Men’s desire to be right is a defense mechanism against female cruelty.

I am a male, and I have been accused of my need to be right hundreds, if not thousands of times over the course of my life. The most interesting fact about these accusations was that, with only one exception, all of them were coming from women. I never noticed it, of course, men aren’t socialized to notice such things about women, I thought it meant there was something wrong with me.

Men don’t accuse each other of wanting to be right, just like women don’t accuse each other of being emotional. Women allow each other to be emotional, and men allow each other to be right. Being right and wrong is their code words for not hurting each other’s feelings. Which is why respect can be a hot button issue for men, it’s another one of their code words for not hurting each other emotionally.

Men aren’t socialized to express their feelings, they suppress a ton of them, much more so than women do. For a woman, her feelings are never wrong, which is actually a much healthier approach to one’s emotionality, but both genders assign responsibility for their feelings to another person, just in seemingly different ways. So when a conflict arises, a woman doesn’t need to be “right”, she is upset, she knows it and she knows damn well it’s his fault. He may be upset as well, or feel ashamed, or feel guilty, but he’s not allowed to express his emotions as freely, leave alone blaming her for them. This is just how men are socialized. Anger is one of the few emotions men express freely, so if you’re making him angry, he may tell you so and blame you for it. But “you’re always making me feel so guilty” is not a thing most men would feel free to say, even though they often times feel that way.

So what’s left to do for the poor chap who’s not in touch with how your aggression makes him feel? He can say “But I didn’t do anything wrong”, in other words, start to defend himself logically. Or he may point out your own wrongdoings, logically, without admitting that you hurt him. Wanting to be right could also be his way to express his own aggression towards you - instead of admitting that he’s upset with you he might start explaining to you how wrong you are. This is what women hate in conflict with men, just like men hate it when women get emotional. Both genders are uncomfortable with their very own weaknesses.

Next time you feel the inclination to accuse a man of always wanting to be right in a personal conflict, ask him instead how what you said made him feel and be ready to listen. If you’re not ready to listen and be respectful of his emotional experience, then you might as well continue telling him what’s wrong with him, because you’re already callous.

And if you dislike his propensity of wanting to be right in factual, rather than personal arguments, then don’t argue. That’s just your own insecurity. Factual arguments are factual, and it always takes two to argue. You can’t argue and then accuse him of wanting to be right. If he wants to argue about the height of Mount Everest while you do not, it’s his problem, not yours. Respectfully explain that you don’t want to argue and leave it at that. Or open Wikipedia and settle it once and for all, lol.

Now, of course, what I said is a generalization, just a certain tendency of gender-related conflict, not a rule. Men and women are all different and come in all shapes and sizes. But then again, that was not the premise of the original question.