I rest my case.

Yes, Virginia, you are a woman and I, I am a man. And that is a-okay.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/561877622.html

Infidelity Rises When She Makes More Than He Does

Imagine That - emasculated-man doesn't do well in relationship. Caveman must hunt and conquer.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/642146.html?campaign_id=rss_topStories

Totally Brilliant

Read and Learn ladies and gentlemen. Textbook classic here:

Dr. Tara Palmatier: What Makes Your Control Freak Wife or Girlfriend Tick..

This is so rare that I could not resist cutting and pasting it. Good to see that at least some people will actually admit that women are just as much the culprit at destroying relationships (more so). Remind yourself of twho is the main divorce instigator(still topping 70% plus as far as I am aware) and it ain't my sex..

What Makes Your Control Freak Wife or Girlfriend Tick
Monday, May 10, 2010
By Dr. Tara J. Palmatier

Does your wife or girlfriend tell you what to do most or all of the time? Does she become enraged or sullen and withdrawn if she doesn’t get her way? Does she needle you endlessly until you capitulate? Controlling behaviors and attitudes are just another aspect of abusive women personality traits.

It’s natural to want to have control over your own life. However, most of us realize you can’t control everything, especially other people. You can make requests or try to influence others, but you can’t control them. Psychologist Dr Thomas Schumacher writes, “When you have to be in control of the people around you…when you literally can’t rest until you get your own way…you have a personality disorder.”

Here’s the rub: You can’t control others. Not really. When you spend your every waking moment worrying about what others are doing, compulsively trying to control them, you’re the one who ultimately becomes controlled by your desire to control. It’s a paradoxical effect. For those of you who are involved with an emotionally abusive, controlling woman, you probably recognize that maniacal, “out of control” look in her eyes when she’s trying to bend you to her will and you’re trying to resist.

Are control freaks and Narcissistic and/or Borderline women one and the same?

There’s a lot of overlap between the characteristics of “control freaks” and emotionally abusive NPD/BPD women. This isn’t a great leap since many men who are involved with these women describe them as “controlling.” If you think of this woman as a cubic zirconia, “control freak” is just another facet that flashes in the light like “bully,” “professional victim,” “pathological jealousy,” “hypercritical,” “entitled,” etc. Put another way, it’s another piece of the fragmented BPD/NPD woman jigsaw puzzle.

Control freaks and abusive women both:

* Have difficulty trusting others.
* Have a profound fear of having their flaws exposed.
* Cannot tolerate feeling vulnerable (and, therefore, can’t handle intimacy).
* Are riddled with anxiety, fear, insecurity and anger.

What’s really going on.

Why does she invest so much in trying to control you and your reality? Because she tries to manage her anxiety by trying to control you. Control is her anxiety management technique of choice. She doesn’t experience anxiety like a relatively healthy person does—an unpleasant sensation that will eventually pass. To this woman, anxiety is a painful reminder that something is wrong with her. To acknowledge this is akin to being lowered into a dark, bottomless pit with no way out. There is a way out, of course; facing her issues and feeling her feelings, but she’s not going to do that. Controlling and torturing you makes her feel better about herself.

Facing her fears and working through her issues would mean admitting she actually has issues, which would mean holding herself accountable and not blaming others. It makes much more sense (to her and remember, she’s the only one who matters) to deny and ignore her problems and push and poke at you because in her mind you’re the one with the problem, not her.

Her strategy is unconscious for the most part and goes something like this: If you’re both totally focused on and consumed by what a useless, screw-up jerk you are, she believes no one will notice her glaring flaws. Get it? I feel dizzy from typing that last piece of illogical reasoning, but that’s what goes on in the dark recesses of her brain.

She tries to stave off her deep-seated fear of having her true self exposed by controlling every aspect of her life and her relationship with you, including imposing her distorted version of reality upon you. She views her ability to control you as a matter of survival—her psychological survival, that is. “Being in control gives her the temporary illusion of a sense of calmness. When she feels she is prevailing, you can just about sense the tension oozing out of her” (Schumacher).

Think about it. When does she come close to being in a good mood or smile with pure pleasure? When she feels like she’s in the catbird seat because she’s gotten her way, pulled one over on you or pulled the rug out from underneath you. The size of her smile is in direct proportion to the number of times she twisted the proverbial knife.

Other Favorite Defense Mechanisms: Projection and projective identification.

Projection and projective identification play a part in her controlling behaviors. She maps her feelings onto you and controls you by inducing these feelings within you. Her controlling facade masks her true internal experience. Deep down she feels frightened, out of control, incompetent and helpless.

Les Parrot (The Control Freak) writes, “People who want to exert control over everything can make those around them feel inadequate, insecure, nervous, angry, anxious and physically sick. Their message is: I don’t trust you to be able to do it right; I don’t respect your judgment; I don’t think you are competent; I don’t value your insight.” Whether or not this woman is aware of it, this is how she feels about herself. Once you recognize the defense mechanisms at play, it becomes a little easier to take her hurtful behaviors less personally. She’d be like this with anyone.

In order for me to win, you must lose.

Because this is a matter of psychological survival to her, she has to steamroll you in order to avoid feeling helpless. “To relinquish control is tantamount to being victimized and overwhelmed” (Schumacher). Unfortunately, her fears also fuel her lack of empathy toward you and create the mindset: “Victimize or be victimized; dominate or be dominated.”

To the abusive woman, it’s not enough to merely control you. She only feels in control and good about herself if she makes you feel less than. Her mood becomes buoyant as she cuts you down. She has to make you feel useless, disoriented and helpless, so that she doesn’t feel this way.

This is evidence of a faulty belief system. She has a one-up/one-down mentality. She believes that in every interpersonal interaction there’s a winner and a loser and she will fight tooth and nail against being the “loser.” This is why it’s virtually impossible for this woman to compromise or make concessions. To her, compromise and concession are humiliating defeats. She’d rather blow the house up and everything in it than compromise or take personal responsibility.

Her need to control, however, will come back to bite her on the backside. Instead of feeling and appearing in control, this woman comes across as out of control when trying to exert control and the people who are under her tyranny eventually stage a revolt and/or bolt from the relationship.

Losing control.

Schumacher cites the rapid phases this kind of woman goes through when she’s not getting her way or feels she’s losing control. For example, when you challenge her or threaten to end the relationship, she probably exhibits the following emotional states in quick succession:

1. Angry and agitated. (You’re treated to a rage episode and/or nasty commentary, blame and accusations.)
2. Panicky and apprehensive. (She exposes fleeting vulnerability as she tries to “feel you out” in order to see how and if she can regain control. She may worry that she’s gone too far and is testing the waters before gearing up for another control maneuver.)
3. Agitated and threatening. (Because anxiety is ego dystonic—i.e., painfully uncomfortable—she quickly reverts to form and begins to bully you and issue ultimatums and threats of punishment.)
4. Depression and despair. (When all else fails, she becomes sullen and withdrawn and suffers a temporary identity crisis.)

Her unhealthy coping mechanism (control) becomes an unhealthy and rigid pattern. Because it’s impossible to control others, she’s locked in the endless loop of fighting off real and imagined threats to her control. Since she won’t look at her own issues and focuses solely on controlling you and her environment, she never gains mastery over the fears that plague her. Her attempts at mastery (control) over her emotions and fears instead become a replay of misery for herself and others. But remember, she’ll probably never be able to see herself as part of the problem, which means it’s highly unlikely she’ll ever change.

Fellow Psychologist, Dr Patricia A. Farrell, states: “They’re highly resistant to any therapy, and there is no medication for the personality disorder.” To seek help themselves, she says, “the control freak has to be convinced the price is too great not to, and that doesn’t happen very often.”

Yes, this woman is deeply troubled, but it is NOT your responsibility to tolerate, accept or change her. The only way to gain mastery over a relationship with this kind of woman is to end it. Otherwise, you’ll begin an endless replay loop of your own misery.

Next week I’ll post ways to manage an emotionally abusive “control freak,” so please check back.

by Dr Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Originally posted at Shrink4Men on August 3, 2009.

Good News Ladies!

You don't NEED men! Children only need single moms! Woo Hoo! And thank god. Because that bar scene was getting to be a real, real headache, wasn't it? I mean the quality of the men in there was just.... well you know what I mean.

Paul's article takes off from an analysis of data on parents and children by Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology at New York University, and Timothy Biblarz, a demographer from the University of Southern California, that was published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family. Its purpose is to explain what effect (if any) parental gender has on children. The authors conclude that parental gender seems to make no difference in outcomes for children. That's the "bottom line" of the study; Paul missed it.

Biblarz and Stacey look closest at lesbian parents and tentatively conclude that they're about as good at parenting as heterosexual couples. But that conclusion comes with two huge caveats that the authors clearly state. First, studies of lesbian couples overwhelmingly study white, relatively-affluent couples and so are not comparable to more demographically sound ones done of heterosexual couples. Paul never lets her readers in on that fact.

The second caveat is that lesbian couples are far less stable than heterosexual couples, a fact plainly stated by Biblarz and Stacey. While there are various social factors that may account for that, the fact remains that lesbian couples tend to break up more readily than do heterosexual couples and have higher levels of parental conflict. The authors discuss that in some detail; Paul leaves it out altogether.

Are Fathers Necessary?

A paternal contribution may not be as essential as we think.
By Pamela Paul

Even the most recession-walloped and otherwise diminished man can take pride in his essential role as father. Fathers, Barack Obama intoned in a 2008 Father’s Day speech, are “critical” to the foundation of each family. “They are teachers and coaches. They are mentors and role models. They are examples of success and the men who constantly push us toward it.”

None of this would seem particularly controversial. Nor would the ominous statistics Obama reeled off about kids who grow up without Dad: five times as likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times as likely to drop out of school, and 20 times as likely to wind up in prison. Obama was citing a commonly accepted and constantly updated body of research. The effectively fatherless Obama is clearly a freakish outlier. As for the rest of the fatherless: insufficiently breast-fed, apt to develop attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, unable to form secure bonds, lacking self-esteem, accident prone, asthmatic, and fat.

Liberal feminist moms—eager for the participation of our emotionally evolved, enthusiastically diaper-bag-toting mates in the grueling round of dual-career child rearing—are keen to back the data. Dads, we tell our husbands, are essential influences on children, the source of unique benefits.

There’s only one problem: none of this is proven. In the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology at New York University, and Timothy Biblarz, a demographer from the University of Southern California, consolidated the available data on the role of gender in child rearing. As Stacey and Biblarz point out, our ideas of what dads do and provide are based primarily on contrasts between married-couple parents and single-female parents: an apples-to-oranges exercise that conflates gender, sexual orientation, marital status, and biogenetic relationships in ways that a true comparison of parent gender—one that compared married gay-male couples or married lesbian couples to married heterosexuals, or single fathers to single mothers—would not. Most of the data fail to distinguish between a father and the income a father provides, or between the presence of a father and the presence of a second parent, regardless of gender.

Drawing on reliable comparative studies, you could say this: single moms tend to be more involved, set more rules, communicate better, and feel closer to their children than single dads. They have less difficulty monitoring their children’s whereabouts, friendships, and school progress. Their children do better on standardized tests and have higher grades, and teenagers of single moms are actually less likely to engage in delinquent behavior or substance abuse than those of single dads. Go, Murphy Brown.

The quality of parenting, Biblarz and Stacey say, is what really matters, not gender. But the real challenge to our notion of the “essential” father might well be the lesbian mom. On average, lesbian parents spend more time with their children than fathers do. They rate disputes with their children as less frequent than do hetero couples, and describe co-parenting more compatibly and with greater satisfaction. Their kids perceive their parents to be more available and dependable than do the children of heteros. They also discuss more emotional issues with their parents. They have fewer behavioral problems, and show more interest in and try harder at school.

According to Stacey and Biblarz, “Two women who chose to become parents together seemed to provide a double dose of a middle-class ‘feminine’ approach to parenting.” And, they conclude, “based strictly on the published science, one could argue that two women parent better on average than a woman and a man, or at least than a woman and man with a traditional division of family labor.”

Ah, there’s the rub. All howling to the contrary, most heterosexual men and women like that traditional division. Sticking to “gendered” parenting roles offers a seductive affirmation. Fathers, roughhouse all you want. But we, gatekeeper moms, are in charge of the rest. We could give you detailed instruction, and you still couldn’t possibly do it as well. “Even women who want their husbands to help more with the kids don’t want to give up their traditional authority,” says Stephanie Coontz, director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families. In addition to our pragmatic embrace of these roles, we still live in a culture with a deeply embedded notion of what a father is, beyond just another set of hands, and men, women, and children cling to it.

The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution. The good news is, we’ve gotten used to him.

Modern Day Feminism

An Outfit With a Purpose

There is a big flare up over Venus Williams outfit at the French Open. And really, there should be. I am all about Freedom. Freedom for everyone, no matter how much I hate them or what they're saying or doing. Even in France. On the tennis court. However, Venus's outfit was basically over-sized lingerie with a very slight emphasis on "over-sized." It was over-sized like a slightly large hat is over-sized. Buttressing the lingerie-like mini-skirt (which many tennis women have been wearing versions of for years), was the skin-toned mini-shorts she had on underneath (for those of you who don't know, they are a tight-fitting over-underwear boy-shorts type of clothing that prevents you from getting the full-Monty when the women serve, or jump or otherwise cause the mini-skirt to fly up.) When Venus served and bent over, the skirt flew up and with the skin-toned shorts on, you could swear that you were seeing her ass and.... Mr. Felix himself, if you catch my drift. I mean, you know it was risque when even the French were appalled. Those people invented menage-a-trios.



So what gives? Does Venus have bad taste? She does design clothes after all - she has her own label. She has some idea of fashion, right? So maybe it was a "fashion statement?" Maybe she's making a social statement that women's bodies are beautiful and that exposing them is also beautiful and that men should learn to live with that, or some such drivel - right? I mean Venus herself, when asked (in the tone of a flattered full-figured school girl) said that "skin is beautiful." So that's it? Nope, nope, and nope.

Again, as nearly always, science knows the answer. We are animals, as I've said a million times before and will say a million times again. The skirt got attention. Lots of it. Sexually-slanted attention. Venus has always had a great figure and has, like many women, been very, very conscious of her clothing for years. So now this woman is intentionally drawing attention to herself based on clothing she knew was sexual in nature. Hmmmmmm.

But I love how people think its some kind of artistic accident and that Venus could not possibly be INTENTIONALLY drawing sexual attention to herself ON PURPOSE. Yes, its for a purpose. The purpose is sex and the purpose of sex is procreation. BABIES people. BABIES.

Venus will be 30 years old in a week or so. Women hit their sexual peak in their early 30s. Why? Birth defects skyrocket for children had by women over the age of 30. Women are able to reproduce by the early age of 13. Seems like mother nature has a window in mind for you ladies (and she doesn't care if grad school gets in the way). You see mother nature wants you to procreate at a YOUNG age, because she wants HEALTHY OFFSPRING THAT WILL SURVIVE. Venus has no kids. Mother nature is hormonally reminding her that she is running out of time. Your hormones dictate what you do (yes, I hate it as much as you do). Funny how young men are belittled and beaten down over acting the way their hormones dictate, but when a woman does it, there are loads of excuses. Venus wants babies. PERIOD. Her body wants them at least, I'm not sure what her opinion on the matter is, but wearing such outfits gets her a lot of sexual attention. The attention of men who want to have sex. One sex-ready partner plus another equals YAHTZEE. This is Venus's intention. She's advertising. When women advertise, sometimes its just for attention. They want to bond, they want to mate. In this case? Its for sex people. SEX. She could be a little more subtle, but subtle doesn't really work all that well in the animal kingdom and we are all animals. Men respond to overt physical and visual stimulus. Venus is a smart, smart woman and she's dialing up the sex appeal to get men's attention. The more attention she gets, the more discriminating she can be in choosing a mate. She knows men want sex - she wants a baby. A little negotiating on the terms is all that's left to do.

Risque? Yes.

Confusing? Just to people who aren't familiar with that guy named Darwin.

To Sum Up

Basically, the massive wave of sex-first modern media has made nearly every woman a walking, talking anxiety attack (men aren't much better, but are much less sensitive by nature).

Welcome to Hell.

* The rate of Americans who use anti-depressants has doubled since 1996. [In 14 freaking years the RATE has doubled?!?!!?]
* Women are 2 times more likely to use anti-depressants than men.
* Antidepressants are most commonly prescribed for adults between the ages of 50 and 64.
* Roughly 18.8 million US citizens are suffering the effects of depressive and anxiety disorders.
* As many as 4% of preschoolers are now considered to be clinically depressed and are being given anti-depressants for treatment.
* While it’s thought that anti-depressants help by helping to regulate the level of serotonin and other chemicals in the brain, the truth is the reason these drugs work isn’t actually clearly defined.
* Children and adolescents who take anti-depressants are more prone to suicidal and depressive thinking.
* Eating Disorders can and often are, treated with anti-depressants.
* People under the age of 24 are most likely to experience suicidal thoughts while on anti-depressants.

http://www.anti-depressant.org/2010/01/interesting-statistics-and-facts-about-anti-depressant-use-in-the-us.html

- Adult use of antidepressants almost tripled between 1988-1994 and 1999-2000.
- Ten percent of women 18 and older and 4 percent of men now take antidepressants.
[Ten bleeping percent? Are you out of your mind? That's an astounding percentage. Starting at 18? That sounds great. What exactly could be so wrong with an otherwise perfectly healthy 18 year old girl? What caused it? Let me guess, it has something to do with half-naked women splashed EVERYWHERE and the hyper-attention paid to their bodies? Just a hunch.]

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/04news/hus04.htm

Almost Half of Americans Use at Least One Prescription Drug Annual Report on Nation's Health Shows