Are men missing a listening gene?

The word ‘listen’ is appearing excessively in the UK news at the moment. The UK health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has been accused on not listening to over 1 million employees of the state funded health system and many experts, advising him that the restructure is unworkable. According to a senior civil servant, Lansley is the ‘worst listener’ he has worked with in a long career serving health ministers.

Now the Prime Minister and Deputy PM have launched a campaign to ‘pause, listen, reflect and improve’

But are men actually any good at listening? Women are renowned as good listeners, but I will freely admit that we also like to talk and share – a lot!

As men get older, they tend to suffer from a well known condition ‘selective deafness’. This complicated filtering system enables them to hear the television, to hear you call ‘dinner’s ready’ and their mates inviting them for a drink. But strangely – ‘can you put the cat out/the tap in the bathroom needs fixing/where shall we go on holiday this year’ becomes white noise, inaudible to the male human ear. Fascinating.

My late, much beloved husband was a fantastic listener in the early days of romance. He would l watch my face intently, his head tilted slightly to one side, his eyes, rich pools of dark treacle, hanging on my every word.  Fast forward to twenty years later and ‘are you listening to me’ was my common cry as he kept his finger on the point in the newspaper he had reached when I tried to talk to him. If we had something important to discuss where I needed his full attention, (like the time he surprised me with a gift of two Labrador puppies and I completely freaked) we used to go out for a meal. This tactic was designed to ensure that a) he wasn’t distracted so would listen and b) I couldn’t yell in a public place!

My grandmother used to believe that men’s listening skills involved ‘in one ear and out the other’ which could explain a lot.

Research has shown that men and women display different listening behaviours. Women need more affirmation that they are being listened to. We need to see the head tilted in concentration, frequent nodding, and obvious engagement. Whereas men were found to view frequent nodding as a sign of absolute agreement.

So it may be that women aren’t better listeners, we are just better at pretending to listen!

In Los Angeles, a recent poll found that a third of women felt that their pet’s listened to them more than their husband. On the other hand, there is a UK dating agency that specifically looks for Japanese brides as apparently they are much more ‘silent and attentive’ than Englishwomen.

I guess there are two sides to every story.....