Category Archives: psychology
The Allure of Bad Boys
Why do women fall for bad boys?
My students ask that question all the time.
Michael Kimmel, who studies men, asks his women students to choose between the charming rouge, Rhett Butler and dependable Ashley Wilkes. “Do I have to choose?” they groan. “Are those my only choices?” they plead. Because they like characteristics of both. Forced to choose, about half opt for each type. Those desiring Rhett want his gusto and charisma, minus the philandering. Change – but keep the good parts. One woman insisted, “The problem is that Rhett Butler has never been loved by me. When I love him, he’ll change.”
So not all women want bad boys — or want them to be very bad. But what about those who do? Women likely end up with hurtful men for various reasons.
Some get bored after making a “win.” One woman explained that at first she wonders, “Can I get this person? Am I good enough?” But after she wins him over she thinks, “Now I know and I’m bored.” Bad boys keep her guessing so at least life’s not dull.
Or, when a man sends mixed signals a woman can spend a great deal of time discerning his intentions. Realizing she thinks about him constantly, she may suppose she’s really into him.
A few are drawn to the drama that surrounds difficult relationships. Certainly there are no ruts.
Others simply suffer from low self-esteem and feel they deserve no better.
Some think that men who abuse them out of jealousy are showing great passion. He must really love me to get so upset! As Dr. Regina Barreca over at Psychology Today describes it, “His anger and her fear are seen as ‘proof’ of their love.” Usually they end up divorced in the end – once she gets that he’s only abusive.
Bad boys can come across as self-confident and powerful – even if it’s more bravado than real, and some feel “special” at being chosen by them.
Meanwhile, because our culture eroticizes male dominance, many internalize the notion and find it appealing. These women may not end up too happy about the reality of domineering men in the long run.
A few believe women are hard-wired to desire a strong man who can impart superior genes to her children. And so they choose cheating, abusive bullies who end up abandoning them and their children? That aids survival? Or does cruelty just masquerade as strength?
Many say their desires have changed. Their younger selves wanted bad boys, but with maturity they’ve turned toward good men. As one put it:
I did leave the cave man, regained my independence and self esteem, and found another man. To my surprise, this man is attentive, loving, tells me I’m beautiful (in sweats), and spontaneous. He picks flowers, decorates my car, cooks. . . I could keep going on, but I’ll say I feel like a queen!
To all the good guys: plenty of women want you, and more so as they grow and gain understanding. Hang in there.
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Must We All Look The Same? Variety Is The Spice Of Life
Variety is the spice of life
“Find fits for every body type,” the ad says.
Hmmm, I see tall and skinny in the first frame. Tall and skinny in the second frame. Tall and skinny in the third frame. And tall and skinny in the last frame.
Lisa Wade over at Sociological Images wonders,
Are they actually mocking us? Do they really think we are so stupid as to not find the text and visuals in this ad laughably mis-matched? Are they trying to offend all people outside of this “range” of body types so that they don’t wear their clothes? I just… I don’t know.
She goes on to observe that fashion advice almost always aims at “Getting women’s bodies, whatever shape they might be, to conform with one ideal body type: the skinny hourglass figure.”
The advice is all about trying to hide the shape of a woman’s actual body so that everyone looks just one way. Here’s advice for women with a “pear” shape. Use clothing to:
- slim your hips and thighs
- draw attention to the upper part of your body
- balance your figure with shoulder pads
- a roomy top will de-emphasize your bottom
- offset your hips
- avoid side pockets, they add bulk where you least need it
“Why not highlight that awesome booty and tiny waist and shoulders?” Lisa asks. “Work that pear-shape!”
Others celebrate variety as the spice of life. Check out these lines from a piece called, “That Girl: What Makes You Different Makes You Beautiful” @ Absurd Grace.
I want to teach my daughter appropriate and healthy ways of seeing herself so that she doesn’t have to go through the same self-deprecating madness that I went through. It horrifies me that she could possibly grow up to be fearful of being perfectly herself, imperfections and all.
I think I will start with making a rule that she doesn’t look at Teen magazines in order to know what beauty is. Instead I am going to teach her that to look differently is real beauty. To use your natural physical attributes that are unlike everyone else is what makes you charming. And to have a balanced, kind, compassionate soul is desirous. If you can look deep inside of yourself, into your heart, and know that you’ve acted with those characteristics – that is beauty.
Everything else is just detail that can and will change. But who you are, inside, and what makes you different on the outside, that is where the stunning comes in.
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8-Year-Old Called “Whore” for Long Sleeves, Skirts
Naama Margolese became terrified of walking to her second-grade class in a conservative section of Israel when ultra-Orthodox men began spitting on her, insulting her and calling her a prostitute because she wasn’t sufficiently modest.
Come on! As a (merely) Orthodox Jew, she wears long sleeves and long skirts.
And she’s 8!
But as we all know, men aren’t responsible for their sexuality, women – and apparently girls — are. This little girl is sexually provoking men? Who are tempted to engage in prostitution with her? Are they all pedophiles?
The New York Times reports that ultra-Orthodox zealots are increasingly pressuring strict adherence to modesty rules, including enforced gender segregation or excluding women altogether. As the Times describes:
Ultra-orthodox followers cordoned off one section of Beit Shemesh, Israel and proclaimed “Women are asked not to linger in this area.” Outside a synagogue in the Kirya ha-Haredit quarter a sign demanded females cross to the opposite sidewalk and not tarry outside the building. And orthodox male soldiers insist female soldiers not sing, since women’s voices are so beguiling.
Meanwhile, female reporters – women with particularly high power and visibility — are assailed with epithets like “whore.”
No girls allowed! is the juvenile message.
Ironic, that the bullying is perpetrated in the name of God. Yet this happens all the time, across religions. Bullies commonly intimidate to create a sense of personal power and superiority over others. Who cares if little girls are abused and women are restricted. So long as men feel empowered and superior as they disempower and demean others.
Men can do what they want. Women can’t. Men are at the front of the bus. Women must go to the back. Both figuratively and literally.
Right here in America women who take the B110 bus in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Brooklyn must actually sit in the back of the bus. As the Times reported:
One father who sat in the front with his son and daughter and declined to give his name said men and women “need to be separated.” He looked down at his daughter dressed in a bright red raincoat, with her blue eyes frozen in amazement, and said: “She’s small. When she’s big, she will sit in the back.”
There was a time when Jews were forbidden to walk freely in Germany, becoming increasingly suppressed. Now a few wish to enforce such limits on their own women.
Only a small group of extremists have gone mad. Most Jews are outraged. Thousands have joined protests against the religious fanatics.
I’ve long argued that modesty enforcement is about things like power, control and creating a sense of male superiority. Modesty is not about morality, as claimed.
The reaction to little Naama is Exhibit A. And the rest yield exhibits B-F.
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Lose Weight, Stop Dieting
“Can a feminist diet?” wondered Kjerstin Gruys, a UCLA sociology grad student. “The question haunts me. I’m a feminist, a recovered anorexic and, yes, I’m on a diet.”
She knows the horrors of obsessing over “bad food.” Women become starving anorexics or binging/vomiting bulimics or fall into the most common food ailment: binge-eating disorder which is marked by overeating in secret, lying about eating, craving unhealthy foods, and putting food first.
Feminists pan diets that “drain women’s energy, happiness, and wallets – often while risking our health,” Gruys notes. And in the end, diets usually fail.
Still, slim women are rewarded and heavy women are punished. So what’s a girl to do?
Gruys has chosen to forgo both mirrors and dieting.
I don’t know if avoiding mirrors will help, but when I stopped dieting I lost weight because I also lost my food obsession.
So I don’t believe in diets. But I do believe in healthy eating – which brings satisfaction without feeling uncomfortably full.
Since I’ve found that poor food choices leave me hungry even if I overeat, I appreciate new food guidelines that recommend lots of delicious fruits, vegetables and whole grains, along with yogurt, nuts, and peanut butter. Milk and cheese don’t seem to affect weight, so add them too.
Foods to enjoy more sparingly include French fries, red meat, processed meats, refined grains, sweets, sugary drinks, fruit juice (who knew?), fried foods, and butter. Potatoes make this list, but the butter and sour cream we put on them are the real problem.
I’ve found that labeling foods “bad” just leads to obsession – you want what you can’t have. So I have my burgers and fries (a couple times a week) and a little candy too. But I’ve also learned that whole foods are luscious.
And don’t forget to exercise and get plenty of sleep.
The starvation beauty ideal is ridiculous – and unattractive, if you ask me. But living healthfully will help us to lead fuller lives.
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Women: Climax Less Likely in Relationship Sex
Researchers at Indiana University have released the most comprehensive sex survey since 1994. They made some surprising discoveries. Among them: men are more likely to enjoy sex and reach orgasm if they are in a relationship than if they are not. But women have more difficulty with arousal and bodily response when they are in a relationship.
This goes completely against stereotype. It also goes against what women and men report about their preferences.
What’s going on?
Today let’s explore women. We’ll look at men in an upcoming post.
When I’ve asked who enjoys sex more in our culture, males or females, I repeatedly get the same response from women. It begins with “Women enjoy sex as much as men, but…”
- Some of us prefer to be with someone we love and who loves us back rather than some crazy one night romp with a random person.
- Women place more emphasis on the emotional aspects of sex.
- Women like sex more when it has depth and meaning. It is much more intense and romancing to women when they are in a relationship.
Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin concluded that for women, sexuality is more linked to love, emotional bonding and connection.
So IU’s data seems puzzling.
The researchers asked women and men about the last time they had sex: Were you with a relationship partner or not? What activities did you engage in? Did you have an orgasm? How much did you enjoy the sexual experience?
Finding: Women were less likely to climax when they were in relationships.
What’s up? Here are some possibilities.
Women who really love sexuality may be more likely to have sex with different partners, affecting the average.
What about more typical women? Women need to feel sexy and desired to get aroused. They want to feel chosen. With a new partner, a woman will feel she’s been chosen because she’s so attractive. But in committed relationships she may feel like her partner simply has no choice but sex with her. Not a big turn-on.
Men also seem to experience a slight drop in interest over time with long-term partners, and women may sense that, leading to an even bigger drop in their own libido.
Why a bigger drop for women? Marta Meana, psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says women have a lower sex drive (influenced by a culture that represses women’s sexuality) and need a bigger jolt to turn on libido. “If I don’t love cake as much as you,” she told a New York Times reporter, “my cake better be kick-butt to get me excited to eat it.” Something for men to think about.
At the same time relationship is helpful because women (and men) need to feel relaxed in order to climax. The Indiana University data isn’t clear on whether the more-aroused women were having sex with men whom they saw as potential committed partners – the beginning of relationship. In that case they might have felt an excitement at feeling chosen, but also safe enough to create the necessary comfort to climax.
But sex isn’t just about orgasm. The emotional component of feeling loved and connected creates a rich, multidimensional experience which may be what so many refer to when they say they want more than a quick roll in the hay.
Meanwhile, some advice for men: let your lady know she’s desired and chosen.
Originally posted on December 13, 2010 by BroadBlogs
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“Bitches and Dudes,” a.k.a. “Women and Men” on College Campuses
Researchers looking at the most commonly used words to describe women and men on college campuses made some interesting findings.
Labels for college men: guy, dude, boy (as in “one of my boys”), stud/homey
Labels for college women: babe, chick, slut, bitch
See a difference?
The words describing men are fairly neutral. The most negative term may be “boy,” implying immaturity, not manhood. But the phrase “one of my boys” is endearing and inclusive. “Homey” prompts thoughts of ghetto life – low class. But it also suggests streetwise toughness – a positive for men.
Stud is very positive, and was likely used a bit more ten years ago when this study was done. Player and pimp might be more common now, but they all create similar imagery: a sexually active man who is potent and adept at attracting women, getting women to submit sexually — and in so doing conquering them. Powerful imagery.
And words for women? They are all sexualized. “Babe” and “chick” indicate sexual attractiveness, alerting us to how important beauty is for women.
“Babe” infantilizes, but also suggests endearment. The term can also describe men whom women are close to. “Chick” may have come from the word chic, meaning fashionable. But thoughts of a baby bird do suggest immaturity, with the added hint of animal status.
“Slut” is the counterpart to stud, but without the celebratory salute – quite the opposite, in fact. “Bitch” can have a similar meaning as in, “A bitch sleeps with everyone but me.” Of course, “extremely unpleasant personality” can be an alternate meaning.
When men seem so interested in getting sex it seems odd to use words that shame women’s sexuality and contribute to sexual dysfunction. Perhaps it all makes conquest, and the ensuing rise in self-regard, that much sweeter.
On the whole, terms describing women are much more negative than those labeling men.
Language affects our minds, it guides how we see the world and ourselves. For more on this, see my post on how language shapes us.
When words describe women as sexual, secondary, and degraded, both women and men come to see them that way, at least unconsciously. We see the effects when less evolved men easily throw these sticks and stones at women, or when too many women swallow the terms, and without much of a whimper.
Originally posted on February 4, 2011 by BroadBlogs
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Are Women Brainwashed Into Polygamy?
Kathy Jo Nicholson began sewing her wedding dress when she was fourteen. If she faithfully served her husband, and accepted at least two other wives, her husband would invite her to join him in heaven. But if she refused polygamy, she would be damned to hell.
Are women brainwashed into polygamy?
In some ways, polygamists aren’t so different from the rest of us. Those who accept “plural marriage” simply accept the way of life that lies before them. Most of us do the same thing.
Why?
When we’re born we don’t have many thoughts in our heads. Knowing nothing, the world around us seems pretty chaotic. So much information! What to do with it? We need to know how to cope and put order to chaos.
Unconsciously, the brain notices patterns and it starts categorizing things. “Oh, usually it’s women who stay home with children. I guess women are family oriented,” the brain concludes. Scientists, presidents, artists, and corporate managers are usually men. White ones. “I guess scientists, presidents, artists, and corporate managers are white males,” surmises the mind. In the 1950s this is how the world looked. It seemed normal and natural and few thought to question it. The oversimplification is also the source of stereotypes.
If we start to understand that people from other cultures can think differently, we might open our minds. The Western world is multi-cultural. We are plugged into the world wide web and connected to satellites. So we know that there are other ways of seeing, even if we don’t necessarily agree.
Isolated groups like polygamists aren’t much exposed to alternate ways of thinking. And that limits possibilities.
Kathy Jo grew up in isolated southern Utah. Her prophet warned against the world’s wickedness: “Leave television alone. Do away with videos. Do away with headphones and listening to radio. Hard metallic music is the devil.”
She didn’t know people who didn’t practice polygamy. It was just how the world was supposed to be. How God wanted it.
Some polygamists live in suburbia, but are isolated amidst the masses. Harassed and ostracized, they keep to themselves. Persecuted people bond more closely together.
But something rocked Kathy Jo’s world. Her prophet had prophesied he’d live until Christ’s second coming. But then he died.
“How can you trust the Prophet,” she asked her father, “if he doesn’t keep his promise?” She was told to stop questioning.
“The key to living the Principle was unquestioning obedience,” Kathy Jo explained. “Never question Father. Do as he says. Never question the Prophet.”
But she kept wondering, silently. Some personalities are more inquiring than others. That some do question is the key to social change.
Later she fell in love and fled the fold to elope. But she could barely cope in the outside world – so used to every decision being made for her. Kathy Jo also worried about going to hell. After many years, she eventually got over it.
Now she worries that her nieces and nephews are trapped in an oppressive world they did not choose.
Are polygamists brainwashed?
Not exactly. That would involve washing something out of the mind that had previously existed there. A synonym is “thought reform.”
What polygamists undergo is similar to everyone’s socialization. We all live with our culture’s understandings in our heads. Every time we feel any sense of racism, sexism, or homophobia (you’ll be surprised how much you do; go to Harvard’s website to find out), or simply believe that the feminine ideal is skinny with large breasts, we have internalized our culture. That is, society’s beliefs now exist in our own minds.
But the polygamists’ experience is more extreme because they hear few competing voices, have a fierce focus on obedience, and are more likely than most to believe that their ways are God’s ways.
But if you want to call it that, we are all brainwashed into our cultural ways of knowing. Some are just more brainwashed than others.
Note: Kathy Jo’s story comes from “Escape From Polygamy,” Glamour
First posted on December 9, 2010 by BroadBlogs
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What Do Top Model and Hard Core Porn Have in Common?
What do hard core porn and reality show, Top Model, have in common? Hard core pornography often gets the viewer off on women’s suffering. So does Top Model.
In the first episode the models underwent Brazilian bikini waxes on camera. As Jennifer Pozner described it, “Cameras flitted back and forth from their pained facial expressions to their nearly nude legs spread wide in the air, while the audio lingered at length on the models’ blood-curdling screams as hot wax was spread over their genitals and their pubic hair was ripped off.”
The only thing missing was the close-up.
Pozner went on to describe how contestants have been asked to drop from platforms onto surfaces with little cushioning, or to sit on ice sculptures in freezing temperatures. One model was asked to pose in a pool of icy water – shaking, shivering, and begging for a break – until her body began to shut down from hypothermia and she was rushed to a hospital.
If pain and suffering isn’t imminent, models are asked to act as though it is, coached to look “scared! Something’s chasing you! Something’s coming to get you!” Scared, “but pretty,” that is.
Host, Tyra Banks, has also asked models to act like they are in pain: chest pain, fingers slammed in a door, strangulation… A signature pose was suggested for one model, “Look like you’re getting punched.”
Beautiful, sexy women in fear and pain. All reminiscent of hard-core pornography: In the popular video, “Two in the Seat #3,” an actress is asked by an off-camera interviewer what will happen. She replies, “I’m here to get pounded.” In other pornos women are hit or raped. Too-large objects are inserted as actresses scream out. Sometimes pain is registered in penetration. Even when suffering isn’t purposely placed in the script, directors don’t bother to edited it out, suggesting viewers’ taste. More and more, the new edge in porn involves cruelty.
I worry about a society that develops a taste for women’s torment. Or for anyone’s distress. As pain becomes eroticized, some develop a desire for their own suffering. My students sometimes talk of getting turned on by a little D/s in the bedroom. This is no surprise. We’re so bombarded with eroticized images of dominance that I suspect few in this culture fail to get turned on by it.
Still, depending on how far it goes, violent sex play can lead to broken skin, bruising and infections, even as the point of pain is to warn us away from doing what it is harmful to the body.
We worry about women being battered. Should we worry when women come to crave their own abuse?
And, surrounded by images of eroticized dominance and violence, and sexily submitting to such acts, does male domination, itself, become sexy?
First posted on November 22, 2010 by BroadBlogs
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The War on Women: Gendercide
A Saudi woman is beheaded for “witchcraft.” Girls are disappearing in India.
Women are “disappeared” in so many ways.
Non-witches in Saudi Arabia may still be “honor killed” for being with boys, for being raped, or for adultery.
So women are more expendable than men.
As they were during the witch hunts of Europe which lasted from 1450 to 1750, resulting in tens of thousands of killings. Three-quarters of the executed were women.
Steven Katz, author of The Holocaust in Historical Context, says,
The overall evidence makes plain that the growth — the panic — in the witch craze was inseparable from the stigmatization of women.
Continuing, Katz quotes The Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), published by Catholic Inquisition authorities in 1485-86.
All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. … What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours…
For the sin of being “woman” so many were killed in two German villages that only one woman per town was left alive at one point of the witch hunt.
Echoing ancient Germany, in some Indian communities few women can be found today. ABC news recently reported:
Fifty thousand girl fetuses are aborted every month in India. It is a staggering number. And it has created whole villages where there are hardly any women. We went to one such village in the province of Haryana. Everywhere we looked, we saw boys, young men, old men, but very, very few women. It was unsettling, especially because we knew this was not some freak of nature, but a result of the deliberate extermination of girls.
As we all know, China faces a deficit of the female sex, too.
In both China and India girls are a drain on family finances. Indian brides require huge dowries which can run their families huge debts. And the eldest son is “Social Security” in China. No son? No one to care for you in old age.
Currently, right-wingers are staging a war on women in the U.S., pushing to block the cancer screenings and tests for HIV that Planned Parenthood provides. They seek to prevent access to birth control and abortion that could save women’s lives. And they want to cut nutrition programs for women and children. Women just aren’t that important.
Patriarchy too often rids the world of women and finds each man smothering the feminine within, whether a stance, a way of walking, a way of talking, an emotion… If he does not he will be accused of being a woman, a girl, girly, girly man, sissy… or he may be called woman-like: fag or gay. Pretty awful, huh?
And so the feminine is “disappeared” in male-dominated societies and within men, themselves, while sexist women and men bolster the cause even as egalitarian men and women fight the good fight.
Where misogyny wins no one is better off.
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Men Who Hate Pretty Women
Let’s say I see a woman and she looks really pretty and really clean and sexy and she’s giving off very feminine, sexy vibes. I think, wow I would love to make love to her, but I know she’s not interested. It’s a tease. A lot of times a woman knows that she’s looking really good and she’ll use that and flaunt it and it makes me feel like she’s laughing at me and I feel degraded…
If I were actually desperate enough to rape somebody it would be from wanting that person, but also it would be a very spiteful thing, just being able to say ‘I have power over you and I can do anything I want with you’ because really I feel that they have power over me just by their presence. Just the fact that they can come up to me and just melt me makes me feel like a dummy, makes me want revenge.
When talking to men about women, Michael Kimmel, one of the nation’s leading researchers on men and masculinity, found that many men’s reactions became surprisingly aggressive. He cites a Men’s Health survey which found that one third of men believed women should be reported for sexual-harassment for their provocative dress. Or, a college chaplain claimed, “The way young women dress in the spring constitutes a sexual assault upon every male within eyesight of them.”
Kimmel says the anger comes from men feeling entitled to women’s bodies. And he says that’s not so surprising given all the “come-on” scantily clad images that surround them, whether in mainstream media or porn. According to Kimmel:
Guys believe that they are entitled to women’s bodies, entitled to sex. Unfortunately for them, a significant number of women don’t see it that way. And when entitlement is thwarted guys seek revenge.
Curiously, while psychologists, feminists and the legal system see male aggression as the initiation of violence, guys describe it not as initiation but as retaliation. What are they retaliating against? The power that women have over them.
All this came as a shock to me. I had known that many men love seeing sexy women on the street, in a bar, at work… I hadn’t known that others found the same visions torturous, as they craved what they couldn’t have. And resented the “rejection.” Maybe some men feel both ways, pleasure and resentment all at once.
The opposing perspectives are striking. Men who enjoy sexy women often feel powerful, believing the women choose to dress alluringly for their pleasure, to please men. Some even think women dress provocatively to feel sexual pleasure in feeling desired. Men who feel this way are turned on, and not angry.
Whether experienced as pleasure or pain, an awful lot of men take women’s appearance personally, thinking it’s about them.
Yet most women dress for their own self-esteem, leading to a double-bind when it comes to dressing sexy: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Women feel tremendous pressure to be beautiful because society rewards them. Their self-worth often depends on it. But then women can end up objectified — being seen as all about sex and little else, or (now we know) leaving some men angry at them.
What’s a girl to do? What’s a guy to do?
Here are some thoughts. Maybe you have some ideas, too.
Some men learn that they should have power over women so that when it’s the other way around, they may feel angry and resentful. See women as your equals — neither less-than nor better-than — and respect them.
Some men come to feel entitled to women’s bodies. Know that we are all entitled to our own bodies, first and foremost.
To those who think that women flaunt their beauty as they laugh and degrade you, know that that’s not what’s happening. Women are simply trying to do what society tells them to do: look beautiful.
Many women and men unfortunately learn to see women in one-dimensional ways that are based on narrow notions of “beauty.” How about expanded vision? Why not enjoy beauty in its many forms and see women as people rather than sexy objects. And instead of being angry at women who aren’t interested in you, see the beauty of those who are.
A commentor calling himself Ocelot wrote an interesting reaction to this that I published, with permission, as a blog post. “Seeing Women as Magic and Evil” offers help for men struggling with this issue.
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