the other hand, “think of cars more in terms of a romance (which might be why they have no sense of humor about them).”

As a male who tends to fit the womanly profile when it comes to cars, I was glad to read Hazleton’s caveat to the above list: These differences, she writes, “don’t apply to all women or to all men, of course, but they do represent a very distinct trend.”

Of course.

Speaking of stereotypes: Warren Farrell, the anti-feminist, wrote in his book “Why Men Are the Way They Are” about the differences between men and women, period.

“When a woman is divorced, has two children, no alimony, no child support, and no job experience - that is her experience of powerlessness; when a man is in the hospital with a coronary bypass operation caused by the stress of working two jobs to support two children his former wife won’t let him see, and he feel no other woman will get involved with him because of those very circumstances - that is his experience of powerlessness.”

Power plays: In his book “Who’s On Top, Who’s On Bottom” (Newmarket Press, 254 pages, $19.95), author Robert Schwebel says that most couples get in trouble when their arguments start going in circles.

“This type of stalemate actually represents a peculiar power problem, a breakdown of negotiations,” he writes. “Each person is trying to get what he or she wants by insisting that the partner should do something different. The more each person insists the other one do all the changing, the deeper the problem becomes. Neither realizes that the only way to solve the problem would be by both sides making concessions, ideally at the same time. To succeed requires a creative vision and a cooperative solution. Neither person could solve the problem alone.”

Getting together: A three-day Essential Peacemaking workshop will be facilitated by the movement’s cofounders, Danaan Parry and Jerilyn Brusseau, on Oct. 6-8. For further information, call Don or Magdalena McClockey at 327-1770.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing of keys

MEMO: Common Ground is written on alternating weeks by Dan Webster and Rebecca Nappi. Write to them in care of The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615. Or fax, (509) 459-5098.