If Your Man Knew What to Say, Here’s What He Might Say If He Knew You Feared His Potential For Violence...

Excerpted from Warren Farrell's Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say.

(Permission to reprint granted by Warren Farrell.)
See www.warrenfarrell.com and www.warrenfarrell.info.

 

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If Men Have Learned “Never Hit A Woman,” Then Why Do Men Batter At All?

If the beautiful princess chooses the man who is willing to die to protect her, how is it she sometimes winds up being abused by the man who was willing to die for her?

A man writes to Dear Abby that his wife broke his arms and ribs when she threw a heavy chair at him; that she frequently attacked him with his fingernails, drawing blood from his face and neck. But his training to never hit a woman stopped him from retaliating, and he made up lies when he visited emergency rooms. He stayed in the marriage for the child, but when he finally filed for divorce, she accused him of child molestation. Although acquitted, he felt devastated.76

The Dear Abby man never hit back. So why do some men violate the male mandate and retaliate – or even initiate? When a man feels the woman he is supposed to protect is threatening him or verbally chopping him apart, he begins to make a mental transfer from protecting her to protecting himself from her. She begins to lose her status as a woman. When that nexus is reached, his protector instinct is compromised. He becomes almost a split personality: protect her; defend self. In turn, when his protector instinct is compromised, her love for him is compromised, and her fear of him becomes irrational – which is her way of protecting herself.

Once this nexus is reached another conflicting message also emerges: “Men don’t hit women” conflicts with “she won’t respect a man she can push around.” Paradoxically, he doesn't have the ability to protect until he has the ability to stand up for himself. And sometimes, the woman may be provoking him to stimulate passion and strength, which she may find preferable to a disconnected blob. In brief, there is often an intricately woven dance going on, which makes one-sided blame so inappropriate.

Don’t Husbands Actually Kill Their Wives More Than Wives Kill Husbands, Thus Making Battering Scarier To Women?

Women’s fears of men are exploited not only by women-in-jeopardy movies but also by full-page ads like the one I opened the chapter with from the Ad Council, a public service ad in Time magazine. The happy bride is warned: “42% of all murdered women are killed by the same man.”77 Look at the ad again and register the feeling.