Why Can't You Just Be Nice?

I like aircraft: I like pilots; I like nice, clever ladies. Put all three together and I am a happy chap, and I occasionally show my pleasure by posting up something that 'showcases' it. As I did just yesterday. But for some folk it is akin to shaking a red rag at a bull. Or a cow.

A clever gal who is on a career path to be a Doctor ( I am supposing. Specialising, perhaps in vaginas, of which we have heard and seen so much of lately) - whom one would expect to show a little empathy, nurturance and that thing called 'conflict resolution' that women claim is natural to them -  decided to 'challenge'.  I am not at all sure why. "What is your point?", she asked. I had already answered before her question. Equality. I am quite a firm believer in it. 

She failed to engage that bit of her brain labelled 'Understand as best you can in a friendly manner', but instead chose the 'pick a fight' program. I did not despair. I tried to be polite. I am not at all sure I succeeded.

But so many women want to fight, and over the most trivial matters. It isn't as though we are short of more pressing matters to be angry about. And to fight about. Our media have been full and overflowing with the most awful wimmin lately.

And yes, there are nasty men too. Don't get me wrong. Why some men and women get themselves into 'relationships' that just cannot work is a matter everyone would like answered. So much expectation and so little effort. We all know the answer really.

Men and woman are as different as they are the same. The same emotional range but a different intensity of drive. They complement one another and must adjust to one another to successfully live as one. Many fail to launch the right programs. 

Mark Judge stopped by and tried to explain things to me. Not that I needed it but he was in full flood (unfettered by total accuracy, I might add) and wanted to get his point across.  There are points where I just could not 'get it' with Mark, but rather than fight I just poured him another ale. I hope the lady I mentioned takes note.

Women Who Emotionally Abuse Men

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.

It’s called emotional abuse. 

It’s well-documented when men inflict it on female victims. Less well known is when women do it to men. 

While the emotional abuse of women is discussed on Oprah, in bestsellers, and everywhere in pop culture and in academia, there are virtually no resources for men who have been emotionally abused. Google searches turn up very few resources. Books on the subject are mostly broadsides that have not been properly researched and substitute academic rigor for attacks on feminism.

And yet every person I know—and I’m betting everyone reading these words—knows a man who has been victimized by emotional abuse. 

All you have to do is ask around. I did just that recently when I was researching the epidemic of men and suicide, and what I found was disturbing. One man, a friend from childhood, told a story that seemed like a kind of slow emotional torture.

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. 

At this point it crossed my mind that perhaps they deserved one another. But I held my tongue and poured drinks for those listening to him. 

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.

My friend had married an emotionally abusive person, and someone who may have even had a serious personality disorder. The effect on him was devastating. He was depressed and felt confused, and even mentioned suicide. He felt anxious whenever she was around. 

He’s still dealing with it years after the divorce.

One of the few people who understood him was Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, the author of a forthcoming ebook Say Goodbye to Crazy: How to Rid Yourself of that Crazy Ex and Restore Sanity to Your Life.

Dr. Palmatier runs a website, Shrink4Men.com. She’s one of the few people in the mental health field talking about the emotional abuse of men. In one post on her blog, Palmatier  itemized the ten behaviors characteristic of emotionally abusive women:

• Bullying

• Unreasonable expectations

• Verbal attacks

• Gaslighting (lying and then claiming he is crazy)

• Unpredictable responses

• Constant chaos

• Emotional blackmail

• Rejection

• Withholding affection and sex

• Isolating

The result?

You’re constantly on edge, walking on eggshells, and waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is a trauma response. You’re being traumatized by her behavior. Because you can’t predict her responses, you become hyper vigilant to any change in her mood or potential outburst, which leaves you in a perpetual state of anxiety and possibly fear. It’s a healthy sign to be afraid of this behavior. It’s scary. Don’t feel ashamed to admit it.

One of the difficulties with addressing the emotional abuse of men is that things today are so politically polarized it’s hard to have a calm discussion about it. Feminists have worked so hard over the last fifty years to turn men from ogres into enlightened companions that they feel any concession that women are also capable of abuse is a betrayal of the cause.

Hmmmmm. Excuse my rolly eyes at that.

There are feminists who are reknowned for awfulness and use the mere fact of men to be their excuse. This one for instance. Clemmy Ford.  She is a paid writer for a viewsrag in Oz.

"I dipped a quill in the inky ocean of male tears and wrote an angry manifesto."

Even her allies have to try very hard to find a nice word for her. Take Julia Baird for instance ....

"I was struck by that last week, when Ford walked on to the stage in Melbourne for the launch of her book – which had sold out days before – to sustained roars and applause. The book contains a raw, mutinous account of her life – her anxieties, eating disorders, abortions, insecurities, triumphs – the path of her feminist enlightenment and her call to arms. It is marbled with both anger and nonchalance about abuse. As she told Twitter: "I dipped a quill in the inky ocean of male tears and wrote an angry manifesto."

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/clementine-ford-is-winning-the-battle-for-feminisms-final-frontier-20160930-grsesi.html

I do not thik Clemmy wants to be nice at all. But, back to Mark and Tara.....

There is a massive infrastructure in academia, politics, and pop culture that serves to support women who are abused by men. This is a good thing, as violence against women remains prevalent and a problem. Yet abuse experts have argued that emotional abuse can be worse than physical abuse.

Academics have also pointed out that 70% of unreciprocated physical violence is by women against men.  Unreciprocated. That means the man did not hit back. I am surprised Mark omitted that.  As for pop culture, one only has to look at sitcoms and adverts to see the strong, sassy, 'executive' woman and the dorky, stupid man. They are the trope of the era.

A punch to the face leaves obvious proof, evidence to use with the police to put the assailant behind bars. {if he is a man}. 

Emotional abuse, which men can tolerate and excuse away as normal, can go on for years, leaving a person weak, desperate, and profoundly suicidal. They have lost themselves.

On the other side of the political spectrum, conservatives tend to scream that feminism is to blame when the discussion of abusive women comes up.

Do they? Scream? Conservatives? Hmmmmm. Better pour the fellow another. 

Every woman who gets off a funny line about men instantly becomes Medusa. This trivializes genuine emotional abuse, and often masks simple misogyny. (This, sadly, seems the case with Paul Elam, Dr. Palmatier’s co-author on Say Goodbye to Crazy. Palmatier is a brilliant analyst, but in video conversations with her, Elam comes across as angry and crude.)

Just as anecdotal evidence indicates that the emotional abuse of men is more widespread than the media reports, it also reveals that emotional abuse doesn’t have much to do with politics. The abused tend to become abusers, a terrible reality that has more to do with the soul and psyche than who’s running congress. Liberal and conservative women are caring and supportive partners. They can also—just like men—be pathological narcissists who torture their husbands and boyfriends.

Yet, counting to ten, taking a deep breath, can provide breathing space instead of leaping into an abusive tirade.

One could also try - OK, not many do try this - being forgiving, especially when you do not understand something or someone. 

Be nice, dammit. 

Both of you.

I have a Bouncer.

To finish and restore equilibrium let us fly over a lake, not of male tears, of which I have shed many in my time, and a nice waterfall, into Vagar in the Faroe Islands. 

The point? Well, it is most unlikely that you ever have flown there; not seen it as a pilot has, looking out of the front windows.  And the Faroes are beautiful. And remote. And windswept. And Vikings still live there.

Vikings like fighting.

I do not recommend taking your girlfriend there for dinner.


Pax