Do men and women love differently?

So we're reading Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in my Lit. class, and it deals alot with the nature of men's love VS. women's love. We had to write about whether we thought men and women loved differently, and how.

I said that I thought categorizing love by gender was making major generalizations. Everyone expresses love in a unique way, and while gender (or, more likely, gender roles and social stereotypes) may play a part, ultimately I think we love simply as individual human beings, not as men or women.

But what do you all think? Is there a difference in the way men and women love? If so, what is it, and why do you think that is? I'd be really interested to know! ^_^

Ya. I'd be inclined to agree with you there, fireweed. I think it really depends on the individual.

We may not even realize it, but we have all been socialized to at least express our love in different ways based on our gender. (If you don't believe me, take a look at the way you're sitting right now. Don't move, just think about how you've positioned your body. You were probably taught to sit like that based on your gender, even if you didn't realize it. Now, if something as simple as sitting is socialized, then surely we're taught (subliminally or otherwise) how to deal with something important and complex as love, ne?)

Now, of course, there are people who break that mold because everyone is unique and gender is not binary. However, by and large, girls and boys are taught to express their love in different ways (eg: men (traditionally) buy flowers, women (traditionally) cook something). Some of that is starting to change, but we still have gender roles when it comes to expressing love. (The first example that comes to mind is how, in Japan, there are different phrases for "I love you" based on whether the speaker is male or female. It's harder to identify these differences in our own culture because we see and accept them as natural.)

(I haven't the faintest clue about if men and women feel love differently, though.)

Maybe women tend to be more... I don't know, emotional about it all? Going roughly and generally. Maybe they feel it more, and for them, love is nearer hate than it is with men.

If you don't believe me, take a look at the way you're sitting right now. Don't move, just think about how you've positioned your body.

lol, I'm totally slouching like a guy XD


Again going generally, women tend to be more extroverted with their feelings and men tend to be more introverted. But like Meep said, I think this is based more on social conformity than any kind of ingrained, natural thing. Though it would be interesting to see, if there weren't any precedents, how men and women would act towards each other.

Amelia, so'm I. Maybe the experiment works better in public.

Twit, I don't think women feel love any more than men - we're just socialized to show it more. It's more socially acceptable for a woman to express her feelings than for a man to do the same.

So Meep, you think that the differences in how men and women express love are based completely on conforming to gender roles? Obviously, we [i]express[/i] love differently (introverted VS. extroverted, flowers VS. cooking, etc, though of course there are always exceptions to this) but does anyone think there could be deep, genuine differences that aren't just governed by society and tradition?