Women, Head Games, and The Sensitive Man

I consider this a gem of sorts---it's been on the Internet for a while now, and there's a great deal of truth here.

Women, Head Games, and The Sensitive Man

By BusterB

I've said it before and I'll say it again: modern women don't want a sensitive man. Traditional women didn't want him either. If you become a classic "new age" sensitive man, you'll invite scorn from both sides of the female spectrum. As much as women may say that they are looking for sensitive men, they act in exactly the opposite way: as though they are looking for insensitive men.

Have you ever noticed... I mean, really sat down and thought about how women react to emotional situations versus how women expect men to react to those same situations? Women judge the reasonableness of their own reactions based on how they feel; they judge the reasonableness of men's reactions on how those reactions make women feel. An angry woman will rant and rave and do her best to make her man feel bad. She calls this, "Getting [her] point across." That same woman will expect her man to keep a level head and watch what he says when he's angry so as not to upset her. If he says things to make her feel bad, then suddenly he has done something far worse than what she did in the first place to provoke his anger, and it is he who must apologize.

I have never in my life hung around with or dated a woman who didn't play head games on mates or prospective mates, although I've been out with only a few women who would admit to it. A woman will often tell her man that she doesn't love him, that he doesn't love her, that he never listens to her, or that she has done something outrageously stupid, all just to get him going. What she says doesn't have to be true; it doesn't even have to resemble the truth, and in fact it's better if it doesn't. A woman will bluff her way through something like this until he buys into what she is saying, at which point she will giggle and tell him that she was fooling, or add insult to injury by getting angry at him for believing such a thing of her. Women call this "teasing" and they love it. I used to be bewildered by this teasing, but recently the penny dropped. Now I understand it. Now it makes sense.

All of this teasing is women testing their men and preparing them to react properly in emotional situations. By "properly" I don't mean that she is teaching him to defend himself, or follow his own moral compass. She is not helping him to get in touch with himself. Quite the opposite, she is trying to find out just exactly how out of touch he is with himself, and help that along if possible. She wants to know where his breaking point is, so that she can use that information to control him.

By "teasing," she is sowing confusion, seeing how much emotional battering he can take before he snaps, and finding the hot buttons that make him feel guilty and apologetic. All three of these things help map the territory for her, and tell her how to manipulate him.

"Teasing" teaches a man not to trust his mate and, ultimately, not to trust his own feelings. She tells him that she mistakenly threw out his paycheque. His gut reaction is that this is a joke. She couldn't possibly have done anything so stupid. As she continues to insist that she did, and chides him for leaving it on a pile with the newspapers, he is torn between believing his wife and believing in his wife's intelligence. Finally, he caves in to the repeated assurances and gets angry, at which point she tells him that she was only joking, and gets angry at him for believing that she could be so stupid.

She has now taught him that he can't trust his own feelings. He knew in the beginning that it was a joke, but she convinced him that he was wrong, then turned the tables on him and blamed him for believing her. If she repeats this process often enough he will become completely confused and rely on only her to tell him what is right and what is not.

She has also determined just how long it takes him to cave in and simply believe whatever she says, no matter how outrageous. She has tested his boundaries to see how self-assured he is. The quicker he acquiesces the better, as it means that he is easier to control. She can encourage this by repeating this exercise over and over, causing him to simply accept whatever she says is the truth sooner and sooner each time.

Finally, in the process of blaming him for the whole event, she may have come across one or two hot buttons that will cause him to break down, feel guilty, and apologize. These can be anything from calling him a certain name, to shouting, to crying. She will remember these for use later when the two of them get into an argument.

If you think that this is over the top, consider how a woman would react to the same sort of "teasing" coming from a man. He tells her that he accidentally released her pet bird and it escaped out the window. At first she doesn't believe that he could be so stupid. (In the case of American women, they might skip this step due to their extremely low opinion of men.) After his repeated assurances, she gradually comes to accept the truth until she is finally in tears. At this point he brightens up and tells her that he is kidding and that the bird has flown into the den and is hiding behind the TV. He then explodes at her for having such a low opinion of him that she believed in his feigned stupidity.

We have a word for this in Western society: it's called "emotional abuse." We call it "abuse" because the intent is clear: to sow confusion and doubt in the person being "teased" until they no longer trust their own feelings or judgement. Notice, however, that it's called "emotional abuse" only when visited by a man upon a woman.

I claim that the motivation and methods involved in "emotional abuse" of women by men and "teasing" of men by women are exactly the same. To illustrate this, let's look at how women eventually use the information they gain through "teasing" and the conditioning that they instill in their mates through "teasing."

A thoroughly teased man no longer trusts his own feelings. He doesn't dare trust them. He has learned that to trust his own feelings means that he often has to accuse his wife of lying to him through a perfectly straight face. If it turns out that he is right and she is fooling him, then all is well, but if his feelings are wrong and she is not fooling him, she will make him wish he had never been born. In short, teasing dramatically raises the stakes for the man. Trusting his own feelings becomes an extremely risky endeavour, so he doesn't bother. He trusts hers instead.

A woman who teases her man mercilessly knows how long it will take him to cave in and believe whatever she says. She can use this to decide whether it is worth her trouble to talk to him and discuss her point of view or simply bulldoze him into agreeing with her. While men place a strong emphasis on reasoning and discussing options, women are primarily interested in simply winning the argument. Knowing his limit helps her make a more informed choice about which tactic is more likely to achieve the desired result.

She knows how long it will take him to get angry. This is perhaps the most important side-effect, as it tells her how far she can go in using him as an emotional punching bag when she's having a bad day. Women who are having bad days typically smile at everyone around them then come home and take it out on their mates. Women rarely if ever feel guilty about stomping around the house and yelling because they're in a bad mood. Their earlier experiments with teasing and mercurial emotions tell them how far they can push their mate before he snaps and gets angry too.

She also knows how to make him feel shameful and repentant. She will use this at every opportunity to turn the tide in arguments that are not going her way. Again, women place little emphasis on reasoning and discussion. To a woman an argument is a fight to the finish, and whoever wins, by whatever tactic, is the winner. Add to this the fact that women win arguments not by reason but by gaining emotional superiority, and one can easily see where the knowledge gained from "teasing" comes in handy. One day, if she really does mistakenly throw out his paycheque, she will use the knowledge that she has gained over the years to make him feel that it was his fault, and he should apologize to her.

Frequent teasing by women establishes them as emotionally superior, and sets them up to win every argument that they have with their man in the future.

Frequent teasing also affects men: it reduces their emotional security and increases their confusion and emotional pain, just as constantly prodding a caged animal with a stick reduces its sense of security and increases its confusion and pain. Most men cope with this by feeling less. Given a choice between "stuffing" their feelings and feeling anger and resentment toward their chosen mates, men usually choose to "stuff" their feelings. In this sense, women work to make their men less sensitive, not more sensitive.

In order to pull this off, women need insensitive men. A truly sensitive man, who was also sensitive to his own suffering, would become angry with his mate for his mistreatment. Only an insensitive man could tolerate women's emotional terrorism and continue functioning as if nothing were wrong. If a man starts off somewhat sensitive, his mate can and often will discourage his sensitivity with teasing, mercurial emotions, or plain unreasonable behaviour backed up by repeated assertions that she's done nothing wrong. All of these things have the same effect: they help turn him into the very same insensitive clod about which women complain endlessly.

So, if you're a truly sensitive man you can look forward to a lifetime of rejection as women discover that when they cut you, you bleed. Blood—even emotional blood—makes women feel bad, so they move on and look for someone with thicker skin. Thin-skinned, sensitive men make lousy emotional punching bags on bad days. They can't be bludgeoned into acquiescence during arguments because they feel the guilt and shame too readily and break down too easily. They can't be told that black is white and white is black because they're paying attention. They're not as easy to manipulate.

Even if you manage to become that peculiar kind of "sensitive man" who doesn't feel anything other than what his mate wants, you'll still lose out. Even if you manage to attune your sensitivity to her and only her needs, you will still likely be too sensitive. You will become too compliant. You will be too easy to manipulate, and she will lose interest. Most men think that they want a young, vapid, voluptuous nymphomaniac, but when a man finds one, he quickly becomes bored and leaves her. Men think that they want sexy, easy women, but in the end such women present no challenges and no opportunity to grow and learn. Similarly, most women think that they want caring, sensitive men, but when a woman finds one, she quickly becomes bored with him. She thinks that she wants a man who is kind, gentle, and agreeable, but in the end such men present no challenges and no opportunity to grow and learn. So she dumps him for a "real man" who won't pay her too much attention as she fumes and stomps about the house. She wants him to finally break down and give in, but she doesn't want it to be too easy. It's more fun that way.

A Classic Re-posted: Hate Bounces

Hate Bounces: How man-hating and man-bashing harms women – the making of a misogynist

by zed on January 18, 2010

Misogynists are not born, they are made.

Once, a long time ago when the world was young, I loved women with all my heart and soul. I grew up among strong competent women who understood that all living things need to be taken care of and will flourish if that happens.

The men I grew up with knew that as well. Everyone knew that people must live and work together and find ways to cooperate and just deal with the inevitable differences that arise and keep them in perspective. They knew that people are not perfect, but that most of them try to be as good as they can manage. They took the measure of a person in wholeness, and if there was more good than bad to a person, they accepted that person’s faults as being part of the package which was still valuable, if a bit flawed. After all, nobody really is perfect. We all knew that.

Then, something happened. And that something was called feminism. I remember the early days of the movement when it was called “Women’s Liberation” which was a high sounding and noble cause in a country which is founded on a document which cites liberty as one of 3 inalienable rights that every person has. No one with a sense of fairness and an understanding of civics could be against women being liberated and treated fairly. And, there was also the promise that some of the ways men were being treated unfairly would change along with it.

And, as the old joke goes: if you believe that one, then I have some lakefront property in the Mojave Desert I’d like to talk to you about.

I learned very quickly that feminism wasn’t about liberating PEOPLE from their previously too restrictive roles which were assigned to them based on the plumbing they displayed at birth, but rather was founded on a number of absolute falsehoods which had nothing to do with freedom, equality, or fairness. The fundamental premise that men had MORE power, not just a different kind of power and in a different area of society as a whole, but MORE power in a complete and absolute sense was something that I vehemently disagreed with. I could come up with thousands of examples of circumstances in which women had more power than men did. And in every example they gave of where men did have any power, I could easily point out the uneven distribution of power among men, and how a few men at the top of the wealth/influence pyramid had a lot of power, but that the vast majority of men had very little.

The strangest thing was that most of the situations in which I was being told I had or was exercising “power” seemed absolutely ridiculous to me. When I was a college freshman, one day I was walking across campus toward the student union. I reached the door about a half step ahead of a female student so, as I had been brought up to do, I hastened my last couple of steps and held the door open for her. Instead of the smile and nod that I had been used to in response to such simple acts of social courtesy, she flew into a rage and started screaming at me about how what a male chauvinist PIG I was, that she was perfectly capable of opening that door for herself and didn’t need any g– damned MAN to do it for her, and kicked me in the knee.

“Shock” is a totally inadequate word to describe my response.

I was at a loss to understand any of her reaction. She couldn’t have been any more totally, completely, and absolutely wrong about my motivations and purposes. I instantly assigned her to the categories of “mentally defective,” “hate filled,” and female. Over the next several years, a lot of women joined her company.

A couple of years later, a woman that I was dating described her feminist “consciousness raising” group as consisting of “perfectly satisfying man hating sessions.” Again, I was bewildered. I asked why she found hating me(n) so “perfectly satisfying.” I don’t remember the answer she gave, but she soon proved to me just how true that statement was of her. Like the knee-kicker in response to having a door opened, it seemed that anything and everything I did was proof that I deserved her hatred and rancor. At least 10 years later, she called me out of the blue to apologize. She said she realized that she had just gotten swept up in a group consciousness of hatred and had finally realized what had happened and that I had not deserved the bile she had spewed on me.

It was, I suppose, better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it was too little and too late. Because, by then I had encountered so many other women who acted in pretty much the same way that it had simply become part of my view of what women were. Somewhere, deep down inside, either hidden or proudly displayed, women hated men. Women came in a variety of sizes and shapes, most had breasts and female genitals, but they all seemed to come with a hatred and fundamental contempt for men. One woman I dated while Jimmy Carter was still president spoke of “my hatred of men” in the same matter-of-fact tone that she might say “my nose.” It was just an integral part of her.

Needless to say, this presented me with a significant paradox and source of internal conflict. Being a healthy heterosexual male, I had the natural and universal desire that men have to have a loving relationship with a woman. But, how is it possible to love someone that returns hate for that love?

So, over time I began to develop a wary distrustful posture toward women. I still dated them, but I had become so conditioned to expect hatred from them that I simply accepted it as part of the price I had to pay in order to be involved with one. My desire for a relationship was still strong, but was opposed by a distrust and unwillingness to let someone who hated me get the upper hand over me. Thus, in my mind the concept of “commitment” became one and the same as “trapped in a relationship with someone who hates me.” I was indeed one of those men who “wouldn’t make a commitment.”

The worst part of this, for me, is that it blinded me to the warning signals of some truly sick personalities. The hostility which I had become accustomed to enduring from women became only a matter of degree – greater or lesser. And, with a baseline of being kicked in the knee for the courtesy of opening a door, and learning how “satisfying” man hating is to some women, I had no yardstick to sort out the seriously sick and deranged women from any of the rest. As a result, I ended up in some relationships that were truly horrible and very damaging to me. And, of course, each of these left scars which over time built up so much emotional scar tissue that I began to lose all the positive feelings I once had for women.

That is the personal side. And, I won’t bore you with the details of all the stories. But, there eventually got to be so many that I developed the attitude that the question was not “whether” a woman would burn me if let her get close enough to do so, but “when” and “how soon” it would happen.

On the political side, things were just as bad if not worse. About the same time I started becoming the target of violent physical attacks by individual women for what I perceived as courtesy, I also became the target of vicious verbal attacks by women collectively – just for being a man.

I remember the first time I saw the slogan “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle,” I knew my face had just been spit in. Men were not just useless to women, we were irrelevant. We had no purpose in a woman’s life, and did not belong in her world at all. It was a message of hate, dismissal, and refutation. But, I also saw it as a warning of what was to come. It was like seeing clouds on the horizon, and knowing that it is time to get under cover because a storm is brewing. And, since it was obviously smearing shit in my face, it was going to be a shit storm.

Soon it became apparent that women could say any damn thing they wanted about men – no matter how wrong, no matter how hateful, no matter how unfair – and that was fine, but every time I stood up to that and said “no, that is wrong, there is another point of view” I’d get some little fem-bot harpy in my face shrieking the same old tired slogans, like a mindless Chatty Cathy doll, about how I was threatened by losing my power, wanted to keep women “in their place,” was probably violent, and was a misogynist. The dull predictability and regularity of it all was only kept from being terminally boring by the shrillness and sheer vehemence of the attacks.

There is a belief among those who believe in magic that one must speak a spell 3 times in order for it to become binding and true. It took being called a misogynist a lot more than 3 times to become true, more like 3000+, but in time it did become true.

I began to see women as vicious creatures whose only agenda when it came to me, or any man, was to see how much they could get from the man – then when he had nothing left to give because they had taken it all, toss him out with yesterday’s garbage. In short – I viewed them as nothing but users.

Feminist author Wendy Dennis came out with a book in the early 1990s called “Hot and Bothered: sex and love in the 90s.” Among many other astute observations in the book was that nothing was more classically typical of the state of male/female relations than the woman who complained bitterly about every aspect of men, then couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t get one of these awful creatures to fall madly in love with her. I had observed the same thing so many times that I had simply concluded that such women were simply not very bright. In stark contrast to the mythology of how socially adept women are, I was baffled that such women were so stupid that they didn’t realize that no living thing will respond to such projections of distaste, contempt, and hatred with anything except return animosity.

I took to avoiding women, particularly groups of them, because I could never sit quietly and put up with the bashing and would always challenge it, which ended up in a lot of fights and added greatly the count of times that I got called “misogynist.” I noticed that women seemed to do it habitually, without thinking, and would confront my female friends over and over until they learned not to do it in my presence.

And, after 3 decades of listening to it, and hating it, and trying to keep the animosity which had been building in me over it – when the husband of a woman friend of mine (who had been very dishonest about her motivations for our friendship and had been trying to harass me into turning our friendship sexual) threatened to kill me and she said “I don’t know why you are making such a big deal about it,” I caved in and really did begin to hate women.

Most of the time this hatred lies dormant. I figure that the best thing I can do for myself and for women is to keep the contact I must have with them to a minimum, and to keep as much distance between them and myself as possible. It is rather like hanging a sign on a fence that says “Beware of VERY bad dog.” Stay outside the fence, and everything is fine. But, come through the gate at your own risk. Leave me the hell alone and I will leave you alone.

Misogynists are not born, they are made.

I am still baffled at all the women who seem to expect men to live on a steady diet of hatred and man bashing, and somehow magically metabolize this toxic diet into “love” for women and a desire to see good things come to them. When I work real hard, I can make the anger cold and take no joy when bad things happen to women. I simply regard it with indifference. When I hear a woman whine about being victimized, I simply tune her out and go elsewhere.
When a woman smiles at me, I think of an old ethic bashing joke – “What does a ______ say instead of ‘fuck you?‘” Answer “Trust Me.”

I will not allow most women in my house unless I have known her a long time and she is old enough to have escaped being infected with the plague of man hating or is escorted by someone I trust, nor will I enter theirs except on the same conditions. If I pass a woman stranded on the road, I will not stop to help her because it is as likely as not that she will be afraid of me. That’s fine. She’s a fish without a bicycle – I have no place in her world, nor her in mine.

Man bashing and man hating harms women, because it makes men hate them back – eventually. A puppy returns love for love, but if you beat it will eventually turn mean and will one day turn on you when you raise your fist or your stick (or the club of words) to hit it. Men are no different. When women talk about treating men like dogs, I wish they would. It would be an improvement. Most women treat their dogs far better than they treat their men.

Somewhere along the line, I went through a metamorphosis. I changed from a man who loved women and thought they were just about the greatest thing in the world, to a man who can’t stand them, or anything about them.

I’m sick and tired of the lies that women tell about men, I’m sick and tired of their victim games, I’m sick and tired of hatred and bashing I have to put up with when I am around them. I am sick and tired of the arrogant contempt in which they seem to hold me and all other men. I am sick to death of the way that some of them feel the need to seek me out to piss me off. A couple of years back, at the funeral of my uncle, as fine a man as I have ever known, some woman felt the need to start a conversation with me as I sat with my private grief. She wanted me to agree with her that men don’t ask for directions.

How could anyone be so stupid and socially incompetent? When men came up to me to talk, it was always with something like “Your uncle was a fine man,” not, “aren’t men headstrong and stupid?”

Invariably, when I tell a woman about all this, she tries to argue with me and say something like “get over it,” or “why don’t you take the gender out of it?” In return I ask, “Why the hell don’t you women get over it, and take the gender out of it?”

I would like nothing better than to be left in peace, and allow women to enjoy the absence of my company which they find so annoying and unpleasant. Every day, a few more men got through the transformation and become like me. We don’t get our guns and shoot a few women; we don’t beat them up; because what women have been saying about us all these years is just flat wrong. But, there’s no point in trying to tell women that because they have become so certain of their superiority that the best way to deal with them is to leave them to it, and the company of their other fishy friends.

Videos of Argus Eyes reading this essay are available here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A87VbJUY6g and here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH4poAZKeak

Something I had to slap on here

I'll leave the commentary for the readers at the moment; it says a lot in itself.

Jack Donovan on "Mother May I" Masculinity

From The Spearhead, another good article.


"Modern women balk at any suggestion that men should be able to tell women how to behave. Many believe that a woman should be able to do whatever she likes without worrying “what women are supposed to do.”

When feminists talk to men, they pretend to offer the same sort of freedom from social expectations attached to one’s sex. But this talk of freedom is always a lie. This new, “free” model of manhood approved by feminists must, after all, serve the interests of feminism. Many traditionally masculine behaviors and ideas are clearly “off limits.” So, while the new woman does whatever she wants and explores her world unfettered, the feminist male is carefully restricted and monitored for signs of disobedience or treachery.

He’s a rhinestone collared lapdog with a humiliating barrette in his hair, free to run in a yard bordered by an electric fence.

At best, he’s allowed the manly privileges of opening jars and taking out the garbage.

The pro-feminist male is a wretched, guilt-ridden creature who must at every turn make certain he is not impeding the progress of women in any way. He willingly accepts guilt for crimes against women he never committed, perpetrated by men he has never met. He must question any interest he has in sports or any admiration he might have for traditional male role models—for fear that he is perpetuating cultures of honor or patriarchy that could somehow result in the oppression of or violence against women. He must be careful to include women in every activity, even if he would prefer not to. He must avoid pornography. He must “Try hard to understand how [his] own attitudes and actions might inadvertently perpetuate sexism and violence, and work toward changing them.” He must never collude with men to work for the interests of men—unless those interests have been certified as completely harmless to the interests of women. He is encouraged to work with women to support their interests with little or no regard for how those interests might have a negative impact on men. He must “create systems of accountability to women in [his] community.” He must reject any advantages he receives that seem to be tied to “systems of male privilege” but he must support and defend programs that help or give advantages to women based on their sex alone.

The only “freedom” that feminism offers men is the freedom to do exactly what women want him to do. The freedom to serve.

Moderate feminists sometimes make the argument that feminism is truly “humanism” and that the interests of men and women are essentially the same. This is a debatable belief—not a fact—and we must respect it, as H.L. Mencken wrote, “only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” Men and women do share some key interests—especially when they are not in competition with one another. But so long as men and women remain physically different and demonstrate different psychological and political tendencies, some conflicts of interest between them will naturally continue.

No woman is expected to burden herself with concerns about how her words or actions might have a negative impact on men. The idea that women should serve the interests of men is explicitly anti-feminist, but the same is not true of men serving the interests of women. Serving the interests of women—possibly at the expense of your own—is required of men who support feminism.

What kind of a man must ask women “what kind of man may I be?”

Not a man, but a boy—a mere child picking flowers for a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the head.

Any assertion of his manhood hinges on the question “Mother, may I?”

If men are not supposed to tell women how women must behave, what right do women have to demand that men cater to their interests? Who are they to tell men what manhood means? Why should men accept their authority? What the Hell do women know about what it means to be a man?

A woman’s commentary on the masculine experience is warped and distorted by her own interests, and should never be regarded as authoritative. If, as feminists have said, the personal is political, it is foolish to trust any woman not to filter her thoughts on men through her own experience and interests as a woman. The pose and the language of unbiased thought do not guarantee it.

These new, independent women should have no need to exploit a man’s vestigial sense of chivalry. If they are truly suited to compete with men, they should be able to do so without special rules, privileges and protections. Men should not have to curb their behavior so that women can achieve. If “equality” were truly desired, men would never have to ask, “Mother, may I?”

Now, within any relationship or friendship between two people, compromise is inevitable and healthy. Every relationship is different, and a man and a woman should be able to make their private arrangements as best serves them both.

It is also true that some compromise at the public level is necessary to maintain even the most rudimentary civilization. But to ask men to radically alter their behavior to facilitate the success of complete strangers with whom they may well be in direct or indirect competition is absurd. That’s not “equality” any more than asking a boxer to fight with one hand tied behind his back is a “fair fight.”

And yet this is exactly what feminists ask of men.

“Hobble yourselves so that we can crawl over your backs.”

Men need to reject this.

In the UK, there was recently some controversy over the formation of what looks like the most benignly pro-feminist men’s therapy and health education group you could possibly imagine. But it was too much for some women to entertain the possibility that men might have any valid concerns or complaints of their own, or that they should have access to the same kinds of sex-specific support networks that now abound for women. The group’s leader fell all over himself trying to justify his existence to female critics, trying to prove that he was “one of the good ones” and that his focus on masculinity wasn’t a threat to women or gays or the transgendered. Perhaps this appeased his masters.

Men are doing this everywhere. They’re apologizing and appeasing and asking for permission, cowering and begging and finding out that it will never, ever be enough.

Maybe some men believe that unless they hold their tongues and surrender to the never-ending demands of women, they’ll never get laid again. Maybe they’re afraid of being alone, unloved or scorned by women. Maybe they’re afraid that if they really look into the abyss and see the situation for what it is, they’ll be consumed by anger and hatred and they’ll no longer be able to smile and nod their way through the crowd of oblivious and obedient consumers who are their friends, families, employers and clients. Buckin’ the system ain’t great for business. So men lie to themselves and pretend everything is fine to keep things on an even keel.

Damage control.

It’s a little too easy for me, having little use for women and few reasons to compromise with them, to tell other men what I think they should do. So I’ll just ask:

“How’s that working out for ya, fellas?”

Change will begin when men stop working from willingly handicapped, defensive positions.

Men need to stop apologizing for being men.

And most of all, they need to stop asking for permission to be men."