male/ female attitude to criticsm.

Hubs and I had one of our very few deep and meaningful conversations recently (too many children for that sort of thing). We got onto the subject of criticism (lots of DIY goes on in our household and he gets very tetchy if I say something about it because he hates doing it). Unbeknown to me he takes the view that if someone is criticizing him they are in fact implying that they could have done a better job of it??? He really couldn’t understand that when I criticise that never occurs to me.

Example hubs and father fitted a grate whilst I was in church once. I return sit down on settee opposite and can see that it is sloping. I ask perfectly valid question. Did you use a spirit level (I do have a good eye for whether things are straight hubs and dad don’t, obviously!!) They tried to say they had used one but when we checked it was sloping. Now never in my wildest dreams would I presume that I could have fitted a cast iron grate better than they could, for one thing lifting it alone would have killed me. My criticism was based on the fact that had they used a spirit level THEY could have done a better job!!

He backed his argument with the fact that when people criticise films the directors usually make a comment like “you couldn’t have done any better” (he has every copy of Empire mag published and now rubs in the fact that they have never shafted him, need I say anymore).

We then started to wonder if this is a M/F thing so he checked it out at work. Men took his view, women mine.

It is also rather pertinent I feel because say in the case of “Walker between two worlds”, Jane’s book, if I did find something to criticise in it I certainly wouldn’t be thinking when I was doing so that I could write a better story as that would be an absurd idea.

So what do people think of criticism?