If you live in a world defined by the feminist narrative, you will believe that men are disposed to abuse women. When it comes to dealing with women, men are
not to be trusted. They are predators, oppressors, liars, cheats and rogues.
To the best of my knowledge the narrative originated in a
book called, The Origin of the Family,
by Friedrich Engels.
Following the narrative, when women seem to be abusing men,
they are defending themselves against the abuse they have suffered for the
better part of their lives.
Given the power imbalance and given male dominance and male
privilege… what else can a woman do?
In this narrative, men and women are in a constant state of
dialectical conflict.
Getting along and living in harmony are signs of selling
out. Those who live such lies refuse to face the dire truth about male/female
relationships in a capitalist patriarchy. Men and women will never get along
with each other until the patriarchal order is overthrown and a new age dawns.
Those who live in this narrative do not really care that women
abuse men emotionally or otherwise. Female abusers are strong and empowered. If privileged men cannot stand up for themselves, it’s their problem.
At the same time, one suspects strongly that the instances
of women abusing men are wildly underreported. Male pride prevents men from
making an issue of it. It does not look very manly to get beaten up by a girl.
A woman who accuses a man of abusing her is striking a blow
against the patriarchy. A man who accuses a woman of abusing her is admitting
to being a wuss.
Mark Judge describes a scene that may or may not be typical (via Maggie's Farm):
We’ve
all seen it. And heard it. You’re in a restaurant. There’s a man there with his
girlfriend. As people are eating and socializing, you can’t help but notice.
When the man tries to speak, he is cut off by his girlfriend. She mocks him
when he tells a story that might make him look good, and finishes his jokes for
him. When the waiter brings the menus, she makes fun of his selection. While
she complains about spending money on him all the time, you can’t help but
notice that he is paying for all of her drinks. By the end of the night she is
berating him outright, and as they exit the restaurant, the woman is in a full
rage spiral, yelling about something unrelated to anything that has happened in
the last three hours. No one says anything.
The evidence is obviously anecdotal, but Judge offers a
compelling case study in emotional abuse:
When he
met his future wife ten years ago, he was captivated by her beauty, but also by
her wicked sense of humor and ability to intelligently cut others, mostly pop
culture figures, down to size. They were like a team, and had a child together.
After a couple years, something changed. Her wit was now more often than not
turned on him, first as sarcastic jibes and then as outright abuse. She
complained that he didn’t make enough money, and soon he felt like nothing he
did was enough. She began to withhold affection, and her mood was so
unpredictable that he felt like anything he said or did would be attacked. The
sarcasm that once brought him a jolt of joy now cut him apart. More than once
his wife called him in an incoherent rage about something he didn’t understand.
Strangest of all, she began to lie about certain things yet seemed convinced
she was telling the truth. Weeks after a weekend in Las Vegas—which he had paid
for—she complained that she was “tired of paying for our vacations.” After the divorce,
she insisted on having their daughter on the days when he wanted to take her to
play basketball, her favorite sport.
Of course, one does not want to place all the blame on
women.
For all we know, the female perpetrator of emotional abuse
was previously abused by a boyfriend or a male family member. In some cases
women who have engaged in hookups and in friends-with-benefits relationships
believe that a man’s failure to make it into a real relationship is emotional
abuse.
We should add the fact that men and women are now
competitors in the marketplace. At times they do not compete fairly. Some women
are too quick to accuse men of abuse and some men harass women in order to
demoralize the competition.
Then again, it might be the case that some men and women get an erotic
charge out of beating up on each other. Call it the ultimate politically correct fetish.
re: Following the narrative, when women seem to be abusing men, they are defending themselves against the abuse they have suffered for the better part of their lives.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this, wherever the narrative comes from. I don't think it needs a source, although it certainly is enabled by culture.
I saw the problem comes down to a failure of assertiveness, and boundary setting. There is a "correct" voice within a woman that says "something is wrong" but she doesn't know how to communicate this clearly and effectively, so when it finally comes out, it becomes aggression.
But since her self-esteem is based on a self-image of kindness, she believes she's doing things she doesn't want to do because its the only way to get what she wants.
Other people make her act badly, outside of her self-perceived "nature". So she projects and condemns perceived abuse and violence from others, and is blind to her own.
Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication is intended to help people clarify needs and requests. Like this video among others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-129JLTjkQ
I am amused and amaze that men have not figured this out. As young boys growing up we have listened to our mothers and sisters make remarks about other women and girls that were none to kind. We went to school with young girls and women and watched how they treated each other. If there is one thing many young girls and as they grew into women it was their ability to bully anyone they disliked. Most of us did not notice it because we had our own problems with which to deal. In most cases we were much more team oriented which mean we needed to get along with others in order to compete.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how we did not expect these very same women to get around to doing the same to us. I know that when courting and early on in marriage women treated men far differently. When one first gets married the wife is the real center of attention especially before and after children come into the picture. Many of us learned to deal with this because the challenges and responsibilities of life were too demanding to pay much attention to it. We would have been far smarter if we had watched how their mothers acted.
Enter feminism which fed the side of women who resorted to the people they were in their earlier existence because they were, or at least they felt they were, no longer the center of existence. Many women were smart enough to grow up and out of it, but large numbers did not. What better way to hide one's failures than to blame someone else, especially men. The more women act out this behavior the more insecure they are.
I have been in a number of countries and women are not that much different in their treatment of other people. One only has to watch them to notice this in action.
Understand this and life becomes far easier. One may think they like 50 shades of grey, but there are far less shades of grey in most women even to fading to black. As the old gambler once said, "Know when to hold them, know when to fold them and know when to walk away."
Children trapped in The Drama Triangle at an early age (Victim, Rescuer, Perpetrator) have no choice but to identify with all three roles at the same time due to the way our minds work as a pattern recognition and pattern generation machine. Thus adults can play any or all roles and displace the drama onto people in the present because this is less painful than accepting the pain and grief associated with past trauma. Blaming the world or trying to change the world guarantees a return trip to the roles on the drama triangle b/c the world is just my perception of human beings doing things of which I approve or disapprove on earth.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the nature of her "wicked sense of humor" should have been a give-awy. Some thoughts from Field Marshal Lord Wavell:
ReplyDelete"Explosions of temper do not necessarily ruin a general's reputation or influence with his troops; it is almost expected of them ("the privileged irascibility of senior officers," someone has written), and it is not always resented, sometimes even admired, except by those immediately concerned. But sarcasm is always resented and seldom forgiven. In the Peninsula the bitter sarcastic tongue of Craufurd, the brilliant but erratic leader of the Light Division, was much more wounding and feared than the more violent outbursts of Picton, a rough, hot-tempered man.