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TVC BOOK REVIEW
Author Sinks Teeth Into The Gender Gap
Title: He & She: 60 Significant Differences Between Men and Women Author: Cris Evatt
Publisher: Conari Press - Berkeley, California
T
he world of gender studies is bustling these days with psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, physiologists and sociobiolo- gists. An then there is Cris Evatt, dental hygienist.
Evatt, 48, has written several books on organizing your life, but her new book, "He & She: 60 Significant Differences Between Men and Women," plunges into the controversial waters of gen- der differentiation. It's a self-help book for a problem that, Evatt believes, remains largely univer- sal.
.And despite its Pop Art pa- perback cover and breezy edito- rial format, the book attempts to clarify the mysteries of why "he never seems to listen" or "she's always talking on the telephone."
Noting in the introduction that the divorce rate still hovers at about 50% with no sign of a downward shift, Evatt quotes Howard Markham of the Univer- sity of Denver's Center for Mari- tal and Family Studies that "mis-
...the book attempts to clarify the mysteries of why "he never seems to listen" or "she's always talking on the telephone."
understood gender differences are one of the biggest causes of divorce."
Says Evatt, who has been hap- pily married for five years: "I wrote this book for two reasons- first, my own curiosity and sec- ond, to help men and women get along."
She spent two years research- ing contemporary books and ar- ticles on gender, combing. through the academic debates: Are men and women becoming more alike or less alike? Are stereotypical roles blurring or becoming more pronounced? Are men's and women's differences essentially biological or the re-
Are men and women becoming more alike or less alike? Are stereo- typical roles blurring or becoming more pro- nounced? Are men's and women's differences essentially biological or the result of socialization?
sult of socialization?
Then Evatt distilled the infor- mation into a guidebook, de- signed to be picked up in a free moment by busy adults.
The 60 traits-including worrying, seeking attention, jealousy, friendship-are clus- tered into 11 chapters under specific headings, ranging from "Intimacy Seekers" to "Commu- nications Gap." A true-false test and a "Gender Tenscale" also aid in self-analysis.
At Berkeley's Conari Press, Julie Bennett says the publisher chose the book because "it's just an amazing compilation of ob- servations from people of all viewpoints."
The book lists some 180 sources, from Virginia Adams'
It
"Getting at the Heart of Jealous Love" to Dan Zevins's "The Secret of Boys Clubs Revealed." doesn't purport to be the final voice on anything, Bennett adds: "It's a good jumping-off point for people to examine their relation- ships with the other sex."
For Evatt, the research expe- rience was a lesson in self-under- standing.
She grew up in Fresno, at- tended UCLA and went to Northwestern University to become a dental hygienist be- cause it looked like a good ca- reer for women who wanted security and the freedom to pursue other interests.
"This was back in 1963, when there were different pro- fessions for men and women," she said in a telephone inter- view.
She moved to Marin County, dabbled in the human potential movement and wrote her first book after hearing est founder Werner Erhard exhort a San Fran- cisco audience to "look into your life, find something you do well and share that with the world."
Evatt went home, looked into her immaculate closet, wrote a little book called "How to Orga- nize Your Closet . . . and Your Life!" and was sent on a success- ful promotional tour by Ballantine Books, which published 100,00 copies.
The next book "came out of the blue" as Evatt pondered a string of unsuccessful personal relationships. "Like a revelation, I suddenly had the thought that there are two kinds of people [in any relationship]-givers and tak-
ers. I started writing traits of both kinds on little note cards," she says. Out of that came a 1983 book called "The Givers and the Takers," which is now in its fifth printing at Fawcett.
Although Evatt hadn't as- signed gender to any specific giver or taker traits, her readers did. After the book was published, she received a "whole huge stack of letters from giver-women." She didn't get any letters from "giver- men."
"3
"I thought, 'Wow! All these women listening to men being so self-centered," she says. That's when she began researching gen- der traits, which led to "He & She."
"The research was really fas- cinating," she says. "I'm not a reader, really, but for the past two years, I've been obsessed with this subject."
Although Evatt discusses 60 traits and how they differ be- tween men and women, her book
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AUTHOR SINKS TEETH INTO GENDER GAP
is based on a primary theme: Women tend to be other-focused and men tend to be self-focused.
While recognizing that this could be interpreted as a sexist stereotype, she nevertheless thinks it can be a useful litmus test for most relationships. "My whole background is to simplify things, so this is gender differ- ences simplified," says Evatt, who is something of a simplification specialist: She has also written books on how to pack a suitcase and how to organize your entire house.
"This book doesn't urge women to become more like men, or men to become more like women. It's about retaining gen- der traits that serve us-both in- dividually and collectively-and modifying or dropping traits that do not," she adds.
Evatt says the research has changed her own behavior: "I used to be more clingy-and I tended to play second fiddle. I
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had to develop some indepen- dence before I could appreciate a man who valued what I was do- ing."
Her husband, environmental- ist-contractor David Williams is "an extremely balanced male," she says. "His sense of self and oth- ers is equal. Actually, there are quite a few men like that, but you can't really appreciate them until you become balanced yourself. A
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