Appreciating the gift of a houseful of women

I discovered again this Christmas what a gift it is to live in a houseful of women. Surrounded as I was by the laughter and joy in each other’s company of my wife and daughters I did not even miss our gerbil which, when he went to gerbil heaven several months ago, left me alone as the only guy in the place (except, of course, for the power tools).

Don’t get me wrong; I like guys and it can be pretty lonely sitting on the couch being the only one who really appreciates what tremendous value cheerleaders add to professional football games. But living with women can be transforming for a man smart enough to allow that to happen, and not simply because at some point every man living with a woman will be asked if he wants her to paint his toenails or do up his hair (the answer can be yes, but do not allow photos to be taken).

Spend five minutes hearing what women hear, seeing the world the way women do, feeling what women feel, and a guy can discover color in a world he thought was a black-and- white world. Think of yourself as a man named Dorothy stepping out into the Land of Oz for the first time, and you will get the picture.

If you want to know what I mean watch two women who are close friends talk to each other. They are focused like lasers, not just on each other’s words but on each other’s feelings. They are absorbed in the moment of each other’s company, and enjoying the time as though it was a glass of fine wine. About the only time a guy focuses that hard on what’s in another guy’s head is if one is doing brain surgery on the other. Even then the surgeon would probably be talking to the anesthesiologist about the New England Patriots. Women pay closer attention to those they love because they are looking for what the loved one needs. I have learned that from my houseful of women, though not yet how to do it consistently or well.

If a man wants to feel how the world feels he just needs to pay attention to the women he lives with. Women, I think, feel the world’s pain more deeply and personally than most men, in part perhaps because much of that pain is borne by other women. Sitting on the couch with them watching the news of war is different to me than it would be with a group of men. You can feel the tragedy of war register differently, and feel the lives lost hit home differently, in part because women often feel the agony born by other women who have lost their men as though they might lose their own man. Their empathy makes the losses of the war more real to me, and makes me more likely to understand the real costs of war.

Women may be a blessing to the world but in some parts of the world it is no blessing to be a woman. A man living well with women in his home feels the vulnerability of women everywhere, and on every day. Listen to three women watching a TV news story about a tragedy that has befallen some other woman at the hands of a man; if a man has even one antenna out at that moment he can feel their knowledge of their vulnerability, as well as their sadness and anger. As a doctor, knowing of that vulnerability has changed how I treat women in the emergency department; I invite them to dress before we sit down and talk after a pelvic exam, for example. Real men seek ways to make the women around them feel less vulnerable without making them feel less free.

For a man living in a houseful of women there is no greater gift than to live with them here, for geography is often a woman’s destiny in this world. In Africa more than 60 percent of the 3 million new HIV infections each year are in young women, and more than a million women are dying there each year of AIDS. In some of its countries more than 40 percent of the adult population is infected. There and everywhere, hunger, disease, war and violence, and social customs that disenfranchise disproportionately affect women. When it rains on much of the world it is women (and children) who get soaked.

The simple act of the cosmic stork plunking them down in our home in this country means a profoundly different life for my daughters. It has meant they leave our home clad in confidence, education and great dreams. It has armed them with a strong sense of their own rights, and the courage to say no when they mean it. It means much less exposure to deadly risk than many women elsewhere experience every day, and a life with much less fear for themselves, their children, and their men. What father anywhere in the world would not want that for his daughters? And mine have it, which reminds me to count my blessings each and every day, another lesson to be learned in this estrogen palace I call home.

I got some great stuff this Christmas, and rightly so, given that I have been such a good boy this year. The best thing I got for Christmas, however, was realizing again what a great gift it has been for this man to live in a houseful of women.

Erik Steele, D.O., a physician in Bangor, is chief medical officer of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.