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darin
10-04-2017, 03:50 AM
Interesting take - be careful what you ask for.

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The Dark Side of Women’s Requests of Progressive Men

Mark Greene asks, “Do some women who encourage men to be more emotional and engaged, end up losing respect for the men who do so?”

A while back, I followed a series of tweets about men and the expression of emotions. At one point, a women who was participating said the following:

I’m having a hard time formulating all my issues here. It boggles my mind that we’ve been asking [men] to be more emotional and engaged, and when they become emotional and engaged we say, “That’s too much!” I mean, talk about expecting perfection. Life is growth and effort.

I went to sleep thinking about a question which can haunt men like myself: Do some women who encourage men to “be more emotional and engaged” end up losing respect for the men who do so?

Think of the moment when Lucy yanks the football out on Charlie Brown.

I admit it could take a decade or two to unpack all the implications of the phrase “be more emotional and engaged.” I’m also aware of the exhausting and overworked meme of women who talk about wanting a nice guy but go for the jerks in the world. That narrative smacks far too much of either self pity or opportunism depending on the man promoting it.

What I am talking about instead is the moment at which our deeply layered cultural conditioning collides with our social or ideological aspirations — what we think we want, versus what we discover we need.

***

This request by women for men to be more emotional and engaged covers a vast range of relational and functional markers. It also means very different things to different people.

I take it to mean that men are 1) being asked to increase emotional expression in their relationships and 2) address basic issues of fairness in how work is organized and done in any partnership up to and including marriage.

If the stereotypical 1970’s dad brought home the paycheck and did little to help raise the kids or clean the house, the modern man is asked to be much more engaged. In some cases, he may be asked to take over the home and the primary child care while his wife pursues a higher paying career.

This cultural trend may ideologically driven, a function of the breakdown of gender silos, or the result of simple economic necessity. Regardless of the source, the trend is out there.

So, if I ended my day thinking about the tweets I read, I ran smack into the other bookend the next morning — -a book review by Liz Mundy of the San Francisco Chronicle. She is reviewing a novel by British author Rachel Cusk titled Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation.

Mundy writes:

Not long ago, in an online blog of the Wall Street Journal, a wife made a confession. A high-earning editor and the breadwinner in her family, she admitted that she resents her husband for being supportive and domestically hands-on. Far from being grateful that he makes her job and family life possible by taking on the role of primary caregiver to their son, she feels burdened and jealous. While some of her objections are fair — supporting a household is scary, as men have long known — others, she acknowledged, aren’t.

Her piece is a reminder that women, like men, can be emotionally retrograde even as they are progressive and ambitious; it’s not always men who have trouble adapting to female achievement and female earning.

The same dynamic is at work in “Aftermath,” Rachel Cusk’s bleak and rather bravely unsympathetic memoir of marital dissolution. Cusk, a British novelist, sketches a scenario whereby she maneuvered her husband into the role of househusband, then scorned him for occupying it. She is not sure whom to blame for this radical inconsistency: her feminism, her parents, her schooling, or simply whatever was in the water when she was growing up.

It got me thinking; maybe this whole gender equality thing is a hell of a lot harder than we know, because it’s not just about men and women taking on new roles and ways of being, its about unpacking the very real and disruptive conditioning the daily reality of this can reveal. Its fine for a woman to wish for a husband who will stay home with the kids and support her career, but what if that woman then wakes up one morning resenting her husband for it?

Now imagine how he feels.

Many women are becoming the primary providers for their families. Many men are becoming the primary caregivers to their children.

Amidst all this, is there some vast retrogressive emotional and sexual narrative that exists in direct conflict with the modern request for men to “be more emotional and engaged?” Do some women struggle with what Mundy calls the emotionally retrograde side; yearning for a more traditional man even as they seek an egalitarian marriage?

We are asking men to self-reflect and let go of their own retrogressive cultural conditioning. The question of what traditional conditioning women still carry should come into question at the same time.

It begs a larger conversation.

Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
10-04-2017, 05:05 AM
In a marriage if something works, it works! If two people are happy in the way they set up their marriage and home life--then fine..
Yet here comes the but- By Nature and by culture, the man being the leader/protector, usually fits better and creates a more harmonious relationship by being helpful at home but not the primary keeper of the house(nest). = traditional family set-up..
I have no problem when I see the relationship in which the man is the household caretaker and the wife the huge breadwinner---if it works for them.

Problem is, as I've seen too many times over the years, the wife ends up resenting and not respecting the husband.
And that, even when she initiated and demanded the set-up to start with..
Truth is, Nature says the male is the dominate force, thus the female is the nest caretaker.
That is not male macho-ego or male chauvinism speaking. That is Nature!

That most women instinctively want a strong (but kind and fair) man is the way of the world.
Just as, instinctively most men want a beautiful (but sexy, sweet and fair) lady is the way of the world.

Also, I seen this too-- when a man gives a woman everything she wants, busting his ass to do so-- majority of women lose respect and end up cheating on the guy.
Could be -the old, well I got him so I can now do as I please scenario--which points to basic greed and lust..
And neither sex has a monopoly on that.. -Tyr

darin
10-04-2017, 05:32 AM
its been said women seek protection/love/safety - men seek respect.

Abbey Marie
10-04-2017, 05:30 PM
I don’t really know (mature) women who want their guy to be sensitive. What we generally don’t want is someone who is emotionally unavailable. Closed off, if you will. I see those as different things.
One thing I know is 100% certain- once you lose respect for your spouse, whatever the reason, you might as well call it quits.

Gunny
10-04-2017, 05:46 PM
I dunno. I don’t really know (mature) women who want their guy to be sensitive. What we generally don’t want is someone who is emotionally unavailable. Closed off, if you will. I see those as different things.
One thing I know is 100% certain- once you lose respect for your spouse, whatever the reason, you might as well call it quits.

That's a female thing. I don't know that guys ever do, regardless how dumb that sounds and/or makes them. In my experience, women are their own worst enemies at losing that respect. They bitch and bitch and bitch ... you need to change this - so-n-so's husband does that - why can't you be more sensitive? Then you change all that crap and they realize they've turned you into someone they didn't marry and don't want you any more.

Go through THAT once, and refuse to budge the second go round and they leave too because they aren't getting their way changing you. :laugh:

It's a lose/lose deal. Glad I finally got old enough to not care about it :)

tailfins
10-04-2017, 07:54 PM
Dr. Laura Schlessinger explained that what a woman means by a sensitive man is one that is sensitive to things that interests her. In other words, it's a one-sided sensitivity.

tailfins
10-04-2017, 07:58 PM
That's a female thing. I don't know that guys ever do, regardless how dumb that sounds and/or makes them. In my experience, women are their own worst enemies at losing that respect. They bitch and bitch and bitch ... you need to change this - so-n-so's husband does that - why can't you be more sensitive? Then you change all that crap and they realize they've turned you into someone they didn't marry and don't want you any more.

Go through THAT once, and refuse to budge the second go round and they leave too because they aren't getting their way changing you. :laugh:

It's a lose/lose deal. Glad I finally got old enough to not care about it :)

Watching female siblings that are much older made me wise to it. While their visits were a downer, at least I got that out of it.

The key is to find a compliant, obedient woman.

Gunny
10-04-2017, 09:13 PM
Watching female siblings that are much older made me wise to it. While their visits were a downer, at least I got that out of it.

The key is to find a compliant, obedient woman.i kinda figured you'd pop up from the woodwork. I addressed a specific point. It was not to insult anyone, nor "women". And I sure as Hell don't want whatever an "obedient woman" is. Is that like a slave? You're barking up the wrong tree.

Tyr-Ziu Saxnot
10-05-2017, 04:07 AM
I don’t really know (mature) women who want their guy to be sensitive. What we generally don’t want is someone who is emotionally unavailable. Closed off, if you will. I see those as different things.
One thing I know is 100% certain- once you lose respect for your spouse, whatever the reason, you might as well call it quits.

If a woman lets a man be a real man and she desires to be a real woman, then she ignores most of this new age advice about how women should treat men..
If you love your spouse treat them with respect and show your love daily.
Women need to see this more often than men do but men also need that reinforcement too.
Surest way to bust up a marriage is for one partner(usually the wife) to start using sex-withholding as a leverage to control the other.
Sex in marriage is always a delicate balance as to it meeting both partners requirements/desires.
Be fair and be unselfish, if your partner is honorable/decent, they return this and the marriage works.
Riza and I are now married 13 years and this has worked out splendidly--for BOTH OF US!
Key word in that is --BOTH.....
AND YES THERE ARE TIMES A MAN/HUSBAND SIMPLY MUST BE SENSITIVE...
OUR JOB IS TO KNOW WHEN AND DO SO... --Tyr