MALE AND FEMALE REALITY MODEL

Joe Tanenbaum, Male & Female Realities: Understanding the Opposite Sex, Robert Erdmann Publishing, 1990

Women start from the place on the Reality Model labeled "Inclusive Reality" (context, outside physical reality) and move inwardly toward their "spot," never actually being able to reach it. Women's common experience of walking into a room—any room—is that in order to fit in the room, she has to get smaller. Women have to shut off the part of their non-physical experience that is outside the room. Women experience themselves as bigger than the room, and when they enter, it actually limits them. They feel manipulated, suppressed, and controlled by walls, because the walls stop women from having the experience that exists outside the room. (This is not necessarily a conscious feeling for all women, but when this scenario is discussed in women's workshops, all the women nod in recognition.)