You Still Don't Understand

Contributions of Fatherhood 101

2011-06-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

DrD with Dr. Nancy Ann Davis

A man in the home is worth two in the street.

— Mae West

Motherhood is a biological necessity, at the heart of the family, while fatherhood is somewhat optional. So as the two-parent family unravels it is fathers who vanish, and families revert to the more primal mother–plus–children arrangement. Fathers are fast losing ground, amid the continuing barrage of complaints about men in general and fathers in particular. Here we take a broad look across the ages.

In nature, fatherhood is common among most birds but only among a few species of mammals. Among Snowy Owls the mom, who sits the eggs, has a full-time job due to the frigid temperatures, and must rely on her mate, who hunts and brings the prey back to the nest.

Fatherhood is typical in the Canidae animal family, which includes wolves, coyotes, and foxes. Many of these social animals also have extended family arrangements. Among wolves, the alpha male and female are the only breeding pair but a second ranking pair may fill in as babysitters.

Our most beloved of the canids is the family dog, which is an offshoot of the gray wolf but shows no interest in any paternal responsibilities. So what happened? Our ancestors would have fed the nursing mother dogs, just as we do today, improving survival rates but replacing fatherhood among dogs and making it unnecessary. Is the fatherless dog family a logical result of dogs on welfare? Males who sired pups but no longer fathered them had just as many surviving offspring, and more time to chase the stray females who wandered by with the "come hither" perfume.

Among primates pair bonding is rare. Pair bonds became commonplace among our own early ancestors about two million years ago, as hominid brains began to increase in size. The larger brain takes longer to mature, so human infants became increasingly helpless. Travel among our early ancestors came to require two functional individuals working together, one to carry the infant and one to carry the groceries and the camping gear. Who better to provide the assistance than a committed mate? The bonded father provided the extra resources. How convenient!

While a father and mother working together should provide about twice the resources as a mother going it alone, the cumulative results were considerably more than that. If a mother could subsist on her own, the extra resources a second parent provides are available for comfort, security, and most importantly, for innovation.

As our mating ancestors bonded together, the males of the species became progressively more involved in supporting the females and in raising the youngsters. Those bonded males who supported the mother and her children became our first fathers, providing more for the youngsters and also gaining the additional respect from the mothers, which would surely translate into additional sexual invitations and thus additional progeny. By choosing contributors over slackers, our mothers themselves enticed men into families and helped cultivate fatherhood as an feature of early human communities. Relatives also support contributors over slackers, and stood adamantly against men whom they considered “users.”

Our ancestors continued as hunter-gatherers until the arrival of agriculture, which provided the abundance of food that supported larger populations and freed more men to join together in productive ventures that would grow into what we now call civilization. The industrial revolution began around 1780, around the time of the American revolution, and the rapidly increasing prosperity changed the nature of families.

Currently, some 40% of American children are born to single moms, compared to just under 4% in the 1940s. And divorce further weakens fatherhood. Ten years after a separation, two-thirds of children have virtually no contact with the men who were once their fathers. So something over half of American children born today are raised in matriarchal arrangements with no father or only a sometime father.

Human progress has ridden a long way on the traditional family, with fathers providing the added resources that lifted mothers and their children and whole societies from meager subsistence toward innovation and abundance. So why is Western society sliding away from fatherhood? Some of the reason is the comparative abundance we now take for granted. The Industrial Revolution introduced the machines that now do the heavy lifting. And the government itself supports unmarried mothers, so who needs fathers? As women seek more rights, more security, more safety, more prosperity, and more control of their lives, the importance of fathers gets lost in the mix. Perhaps we can scrape by without fathers. But do we really want to chance it? Are we willing to abandon our fundamentals while other nations catch up to us and sail on past?

While women who give birth are naturally mothers, fatherhood involves several additional features:

A father is the inseminator, or biological father, which is our principal standard, although men who adopt are also fathers. The biological connection tends to activate a sense of altruistic obligation toward the youngsters.

A father ordinarily has an alliance with the mother and is committed to her. Indeed, his initial connection to an unborn child is often through his love for the mother. Traditionally, we required a man who contributes the sperm to marry the mother and to take on the responsibilities of fatherhood. Men who maintain a committed relationship with the mother are the mainstay of fatherhood and contribute willingly, while men who do not bond with the mother or who separate are often absentee fathers, and hardly fathers at all.

A father resides with his children and participates in their lives. A continuing partnership with the mother in an intact family vastly increases the chances a sperm contributor will mature into a real father and remain a real father.

Only a century ago the extended family was the norm. And in our earlier years, children were often raised communally, with assorted grandparents, uncles and aunts, and older siblings all involved, and the rest of the community stepping in when necessary.

Today with so many children raised by television, video games, and the shopping mall, the fatherless family is hardly a solution. And while it is easy enough to condemn men, today on Father's Day, might we suggest that our culture would do better to support men and to honor our fathers?

Happy Fathers Day!

DrD (Richard Driscoll) and Dr. Nancy Ann Davis are the authors of "You Still Don't Understand."

Truthful or Proper?

2011-03-02T09:30:00.004-05:00

Truthful or Proper?

by drD

Does this dress make my butt look fat?

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8213933/

Some aspects of social reality are considered improper and remain unspoken, in any culture, challenging truth seekers to tread lightly. In our modern culture men are especially challenged, by vast inconsistencies between what is observably so and what is proper and acceptable to mention.

Why men, more than women? Why do men worry about upsetting women, more than the other way around?

Unequal in arguments

While we might expect men to be more forceful than women in marital arguments, the research shows just the opposite, surprising our expectations. Women tend to be more insistent, according to various researchers including John Gottman [i] at the University of Washington. Women argue more in almost half again as many marriages as men.

In the most lopsided arguments where only one argues and the other remains silent, by a ratio of 6 to 1, it is the woman who continues to argue and the man who remains silent. So in these most severe arguments, we see an almost complete separation between men and women.

Men are typically more stressed and confused in arguments with women and remain bitter for longer afterward, while women are more comfortable amid verbal jousts, recover from them more quickly, and are ready for another round. Generally, it is fair to say that men are more intimidated in confrontations with women than the other way around.

Men tend to concede, placate, or withdraw in arguments with women, thereby allowing women set the standards were what is or is not acceptable in the relationship. As in the above animation, it is ordinarily the woman who sets the standards and the man who tries not to offend.

Insistence has been a viable tactic for women, to test the strength of a commitment, while a reluctance to offend has been a more viable for men, who must rely on women to transport their genes into the next generation.

Chivalrous Standards

We hear little of chivalry, and some consider it nothing more than a flimsy folk-tale. Yet human passions are highly chivalrous, supporting women and protecting them from men who might harm them.

An illustration or two should suffice. A man and a woman are in a nightclub, and quarrel. If he throws an ounce of whiskey in her face, it is clearly an assault, and an undercover policeman would arrest him on the spot and jail him. If she throws a splash of whiskey at him, it is merely a rebuff or perhaps an expression of exasperation. Who would want to jail her? Surely, anyone who did would be unwelcome back at the club.

Men who understand temperamental women gain their admiration, and perhaps their sexual favors as well, whereas men who offend women are treated accordingly.

We are not chivalrous simply because men are physically stronger. A Justice survey [ii] asked men and women to judge the seriousness of various transgressions. If a man stabbing a woman to death with a knife is rated a 10, meaning truly heinous and indeed unforgivable, then a woman stabbing a man to death with a knife is rated only a 6, meaning surely serious but perhaps understandable under the circumstances.

Why so? Men have been expected to protect women, and the lowlife thug who knifes a woman is hardly a man at all. On the other hand, a woman who just whacked her mate is still very much a woman, and furthermore, she may be quite available, although a tad risky. A man who understands her predicament surely gains her favor, and may join with her later to sire rug-rats with similarly understanding attitudes.

Men who catch a few blows file police complaints only a tenth as often as do battered women, and so seldom come to our attention. [iii] Here again, our public conduct follows our genetic interests. What sort of fool would hand his wife over to the men in authority and probably lose her, just because she takes a swing or two? A woman, on the other hand, must count on a man for her safety, and she benefits from punishing the reckless egotist who goes too far over the line.

Chivalrous Tinted Glasses. Human culture appears to be naturally chivalrous, supporting women against offending men, more than it is sexist, as is commonly claimed, supporting men against women. Why do so many believe otherwise?

We are now expected to compliment women on their multiple talents and many achievements, while it is considered sexist and terribly improper to notice limitations or moral failings. And it is now somewhat improper to honor men for any special strengths and virtues, as it can offend women, while it is conspicuously commonplace to condemn men for the many ways men mistreat women. So social propriety exaggerates some facets and conceals others, yielding a highly biased impression of men and women.

Chivalry itself is a master magician, here painting an illusion of culture as callously un-chivalrous and prejudiced against women while concealing itself as the agent of its own illusion.

" A man defending husbands vs. wives or men vs. women
has got about as much chance as a traffic policeman
trying to stop a mad dog by blowing two whistles."

-Ring Lardner

The Challenge

So far as boys and young men are to mature into responsible adults and continue to contribute to our society, our next generation of males must learn to sort through the prejudice and gain confidence in themselves and in what men typically contribute to our shared quality of life. Young men must understand what is socially proper to say, in order to get along, and yet realize the realities behind the propriety, to use as a foundation for confidence and for constructive contribution.

i. J. Gottman and R. Levenson, "The Social Psychophysiology of Marriage." In P. Noller and M. Fitzpatric (eds.), Perspectives on Marital Interaction (Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters, 1988), 182–202.

ii. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Survey of Crime Severity (Washington, D.C.: US-GPO, 1985): as cited in W. Farrell, 1994, 214.

iii. Suzanne Steinmetz, The cycle of violence. Assertive, aggressive, and abusive family interaction (New York: Praeger Press, 1977).

the Sensitive Caveman

2011-01-19T17:49:00.004-05:00

Animated Relationship Comedy

Women want men to understand their problems, while men want to just fix the problems and be done with it. The Sensitive Caveman understands, on and on, but never fixes anything. Enjoy this witty explanation of why men feel compelled to fix problems..

Does this Dress Make My Butt Look Fat? (Animation)

2010-12-26T00:56:00.013-05:00

Animated relationship comedy sketch

The fast moving comedy is surprising truthful as attractive lovers say what each of them really means instead of what is expected and proper.

Adapted from You Still Don't Understand by drD with Dr Nancy Ann Davis
See website MenandWomen101.com

Why So Much Harsher toward Men?

2010-07-21T19:40:00.002-04:00

A recent 2008 Gallup poll in Great Britain finds that 33% of women "often or very often" feel resentful of men, compared to 14% of men who often feel resentful of women. So fully a third of women carry with them an ongoing resentment toward their opposites, as compared to about a sixth of men. By my own careful calculations, that is a truckload of anger.

Most men are so involved with the accusations and with the anger itself, the harm it does, and the unfairness of it all, that we seem to miss a fundamental question. Just where does such a truckload of anger come from? Is it simply an unfortunate and unintended outcome of our modern culture? Are women treated worse than men? Or is it somehow programmed into human nature? I suggest that women are naturally more inclined to condemn their opposites, and perhaps more surprisingly, that men themselves are harsher toward men than toward women.

Men Are More Stressed in Arguments

Researcher John Gottman at the University of Washington observes couples arguing, and measures pulse rate, blood pressure, and related stress indicators. He finds that men are more stressed, intimidated, and emotionally overwhelmed than women, and tend to concede, placate, or withdraw. "In the sea of conflict," notes Gottman, "men sink and women swim." Men are not blindfolded and gagged in arguments with women— it just seems that way.

Women, in contrast, are more comfortable in personal arguments and are more inclined to air their grievances. "I have become increasingly angry," comments Gloria Steinem, "as the alternative is depression." Anger for this feminist pioneer seems to be an emotional elixir, which most men find truly incomprehensible.

Innate Tendencies

Gottman and other relationship researchers note that women are more emotionally combative, but leave the "why" question unasked. The workings of natural selection are apparent from even a brief glance through modern evolutionary principles.

Sexual interest is higher in young males across all cultures, primitive or modern, and across the vast array of animal species as well. Those who invest less in each offspring, meaning males, stand to benefit genetically by multiple matings, while those who invest more in each offspring do well to go slowly, choose carefully, and gain the maximum benefit from each mating.

Insistence has been a viable tactic for women, to test the strength of a commitment, while a reluctance to offend has been a more viable tactic for men, who must rely on women to transport their genes into the next generation. Nature selects for women who are more comfortable in arguments and willing to insist, and for men who make allowances and try to avoid offending.

Chivalrous Standards

We hear little of chivalry, and some consider it nothing more than a flimsy folk-tale. Yet human passions are highly chivalrous, supporting women and protecting them from men who might harm them.

An illustration or two should suffice. A man and a woman are in a nightclub, and quarrel. If he throws an ounce of whiskey at her, it is clearly an assault, and an undercover policeman would arrest him on the spot and jail him. If she throws a splash of whiskey at him, it is merely a rebuff or perhaps an expression of exasperation. Who would want to jail her? Surely, anyone who did would not be welcome back at the nightclub. Men who understand women gain their admiration, and perhaps their sexual favors as well, whereas men who oppose and offend women are treated accordingly.

We are not chivalrous simply because men are physically stronger. A Justice survey asked men and women to judge the seriousness of various transgressions. If a man stabbing a woman to death with a knife is rated a 10, meaning truly heinous and indeed unforgivable, then a woman stabbing a man to death with a knife is rated only a 6, meaning surely serious but perhaps understandable under the circumstances. Why so?

Men have been expected to protect women, and the lowlife who knifes a woman is hardly a man at all. On the other hand, a woman who just whacked her mate is still very much a woman, and furthermore, she may be quite available, although a tad risky. A man who understands her situation gains her favor, and may join with her to sire rug-rats with similarly understanding attitudes.

Men who catch a few blows file police complaints only a tenth as often as do battered women, and so seldom come to our attention. Here again, our public conduct follows our genetic interests. What sort of fool would hand his wife over to the men in authority and probably lose her, just because she takes a swing or two? A woman, on the other hand, must count on a man for her safety, and she benefits from punishing the reckless egotist who goes too far over the line.

Chivalrous Chimps

Chivalrous alliances are seen among various social animals, including chimpanzees. In one incident, an offended female chimp calls upon a male companion for assistance. Using high-pitched barks, she points toward her assailant with her whole hand (rather than just a finger), at the same time kissing her companion and patting him. As her pleas become more insistent, he charges out to battle her antagonist while she stands by and watches approvingly. Thus is rescued another damsel in distress, and her champion becomes the hero of the hour. Call him Champ Chimpski.

Chivalry is a social imperative, and Champ here acts to uphold an unspoken standard of justice. Like a real man, although a shave short in stature and light on brain power, he enforces one of our highest and noblest moral callings. He stands by fair maiden, and uses his power to punish the beastly bastard who has so callously offended her.

A chimp such as Champ who supports the damsel may gain opportunities to mate with her later, while one who refuses his support will also be remembered and treated accordingly. And so too among our own. Men who uphold women against offending men gain their respect, and perhaps their favors, while men who refuse women lose out. So nature programs men to support women in distress and to stand strongly against the dastardly scumbags who cross them.

Chivalrous Custody

A general policy of equal parenting rights for both parents improves marital stability, reduces animosities between parents who do separate, benefits the children and makes a separation easier on them, and allows custody lawyers a much needed respite from their demanding legal work loads. When fathers want to remain involved, we might figure that joint custody would be a no-brainer.

Yet we have two competing standards here. Surely, we want what is best for the children. But chivalry is programmed strongly into the human animal, and we feel that it is highly moral to uphold women and to punish the men who wrong them. So the judge tends to side with the woman in her hour of greatest need. His inner Champ Chimpski charges in to support the fair damsel in distress and to punish the worthless lowlife who has wronged her.

Chivalrous Lenses

Human culture appears to be naturally chivalrous, supporting women against offending men, more than it is sexist, as is commonly claimed, supporting men against women. Why do so many believe otherwise?

" A man defending husbands vs. wives or men vs. women

has got about as much chance as a traffic policeman

trying to stop a mad dog by blowing two whistles."

-Ring Lardner

An Innate Mechanism

Chivalrous standards are harsher toward men than toward women. It is not merely a matter of cultural happenstance, which could go the other way just as easily. Women are born to expect something for their favors, and men are born to support those who can carry their genes into the next generation. Innate inclinations contribute to our chivalrous standards, and harsher treatment towards men serves to enforce those standards.

Innate leanings do not mean that something cannot be changed, only that passions run high and must be managed. Advocates for more equal treatment for men wrestle against a chivalrous moral imperative that most of the population hardly knows exists. We should wish them well.

Adapted from "You Still Don't Understand" by drD and Nancy Ann Davis.

Comments on "You Still Don't Understand"

2009-12-19T23:39:00.009-05:00

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Friends:

Are we as different as Driscoll and Davis suggest? Can opposites reconcile?

Please post your opinions and comments about:

<> Men and Women 101.com website
<> You Still Don't Understand book by Driscoll and Davis
<> anything else pertaining to men, women, and improving relationships.

Many thanks. Enjoy!

Richard Driscoll & Nancy Ann Davis

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Sensitive Cave Man

2009-12-18T05:52:00.038-05:00

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Video release:
Sensitive Cave Man
Why Men Feel Compelled to Fix It.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=101886146

Sensitive Cave Man

Why do women want to talk about a problem, on and on, while men want fix it as quickly as possible and be done with it?

"Sensitive Cave Men" offers a comic sketch and an answer to this commonplace question.

Click on link below picture

Sensitive Cave Man is adapted from "You Still Don't Understand"

by drD with Nancy Ann Davis, PhD.
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Is the Feminist Culture Harmful to Women?

2009-12-06T17:14:00.010-05:00

News brief:
Women's happiness declines over last 35 years.
Is the feminist culture harmful to women?

Is the Feminist Culture Harmful to Women?

A recent analysis finds that happiness and the sense of well-being and satisfaction has declined among women, both in constant terms and also in comparison to men. The decline is found across various investigations, across various measures of subjective well-being and satisfaction with life, across various demographic groups, and within numerous industrialized countries.

The findings are from the General Social Survey [i], which is the largest sociology project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and is considered highly authoritative. Aside from the U.S. Census, the GSS is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences.

How strong is the decline for women relative to men? In 1972, in the initial surveys, the average woman had a 3+ percentile happiness advantage relative to the average man, while in 2006, in the last samplings, she was 1+ percentile behind. The figures add up to a 4½ percentile decrease in happiness for women in comparison to men over the 35 year span of the study. The investigators note that a change of such magnitude should be considered quite substantial.

While various explanations are proposed, we look here at the feminist position that women are oppressed and always have but are a special class of humans who can accomplish wondrous things once the forces of oppression have been overthrown. In spite of widening workplace opportunities, women find that it is not easy to accomplish great things and still raise a family and have a free moment to oneself. It is a tough world out there, indifferent to our fantasies and barely responsive to our best efforts. Inflated expectations are a standard recipe for failure and despair.

What about the ideology that women are oppressed? "Women are oppressed" usually means "oppressed by men," so in the active voice the message is that "Men oppress women." Naturally, the more one believes that, the more resentful she will be toward men, and the less understanding she will be toward her alleged oppressors.

A recent survey found that 33% of women "often or very often" resent men, while only 14% of men are highly resentful of women. Public condemnation towards men has obviously increased over the last 40 years, and surely contributes to the pandemic of personal resentments toward men.

Angry women tend to feel empowered when they express their anger, but then returned to the blahs and emptiness once the anger is spent. "I have become increasingly angry," comments Gloria Steinem, "as the alternative is depression." Overall, anger is a quick fix followed by a lingering headache.

Psychotherapists who challenge anger and seek to reduce it are not as popular with their clients but have better outcomes, while therapists who support anger and encourage its expression are more popular but have worse outcomes. Anger reduction, reconciliation, and a heartfelt understanding and appreciation of family and friends is fundamental to healthy living. It is a mainstay in Christianity and in most other religious teachings.

The hardships and general meaninglessness of life are problems that we all confront and probably always will. Yet increasing animosities toward our opposites is hardly a viable solution and appears to broaden a general malaise among women and nudge possible solutions farther out of reach.

by drD
author of "You Still Don't Understand" with Nancy Ann Davis, PhD.

See commentary at Tikkun

[i] Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, "The paradox of declining female happiness." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2009, 1:2, 190–225.
http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/WomensHappiness.pdf
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Unequal in Arguments

2009-11-27T16:50:00.065-05:00

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News Brief:
Unequal in Arguments

Why men concede, placate, or withdraw.

Unequal in Arguments
by

Richard Driscoll, Ph.D.

Insistence: While we might expect men to be more forceful than women in marital arguments, the research shows just the opposite, surprising our expectations.

Women tend to be more insistent, according to various researchers including John Gottman [i] at the University of Washington. Women argue more forcefully in almost half again as many marriages as men.

In the most lopsided arguments where only one argues and the other remains silent, by a ratio of 6 to 1, it is the woman who continues to argue and the man who remains silent. So in these most severe arguments, we see an almost complete separation between men and women.

Overwhelmed and confused. Men are typically more stressed and confused in arguments with women and feel trashed and bitter for longer afterward, while women are more comfortable amid verbal jousts, recover from them more quickly, and are ready for another round. Generally, it is fair to say that men are more intimidated in confrontations with women than the other way around.

Men are not blindfolded and gagged in arguments with women

— it just seems that way.

Origins: Insistence has been a viable tactic for women, to test the strength of a commitment, while a reluctance to offend has been a more viable for men, who must rely on women to transport their genes into the next generation.

Suggestions: Marriages are better when men and women participate about equally. Amid our typical arguments, we offer a few obvious suggestions for men and for women:

To better resolve conflict, you must learn to be more comfortable with it. Recognize that it is normal for women to be more easily upset and irritated than men, but that women also get over it faster.

Do not interpret it as a great catastrophe when your mate is bothered about something. Stay involved, and try to talk it out.

You might realize that men are more vulnerable in conflict than they appear and slower to recover from it.

Be careful to accurately gauge how much stress your accusations inflict, and make allowances.

Implications: If men were ordinarily more forceful in marital squabbles, then an increase in female power would promote equality. But since women are ordinarily more forceful, as observations indicate, the same solution pushes us farther apart. Men withdraw in the face of female accusation, leaving marriages emotionally barren and inhospitable. The challenge is to strike a proper balance, so that men and women can participate together and gain the best from each other.

Adapted from "You Still Don't Understand" by drD with Nancy Ann Davis, Ph.D.
<>See comments by Mr. Thoughtful and friends at Unfiltered Minds
<>
[i] J. Gottman and R. Levenson, "The Social Psychophysiology of Marriage." In P. Noller and M. Fitzpatric (eds.), Perspectives on Marital Interaction (Clevedon, Avon, England: Multilingual Matters, 1988), 182–202.

Misandry = Twice Misogyny

2009-11-27T09:59:00.004-05:00

News brief:
Misandry = Twice Misogyny
Recent survey reveals that women resent men about twice as often as the other way around.

Article:
Misandry = Twice Misogyny

Ideological feminists have long accused men of being misogynists, filled with loathing and contempt towards women and unwilling to allow women a fair chance. More recently, "masculinists" or men's rights activists accuse women of being "misandrous," which is an odd and seldom used word for loathing and contempt towards men.

So, which is it? Are we more often misogynists or more often contemptuous toward men? Admittedly, one or the other or both shows its ass often enough to pollute a fair share of modern conversation. But which is more commonplace? And how can we provide a reasonable comparison?

A recent 2008 Gallup poll in Great Britain finds that 33% of women "often or very often" feel resentful of men, compared to 14% of men who often feel resentful of women. [i] So fully a third of women carry with them an ongoing resentment toward their opposites, as compared to about a sixth of men.

In an effort to specify our terms, "often or very often resentful" of the other sex is probably about as close as we can get to the basic meaning of misogyny and misandry. While we commonly argue that women have more reason to be resentful, the comparison here is not about our reasons but about our ongoing attitudes. Twice as many women as men acknowledge often resenting their opposites, suggesting that ill will blows from "W" to "M" more strongly than from "M" to "W".

So why is "misogyny" such a familiar word while "misandry" is so odd and unfamiliar except on out-of-the-way websites such as this one? Some of the explanation is in the paradox of accusation. Women are more inclined to accuse men of malfeasance, while most men are uncomfortable arguing against women and keep their counsel. As in politics anywhere, the harshest and most repetitious accusations usually paint the strongest portrait, leaving the misandrous impression that men frequently resent women while women are innocent commentators to that sad state of affairs.

Another explanation lay in the unusualness of the condition, as we comment on what we find noteworthy and take the rest granted. In an earlier era, the psychiatric term "nymphomania" was applied to the woman who had an inordinate interest in sex, as she was the odd woman out. The complementary term "satyriasis" was seldom used for men, as it was so widely assumed that most men had an inordinate interest in sex that no such psychiatric nomenclature was required.

Back to "misandry." In that fully a third of women are highly resentful of men, and perhaps another third are somewhat resentful, do we really need a special word for it? Or is it so familiar that we take it for granted?

In an earlier era, men referred to women who bash men with the familiar slang words such as "scold," "shrew," "bitch," and so on. Today, now that such strong words are so severely censored, we are left with "misandry," which seems an unfamiliar, highly sanitized, and somewhat technical sounding excuse for a hearty epithet. Is the "misandrous" woman not merely a cleaned-up version of the rock-solid, salt-of-the-Earth shrew of old, that inspired Shakespeare to bring a fiery woman to the stage and pleased a younger Elizabeth Taylor to portray her?

Of course, men can be misandrous too. But we save that for a later time.

Richard Driscoll

author of "You Still Don't Understand" with Nancy Ann Davis

[i] The battle of the sexes continues according to new Gallup poll." 2008. See http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=57662

Also posted at: http://mensenews.org/index.php?option=com_jb2&PostID=1560&view=post&Itemid=2