Zenpriest #50 - Listening to What Men Really Say

QUOTE: Gee…I must thank all the guys who put forth their efforts to tell me just how idiotic, foolish, stupid, ridiculous, I am..and how all woman seem to be..whores, selfish, bitches and just how much happier men are without them…

These are the “feelings” I get from reading your responses.

some of your comments hurt me to the core…

You have taken away hope….

Because I have no hope to ever write what I feel again on this site without being torn apart.

Right here we all have fallen into the gender gap which keeps fueling this stupid war. Nowhere, in any of the responses by men, did I see any personal attacks on you. No one called you "idiotic, foolish, stupid, ridiculous”. Nowhere in any of the posts except your own were the words “bitches and whores” used.

In short, you are accusing men of what they did not do! What did I just say in one of my earlier replies? “Women will not hear what men do say.”

No one attacked you personally, they just responded to your exhortation to “get back out there and find one of the good ones” with -“No. And here is why.”

How are you the victim here? How did men expressing their own pain, their own frustration, hurt you?

No one “tore you apart”. They just expressed their own side of the story.

Yet, here we go - you have been “wounded”, you have been hurt and forced to “learn a painful lesson”. We have “taken away your hope.” Somehow, in being honest, the men who have responded to you have turned you into a victim. Your post is full of victim language.

So, yes, this is how and why the vast majority of American women are complicit in this monstrous tragedy. You do not want to hear what men have to say. You want to express yourselves, but when men express themselves in response, they wound the poor little sensitive person on the other side.

So, guys are backpeddling and apologizing for hurting your feelings. I’m sorry that your feelings were hurt, but I am not going to apologize because I never attacked you! I will not take on either guilt or blame for something I did not do.

I warned you not to try to blow sunshine up our butts. When you have walked a mile in our shoes, then we will listen to comments you make about the experience. Until then, you are speaking from ignorance. Sure, you try to spread the blame around and say everyone is guilty, but by doing so you gloss over the specific complaints men bring up again, and again, and again.

Go to the link I mentioned - specifically this post “What the Movement Has Taught me about men - so far.”

One major revelation -

"In listening to these men as they talked to each other and to me, I learned something that has literally changed my life.

It was this: men have feelings. Seriously."

Wow. What a concept! Men have feelings too! Men are not anvils that can be pounded on 7×24x365 and remain unaffected by it.

See, this woman is doing what you aren’t, and what most women won’t - she is actually listening to men, to what we really say. She isn’t putting words in our mouths that we did not say - like “idiotic, foolish, stupid, ridiculous, whores, and bitches.”

Those are your words, not ours, just as your feelings are your feelings and we won’t take responsibility for causing them by simply being honest about our real life experiences.

If women really want to stop this stupid perpetual war, then they need to start really listening to men. They need to stop trying to keep men silenced by playing “oh, you big mean brutes, you have hurt me.”

If you have been “hurt” by men’s honest expressions of their own lives and experiences, it is harm which you have constructed out of thin air. The ugly words are yours, not ours.

We just speak of our lives. If you do not want to hear it, and only want us to listen to you then I think that is the real lesson you should be taking from all this.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Men like to please women and gain their approval, so they give their power away. Men are incredibly afraid of women; they have tremendous fear of women if they feel that the woman is going to criticize them. Frequently when he expresses himself, she says, 'Oh, don't be so ridiculous; I can't believe you're saying that!' or 'Why don't you ever talk about your feelings?' Then when the guy talks about his feelings, she'll often say, 'That's stupid!' or 'You can't really feel that way!' So the way he sees it is never right. And so the guy shuts down, and he refuses to talk. That's what I see in my practice over and over. The guy wonders, 'Why should I open my mouth, when every time I do, she tells me it's wrong?'" -- therapist Laurie Ingraham, in Good Will Towards Men by Jack Kammer

"As listeners, wives tended to display more negative non-verbal behaviour than their husbands. Wives were negative listeners 11% of the time compared to their husband's 3%."
.
"Negative face cues" include "frown, sneer, fear, crying, angry face or disgust."
.
"Negative voice cues" are "cold, tense, fearful, impatient, whining, sarcastic, blaming, angry, hurt, mocking or depressed."
.
"Negative body cues" are "arms akimbo (with hands on hip), tense neck or hands, innattentive, pointing, jabbing or slicing with the hand."
-- Clifford I. Notarius and Jennifer S. Johnson, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1982


The Lamentations of Matheolus: Dominating Clock, 1295:

This female clock is really driving me mad, for her quarrelsome din doesn't stop for a moment. The tongue of a quarrelsome woman never tires of chiming in. She even drowns out the sound of the church bell. A nagging wife couldn't care less whether her words are wise or foolish, provided that the sound of her own voice can be heard. She simply pursues her own ends; there's not a grain of sense in what she says; in fact she finds it impossible to have a decent thought. She doesn't want her husband to be the boss and finds fault with everything he does. Rightly or wrongly, the husband has no choice: he has to put up with the situation and keep his mouth shut if he wants to remain in one piece. No man, however self disciplined or clear-sighted he may be, can protect himself adequately against this. A husband has to like what the wife likes, and disapprove of what she hates and criticize what she criticizes so that her opinions appear to be right. So anyone who wishes to immolate himself on the altar of marriage will have a lot to put up with. Fifteen times, both day and night, he will suffer without respite and he will be sorely tormented. Indeed, I believe that this torture is worse than the torments of hell, with its chains, fire, and iron.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Further Reading:

Zenpriest #14 – If a Man Speaks in the Forest, and There is No Woman There to Correct Him, Is He Still Wrong?

Bonecrker #3 – Shaming Language

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Previous Zenpriest Index Next