What Women Don’t Know About Men

Women’s clothing, and the way women dress and style their appearance, often leaves men feeling manipulated. And as an extension of those feelings and internalizations, a vast majority of men firmly believe that women are manipulative in everything they do.

For example, when a woman bends forward and a man catches a glimpse down the top of her blouse, men truly believe that her action was intentional, that she wanted him to see.

Similarly, when a woman is doing a behavior a man doesn’t like, such as acting angry toward him or going out with other people when he’s not going with them, etc – men often see that situation as the woman trying to “test” him.  As if you are intentionally acting in a particular way to see how he will react.  They see women’s actions as if we are testing them to see if they will hit us, or to find out just where their true limits are.

I think the reason men assume that women are trying to flaunt their own power is because men themselves are very control/hierarchy oriented.  So they project that onto women, assuming that women also want to assert their power.  In the past and even today, men tend to believe that the primary power women have available to assert is their womanly features and assets, i.e., their sexuality.

Part of the reason guys feel that way is because guys do respond physically and viscerally and biologically to seeing a woman’s flesh, curves and details of the female body, so they are in a sense – from their own perspective – rendered powerless, because those reactions to the female body that heterosexual men have is an autonomic response, meaning they actually don’t have control over it.  So to have women arousing that reaction in them feels like a woman trying to manipulate a guy, take his power. At least that’s how the guys see it; that since guys are helpless to arousal at seeing the female form, they conclude that this obviously makes a woman’s sexuality her strongest ‘power’ and the source of her manipulative strategies.

When I found all this out (from hearing and reading many men’s testimonies on these topics), I was shocked. I never do any of those things. I am a very un-manipulative person and I certainly am not setting out to “test” guys to see what they will tolerate or let me get away with. Maybe some women are manipulative, and maybe some girls and young women of certain ages are susceptible to all the media influences that show women as manipulators, I don’t know.  But I certainly do know that not all women are doing everything they can to twist a guy up and take away their power and test them and manipulate them to get what we want. Smart, independent–thinking women can find other ways to work toward what they want in life, just like guys do–at least they might be able to if they learned other strategies for reaching goals other than all the endless examples of scheming, manipulative Barbie-doll Bratz on TV.

It is disconcerting that such a huge majority of men–perhaps even all men, to some extent–believe that women are primarily manipulators and the reason we manipulate using our womanly sexuality is because it’s our “best weapon.”  What that particular attitude reveals is this: men are jealous of women’s beauty. Many men feel ugly and perhaps even inferior compared to how women get to look.  Many men may perceive themselves as ugly, sweaty, hairy, big, whatever. They call each other derogatory names insinuating that all the time, and the status quo for media portrayals of men and women regularly and routinely drive home (lest we forget!) the message that women are the beauty and men are ugly beasts at the helpless mercy of woman’s attraction.  This attitude also suggests that our society chooses to define and rate femininity based upon sexual appearance first and foremost, followed by other traits, of course (such as acquiescence, smiling face, sociable skills, etc).  When women have their very essence (their femininity) defined in media everywhere as having a particular look–which now days is the “empowered by loose sexuality, manipulative gold-digger" look–how can we expect men to not see us as manipulative bitches? Sorry, but seriously, I’m just askin’.

Did you know you can even say this phrase on TV, even in primetime and mid-day afternoon: “dumb, stupid, manipulative ho’s and bitches”–without being censored–because that how mainstream that language and the concept is in mainstream society. Case in point, there is an episode of South Park–an animated TV show which has been watched religiously by teen boys (and other people) for years now–called “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset (2004).”  Words like ‘whore’ and ‘bitch’ are used to describe women on TV shows all the time, even in the titles and “info” of the shows, (which can be read from the channel guide) as well as within the dialog and context of the show itself.  But, as in the South Park episode, a lot of this type of programming is actually male reaction and commentary about what women are doing to themselves and how men see it.  It would behoove women to listen, watch and pay attention, because women are losing ground fast in the respect and admiration department. The evidence is everywhere that misogyny is running rampant among men.

I believe the foundation of these attitudes that men have of women as scheming manipulators is largely rooted in how women dress.  Ordinary everyday clothing that women wear is much more provocatively revealing than what men wear, for instance.  A woman in a pair of jeans shows off the entire physical shape of her ass and thighs. Everyone who looks at her can see the details of her body shape at a glance. Look at men in their jeans. You can hardly see the shape of their body at all under there.  Sometimes you can, and that’s real nice in my opinion, though it’s pretty rare these days.  And we already know that guys can’t help but look when a girl is showing off her body. Even if it’s an ‘ugly’ body. The human eye is naturally drawn to the human form when it is revealed, and we tend to naturally “rate” it too, which is just human nature.

Meanwhile, almost every image of a woman on TV is showing off skin, curves, sensuality, materialism, vanity, lots of risqué partial nudity or suggestion of sexuality, etc.  So men see that. Then they go out in the world, where all the girls wear skin tight jeans or showing leg in skirts and dresses, or blouses and tops that sometimes reveal too much.  This puts together an attitude about women in men’s minds, that women are showing off their bodies to manipulate the men.  It’s amazing to me that more women don’t understand what men go through in seeing women’s bodies and see the connection it has to the formation of attitudes that men have toward women, which are a lot less favorable than women may actually know.

Many men are disapproving of the way women dress and feel very manipulated by the way women reveal their bodies. As a result they feel manipulated by women in general. This leads to having attitudes about women that are derogatory and, in a lot of cases, off–target with women’s true intentions and motivations. A lot of women just want to love their life, love their kids and love their families–including their significant other. Men make a lot of stuff up in their head about women, but women are contributing to those perceptions tremendously in the way they dress and allow themselves to be told how to look, as portrayed on TV.

And worst of all, most of the TV shows promoting showing women as ‘manipulative, scheming bitches and ho’s’ are shows that are geared for female audiences and that tons of women watch! Like the multitudes of reality shows (the Bachelor, DWTS, Real Housewives, Kardashians, etc), style shows (think, the E! channel), scripted nighttime dramas, and more.  Look at Sofia Vergara’s character on Modern Family. Can’t she ever where a proper shirt? She has a young teen age son for cryin’ out loud.