Because women have the wrong kind of power

“I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.” Robert Meuller

In my not so humble opinion, the coupling of the sexes has very little to do with reproduction, it has far more to do with power.

This is played out once the initial throes of copulation have been exercised. After all, if it were all about biology both sexes would be happy to move on. However both sexes want to hold on to the other. Both of them would like the freedom to move on and yet strangely both start to set up, obey and try to outwit the other on certain “rules” that are laid out at the start of the relationships. Sometimes the rules have been divined by them, sometimes they’re invisible rules that were created many centuries ago, but are so imbedded in our psyche that we are committed to them beyond an y hope for free will.

The bulk of these are mercilessly played out by women.

Women will use the power that has been allocated to them – that is sexual power and emotional warfare, to maintain power in a relationship. They don’t use power like intelligence, self-respect, confidence or strategy to gain power over themselves – which is a higher option for all human beings.

Instead women will use emotional power to run the household, ruling with an iron fist and making everyone who lives in the same premises as her feel guilty about anything that they want to do that may disobey any of the rules that none of them had a hand in setting up (nor did they officially agree to them).

They will use their sexual power to hook their man and then use it to seduce other men half way (rarely actually authentically following through) throughout their life into getting what they want.

In romance novels power between couples is shared. The decidedly macho guys encourage the use of positive e power in their women and the women don’t take advantage of popular stereotypes in order to gain access to short-term power. This for a woman is an ideal, even if in real life she doesn’t even try for it.

Because men think they’d be better at being woman than a woman

“Being a woman is of interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women, it is simply a good excuse not to play football.”  Fran Lebowitz

I read once that drag queens are just men who think they can be women better than women can. I was a little shocked to read it at the time (being a healthy left-wing woman myself) but as I placed distance between myself and the words, they started to make sense to me.

We’ve seen on this blog before, men would really rather do anything than women’s work because they don’t want to be mistaken for women under any circumstances. This is partly what is behind homophobia as well. An unsophisticated straight male wants to kill any other male who is tempted to treat him like he is a woman.

However, underneath all that there is a belief that a woman’s life is not one that he doesn’t understand.

Despite the endless protestations that they can’t understand women, men think that they do have a good handle on who she really is and how her day is. Deep down they do like to think “gee, how hard can that be?”

At least, if they don’t think this, then their actions send the message that they do.

But let’s get away from the straight men and take a look at the gay men.  One of the first political acts of a gay male when he comes out (and often before that) is to take on falsified characteristics of being female. This is also true for certain styles of lesbians. But it is the men who think they can “out female” the women.

Nowhere is this more accurate than in the drag shows. The men dressed up in those shows do not look like women, but they do look like what men think women should look like. And except for certain female gay icons, for the most part, the men are sure they can “be female” better than the women.

In romance novels even when the men love other men, they try to be men. They could be men in dresses but they’re MEN in dresses, not men pretending to be women. Women who love romance novels don’t mind experimenting in the bedroom. It’s lending out their lipstick that leaves them cold!

Because women fall in love with unobtainable men

The theories about why women fall in love are many but none of them explain why a woman is so desperate to have a man that is unobtainable.

It defies logic, and it also defies any of the reasons as to why women like to get themselves into relationships. With the unobtainable man you can’t have a baby, you can’t get married, you can’t be taken care of and you can’t be rescued. He is unable to fulfil any of these functions that are supposed to be the reasons women want men in the first place.

But just as excellent contraception made women want MORE sex, not less, so women will always confuse those who want to narrow their desire for connection to one or two simple causes.  

The unobtainable types of men women will go for are many, but here is my top ten:

1. Married men
2. Gay men
3. Werewolves
4. Rock stars
5. Vampires
6. Characters in novels
7. Film stars
8. Shape shifters (a whole pathology behind that one)
9. Dead men
10. Men on the internet in another country

Ask any woman and she will without question have had a deep intense affair with at least one of the character on this list at some point in her life. And it’s not the same as men getting a crush on Pamela Anderson when they were fourteen. Women have very real love affairs. Thirty percent of the girls between ten and eighteen right at this moment will be having intense affairs with Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner.

Why women do this is not clear. I understand the lust for movie stars (he will never be real so he can’t let you down) and I understand rock stars ( ask any person that cleans up after a  rock concert and find out what those seats the women have been sitting on are like) but married men and gay men I can only explain by saying you get to beat someone else in the conquest and we all know women love to beat each other.

In romance novel every hero without exception is one of the perfect imaginary men. These men fill every criteria on the list, except for two. They are never dead and they are never, ever married. Women just love them and they can’t get enough.

Because men can only fix machines

 

“If it can’t be fixed by duct tape or WD-40, it’s a female problem. ”  Jason Love

There is a divide between men and women along the lines of accountability for certain sorts of problems that might go in on a household.

Change a light bulb – ask him

Deal with the tantrum of teen angst – ask her

Give the car a grease and oil change – ask him

Get his sister and his parents talking again before Christmas – ask her

Repair the burnt out motor in the fridge – ask him

Find a good school for the kids – ask her

It was assumed that this divide went along the lines of emotion versus practicality. However, we have seen before in this blog that men are every bit as emotional as women, and women are every bit as practical as men.

So what is really going on here?

The bottom line is emotional problems are a hundred times more difficult to fix. They require long-term strategizing, curbing and containing your own emotions, concentrated listening to someone else, team building and leadership skills. If a man was expected to do this as part of running the Dubai branch of Halliburton, he could do it with skill and competency.

However, when he comes home at the end of the day, he just wants a beer and TV.

Ask any woman if she’d rather change a light bulb or manage her teenager’s ainxt ridden sulks and the light bulb wins hands down. It’s an easier job with instant results.

These days, of course, it’s getting better.

Men are now at least trying to do some of the above things, and in rare cases, doing a really good job. For the most part its one of those little things they toss their hands in the air about and defer to her ‘Superior natural’ skills in the area.

To counter balance this women are now expected to change the tyres, keep the car up to date and change the light bulbs too.

I guess that’s a kind of progress.

In romance novels the roles are clearly defined because they have been drawn up by women and therefore always fall in her favour. Each and every hero does defer the emotional tasks to her, claim she has superior knowledge, and then listens enthralled as she recounts, word for word the lengthy conversations it took to get there. If she has to be assigned certain roles, the best she can hope for is to have them appreciated.

Because women act like they hate their men when they want their men to come closer

I have said on this blog many times that women send confusing signals and don’t take proper responsibility for what they want and making that clear.

However, there is very little as confusing as this particular topic. Often, when a woman is treating you like shit, it is because she wants you to come closer to her and reassure her.

Now, I’m no rocket scientist. But even I can tell that any person, male or female, that gets a combination of the cold shoulder treatment, monosyllabic responses and passive aggressive door slamming, is going to want to run for the hills as soon as they get a chance.

It is usually when a woman is feeling at her most vulnerable and needs someone the most that she will act like the biggest bitch.

Now, why is that?

Primarily, she wants you (no matter if you are the man in her life of her best girlfriend) to reach out. She thinks you should be able to SENSE it. Just like she does when she does all those little things for you that you barely notice – you just thought she liked to do it and it is a happy accident that you love / needed that too – she wants you to come to the party without her asking you.

And bingo, you realise the woman you take to your bed each night has regressed to the little girl you’d never actually met.

Women will not take responsibility for what they want, when they want this sort of emotional care. No, you should KNOW what they need and damned if they’re going to fill you in on the details. It needs to be spontaneous. To spring magically out of the unique love that you share, even if it took two days of passive aggressive behaviour to get you to wake up.

In romance novels, all the men are as intuitive as the woman in their life, or they go to a much-loved (and very loyal) best friend who will fill them in. The men do not just sit on the couch while all the banging is going on around them thinking if she doesn’t tell me, how do I know what the problem is? No, the hero in a romance novel will literally tilt the earth on its axis if it meant he was able to get to the bottom of why she came home in such a bad mood.

Because men need to reinforce their masculinity all the time as if it were going to dissapere

“The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.” Germaine Greer

We are told all the time that men and women are different.

We are told that this difference is a genetic one, and that while conditioning may have something to do with it, primarily it is a difference in our wiring that makes men men and women women.

Why then, is masculinity so fragile that it needs to be reinforced all the time?

One is barely able to have any sort of conversation without someone in the group piping up that ‘boys will be boys’ and that you have to expect men will behave in a certain way. Men constantly need ‘nights out with the boys’ so they can be men together.

They need fast cars, football, scantily clad women on the covers of magazines and the third page of every newspaper, violent movies, petty daily competitions and the list goes on. All the time, hundreds of small devices must be injected into an average day to help a man feel more like a man.

Of course, you may shout out that men like these things because they are men, and that is what is making them gravitate toward certain types of activities.

However, take a closer look. It’s the way that each of these machismo generated activities make him FEEL. And each makes him feel more like a man. Or rather, they remind him what it feels like to be a man.

Masculinity needs constant reassurance, as if it were going to fade with the next strong wind. Huge amounts of effort expended keeping men men.  Otherwise, there is a fair chance they will just turn into ordinary human beings like the rest of us.

In romance novels the men are fictional and therefore miraculously one hundred percent men all the time. However, when a woman writes the perfect man, she writes his flaws into his character. No man is an island in romance and erotic romance, and each needs his woman to rescue him from himself. Women love these novels because machismo is nowhere to be seen and the men are vulnerable and open to love and relationship, just as they are being one hundred percent man.

Because women think going shopping is being creative

Going shopping is not the same as  being creative.

Just because you can match a shade of green with a certain shade of turquoise, or because you know how to fit a belt, does not mean that you are creative.

Creativity is the essence of the elevation of human endeavour. It surpasses the ability to complete research, it surpasses the meticulous detached performance of the historian and it surpasses the inquisitive rigor of the scientist. It is in itself the development of human contemplation. It is extending the human mind literally into places it has not gone before. It is evolution in progress.

Creativity has thought everything before it has been researched or proven.

It is not finding the right shoes to go with the correct skirt.

While we’re at it, neither is it, matching tablecloths with napkins, finding the perfect dog collar or baking the perfect muffin.

Women dance around the outskirts of their creative selves (and each of us has a measure of creative self- out of which our own personal vision for yourself comes) and use the smallest amount of the abundance to choose the perfect handbag. Although one taps into the resource, to actually call it creative is the same as calling buying your third television on sale, frugal.

Shopping and accessorising are not creative.

In romance novels when a woman matches the perfect green scarf with the ideal bustier her wild Vampire turned good man exclaims with delight that she is so creative, despite the fact that he just formed a divine piece of music out of nothing, dedicated it to her and performed it with unmatched elegance.

Because men are looking for their mother

“It takes a woman twenty years to make a man of her son, and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him.” Helen Rowland

Freud taught us this one. We now know all about the man and his quest to turn his wife back into his mother.

Men want a mother in a wife. This is why they have so much trouble making love to the women they marry. They turn a wife into their mother as fast as they possibly can.

Often it’s the mother-meshed-men who won’t settle down. They refuse to give up sex addictions or playing the field primarily because they’ve accepted no one will ever come close to the perfection of their mother and all the other women of the world are just for games.

However, if you have a mother enmeshed man as a husband, he will try to make you his mother.

Men will often marry a woman who they’ve decided is like their mother. But even if she’s not, as soon as the new woman is on the scene in a permanent way, she is expected to look after him physically.

But that’s not all a mother does is it?

She also has to nurture you. She has to make your problems more important than her own. She has to pretend she has the deepest interest in whatever crises you are having and that whatever is on her mind is of no importance at all. She has to embrace your projects and support you in them, after she is launching you into the world. It’s a good reflection on her if you do well, so it is her job to ensure you have all you need to succeed.

This is what men expect of their wives. However, sometimes they want to mould you – just as they did to their own mother. Sometimes they want to play Henry Higgins to your Eliza Doolittle. However, one thing is for certain, they have a great deal of trouble seeing you as something separate than that holiest of holy women – the creature that gave birth to him.

After all, she did a remarkably good job of that didn’t she? She deserves to see him be a huge success.

In romance novels, men never see the heroine as his mother. If she is the kind of woman who wants to support t him and provide those womanly nurturing type supports he will accept it with gratitude, never taking it for granted. However, for the most part, the heroines in romance and erotic romance aren’t that kind of gal.

Because women both love and hate everyone in their world

One of the things that makes it very difficult for men in their interactions with the women that they love, is that women change their mind all the time about how they feel about the people in their life.

This would not be such a bad thing, if she was willing to let her guy off the hook if he couldn’t keep up. But this is rarely the case. He is expected to interpret from her heavily detailed account of the flow of events during the day, what her position is on the behaviours of a person that, (just because they’ve been friends for twenty years) is not protected from her judging eyes.

The trick is which side of the coin to go with when trying to converse.

Women know clever little tricks when they talk to each other to gauge where their girlfriend is as she’s telling you a story about another person. No woman would ever assume she knew – she’d make comments like:

“Wow – how did that make you feel?”

Or

“Gee, I don’t know how I would feel after hearing that.”

This way she can tap into what her friend wants to hear and offer her the validation she is really after at this time.

However, a man who does not know these tricks can’t hope to get it right. He’s left wondering why she’s telling him the story if she got so upset when he asked

 “But she was your new best friend just yesterday. How could you have not seen this aspect of her personality when you talked to her then?”

Or

 “Huh? You hated her last week. What were you even doping out with her today?”

A woman’s opinion will change all the time, but don’t expect her to take that into consideration when she is relating the particular mood of the day. She will tell her tale with as much emphasis when she is friendly as when she is venomous and simply expects you to be able to keep up.

This problem is multiplied many times over when she’s dealing with her mother.

In romance novels the men rarely misunderstand, and if they do, it is to prep the reader for an impending breakup, or some sort of discovery that will have our heroine find that he was an evil man intent on hurting her all along. This will serve to clean her slate and prepare her for the real hero who will never, under any circumstances, misinterpret her position on any given day.

Because men need to take up as much physical space as possible

Ok! So one of the things that women do not understand, is the need men have to spread their legs as wide as possible and take up as much physical space as they can get away with.

I know the answer. It’s all about your penis. I also know that men like to give the impression, at every opportunity on life’s journey, that their penis is so enormous they have trouble walking straight.

However, one of the things I don’t think men do realise is that women get to take a swift glance when your legs are spread that wide and the first thing we notice is – that bulge does not need that much room. This recognition is fast followed by an observation that asks, so why are you spreading your legs so wide apart?

It doesn’t look that good for the guy.

Of course, it isn’t all about the legs spread wide either. Men will spread what physical bulk they have as wide as their skin will stretch. Is this an attempt to get me to notice him,  she thinks as she piles the third shopping bag precariously on top of the others so that he can have more room to spread his legs and stretch his arms across the back of the train seat.

Men like to think the world can’t quite contain them. It is in their psyche to see themselves as special and a stand out in any crowd. It is a natural next step from this perspective, to want to spread yourself around. Legs wide, arms extended, deep loud breaths followed by overenthusiastic exhalations are all ways that men make sure they get noticed and are recognised as a valuable contributor to the space they currently inhabit.

In romance novels, men are the same. It seems there is no place where a man’s right to spread himself wide and take up as much airspace as possible is questioned. One thing they don’t do, however, is spread the legs so wide any woman can, at a glance realise, they don’t need to spread their legs that wide.