I've been thinking about reimagining my relationships with women.
Definitely preferable.
A friend recently forwarded to me a story from TikTok, so I linked up to the site for the first time. It seems someone posed this question to a large number of women:
Would you rather be stuck in a forest with a bear or a man?
No details about either the bear or the man, just the simple question. A large plurality of the women said, the bear, most without hesitation. My first response was to laugh because this sounded so silly. But because I’ve been reimagining my own relationships with women for the past several weeks, I pressed on, read more, watched accompanying videos, and learned a lot.
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I was mostly interested in two responses in particular that men made to this post.
First, a large percentage of men insisted that the women who favored the bear were just wrong, misinformed. Bears are dangerous and you’d be crazy to be alone in the woods with one. What they didn’t do was take the women’s experiences or opinions seriously. They implied that unless a woman’s choices correspond to ways in which men see things, they don’t just have a different opinion, the women are simply wrong. Even if bears are not very dangerous, why would women choose to be alone with one rather than being alone with a man? With me, for instance? That just seems stupid.
The second response follows from this. The men weren’t quick to reflect on why women might feel men are dangerous. What would cause a woman to fear me? Why would she trust being alone with a predatory animal more than being alone with me? A woman responded on-line to this point with the following zinger: Like, it's not even a hypothetical. I don't hike alone and it's not because I might see a bear. It doesn’t seem to dawn on these men who responded that women might have credible reasons for fearing them.
I've noticed that men don’t trust women’s views on things, even when women are reporting on their own experiences.
Surprisingly good listeners.
I share my psychotherapy practice with four bright and experienced women therapists, and confidently refer clients to each of them. We’ve noticed over the years, however, that men who inquire about therapy are more interested in seeing a male therapist than seeing a woman. Not all men, of course; each of my colleagues has a strong representation of men in their practice. Yet so many men would rather see me than my colleagues. Why?
For one thing, many (most?) men have inherited a cultural belief that men are smarter and stronger than women, even in dealing with personal issues. To choose a woman therapist means giving up this notion, acknowledging that this woman is smarter about you than you are, and that you need her help to straighten out your life. To respect a woman enough to entrust her with your emotional future requires that a man overcome his innate distrust of a woman’s emotions and his inherited conviction that he is, by nature, smarter and stronger than she is. That’s a long stretch for many men.
I've noticed that men don’t trust women’s views on things.
In addition, men are not used to taking instructions from women. In our traditions of family life and work life, men are the ultimate authority figures, the decider when there’s a split gender vote on virtually any issue. I don’t hear it much anymore, but when I was growing up and then a father for the first time, this was one cliché about parenting that was a warning from mothers whom you’d disobeyed but who weren’t able to discipline you: Wait till your father gets home. Because when all is said and done, he’s the boss. What we learn as boys shows up in our adult lives as this willingness to defer to other men but not so willingly to women, even women whom we know love us deeply.
I think what was true for me is true for many men, even those considerably younger that I. It was okay when I was thirteen or fourteen to still depend upon my parents for advice and guidance; for me, this was especially true with my mom. I trusted her wisdom about life and therefore about my life. But by seventeen or eighteen, such dependence began to seem like weakness, in the worst of these moments, a sissy. After all, I now had guy friends and coaches and an occasional mentor – always a man – whom I could turn to if I was confused or uncertain.
What was slow to come was any serious self-reflection on what I was doing or, more poignantly, who I was becoming. It took me a long time to start asking questions about who I am and why I’m here. So I understand how difficult it is for men to look at themselves, and especially to entrust such self-reflections to a relationship with a woman, which is why so many men would rather see me than one of my colleagues.
What a shame, because my own experience tells me the opposite. I’ve had brief therapy experiences with three men, all of whom were able and helpful. But the person whom I saw for nearly two decades and who finally understood me and taught me to understand myself was a woman named Susan. Granted, it took me a few years to finally relax in her presence and give up trying to impress her, as if she, as a woman, would be wowed by my intellect and insights and accomplishments. But I finally showed up at each session like a supplicant, knowing I was more of a mess than I’d ever acknowledged, and needed her insight and guidance if I was going to climb out of the dark pit I’d fallen into.
I haven’t seen her in twenty-five years, but every time I think of how well I’m doing in my life, I remember a seminal moment with her. Several years into our relationship I’d successfully made my way through a complex personal issue and said to her, I realize, Susan, that I’m hanging in there. Without hesitation, she said back to me, You’re more than hanging in, Rick. You’re thriving, something I’d seldom imagined would be true of me again.
When I was seeing a male therapist, my first goal was to get him to respect me for my work, for my professional accomplishments, for my intellect. I wanted them to like me on male terms, and I succeeded, in all three cases. By the end of my therapy with Susan, I knew who I was and who I wasn't. In working with her, I wanted to learn to trust her with my weaknesses so that I could come to understand the complexities that had been my undoing. This was very difficult in the beginning, but her persistent attention to my failures as well as to my successes, to my confusion as well as to my competence, made me finally realize that I could trust her.
So what have I learned from all of this? I'm learning that not to trust women's reports of their experience is to deprive myself of what they have to teach me. My instinct as a man was to respect women who excel in the worlds men consider important - work, managing money, managing their emotions. It has taken me longer to respect women who excel on their own terms, without reference to their work or financial or emotional worlds. It was hard for me to respect women for doing what they think is important, not what I think is important.
Now, If I hear something from women that is surprising to me, or that doesn't accord with my own experience, instead of dismissing it as wrong or uninformed, I can be curious about it. Why might they say that? What in their experience am I missing or not understanding? What does their experience tell me about myself? Why is a bear in the woods preferable to a man?