Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Femininity And Masculinity: Do These Concepts Help Or Hinder Marital Communication?

Transcript

Femininity And Masculinity: Do These Concepts Help Or Hinder Marital Communication? · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today, I'm going to be talking about femininity
• 0:10
  and masculinity terms, which come up a lot in other things
• 0:15
  that especially male clients read.
• 0:17
  And if I think that these terms are useful or not for couples
• 0:21
  counseling and for understanding your relationship, but before I
• 0:24
  do that, please do subscribe. My most recent episodes are the
• 0:29
  couple number three, the divorced and spirit and female
• 0:33
  hypo sexual disorder is that a thing?
• 0:34
  In female arousal. Is that a thing that is the
• 0:38
  thing. Hopefully, you've you know that,
• 0:41
  but all those are really interesting.
• 0:44
  You only get them if you subscribe or almost up to 75
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  subscriber only episodes. Also, you should join my
• 0:50
  Facebook group. That is a lot of where my
• 0:52
  podcast ideas come from our topics discussed in this group,
• 0:56
  it's a supportive place. There's usually a question of
• 0:58
  the day and that's a fun thing to do for only four ninety-nine
• 1:04
  a month, which Which is beyond. I don't even know what tiny
• 1:09
  decimal place percentage of what it would cost to have a session
• 1:12
  with me. Okay, so anyway, what are we
• 1:17
  talking about today? So frequently I get clients who
• 1:20
  now that I've read so much about sex, I always wrote so much
• 1:22
  about sex but my kids are getting older.
• 1:24
  Can't write that much about tweens.
• 1:26
  They don't like you to make little jokes about them the way
• 1:29
  that you can about a toddler and how hard it is to parent, your
• 1:31
  toddler. So you know, I'm moving.
• 1:34
  Over more to the couple domain, which honestly is the area that
• 1:40
  people have to be in, don't have to but the couple outlasts the
• 1:44
  stage where you have small kids so it's more Evergreen honestly
• 1:47
  as a topic and it relates to all of the couples that I work with
• 1:51
  in counseling. So a lot of people don't have
• 1:54
  have never had experience with a therapist that discusses sex in
• 1:57
  session. Even a couples therapist, which
• 1:59
  is really tragic because if you're leaving sex out of the
• 2:02
  equation and couples counseling, It's, I mean, I don't know what
• 2:06
  you're doing. So, like, going to the grocery
• 2:08
  store and you're only allowed to shop in like two aisles, you
• 2:11
  know. So a lot of what goes on in the
• 2:13
  couple manifest, in the bedroom, not that, that's the entirety of
• 2:17
  the issues. But those issues are frequently
• 2:19
  in microcosm for what goes on in the rest of the of the couples,
• 2:24
  you know relationship. Additionally It's usually the
• 2:27
  primary area of discontent for the higher libido partner which
• 2:31
  is usually the male but not always.
• 2:34
  So if Are in a couples counseling setup where you do
• 2:36
  not discuss sex and you want to realize that there are a couple
• 2:40
  of counselors who do do that, and that you should be with one
• 2:43
  because otherwise again, it's like really cutting yourself off
• 2:47
  at the knees and you're not getting the entirety.
• 2:49
  They're not getting the entirety of the picture.
• 2:52
  And if you say why don't some couples counselors talk about
• 2:57
  sex, I mean it's the same reason like your spouse doesn't talk
• 3:01
  about sex, they don't want to or you don't you know, it's
• 3:04
  uncomfortable. Comfortable.
• 3:05
  This is a taboo topic. This does not get a lot of.
• 3:09
  Does it get trained in school? It's something that you really
• 3:11
  got to learn on your own with continuing ed, as well as your
• 3:15
  own like, you know, autodidactic tendencies in my case, you know
• 3:20
  to read and learn and do this stuff on your own as independent
• 3:25
  study. So it's not like you get out of
• 3:27
  any sort of Ph.D program with us training and how to assess
• 3:33
  sexual issues Within Within a couple if you go on further for
• 3:37
  the a sect certification which I do not have but you can like
• 3:41
  take lots of classes in it or else you know, you could just
• 3:44
  learn it which is what I did and but anyway that's just the PSA
• 3:48
  because sometimes people are like yeah it was in couples
• 3:50
  counseling for a decade. We really learned about how to
• 3:53
  talk to each other. Using I statements the great.
• 3:55
  I mean, you know, the kind of, you know, the kind of stock
• 3:58
  portfolio. You could have for what you were
• 3:59
  paying that person to learn something that you could have
• 4:01
  learned in the first session. But anyway, moving Going on.
• 4:05
  So, masculinity and femininity. Are these Concepts that are
• 4:08
  bandied about a lot particularly in the manosphere and there's
• 4:12
  all this stuff about gender, polarity and the masculine and
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  one, you know, elicits the feminine in the other and vice
• 4:19
  versa. Do I believe in this?
• 4:21
  Yeah. I mean there's gender
• 4:22
  differences. Sure.
• 4:24
  You know but I mean this idea of this like alpha male and then
• 4:28
  this like submissive woman you know, that is kind of what many
• 4:33
  men. I kind of think of this as like,
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  there's some level of alpha, you can act that will just make any
• 4:40
  woman more in touch with her femininity and conversely.
• 4:44
  There is a level of feminine that you could act that will
• 4:47
  pull out the alpha in all meant. Now, this is an accurate.
• 4:51
  Obviously, people come to the table with their pre-existing
• 4:53
  personalities, but it's not entirely misguided.
• 4:57
  But we have to really then be explicit about what we mean
• 5:00
  about feminine and masculine, especially if you have any
• 5:04
  chance. Chance of talking to your
• 5:07
  politically liberal partner about this because soon as you
• 5:10
  use those words masculinity femininity, she's done.
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  And it's always I mean unfailingly the woman is the
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  more liberal partner in the relationships that I see just
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  because I mean I did a podcast about this you know why you're
• 5:23
  politically liberal wife hates you, or whatever wasn't that it
• 5:26
  should have been. That was the title but it wasn't
• 5:28
  either way. Women are they're softer,
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  they're more vulnerable there, feel more, you know?
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  You for suffering. People of all kinds this.
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  I do believe is biological and therefore, they want to help
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  everybody a lot more than men. Do who look more at quote facts
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  and figures and numbers and and what have you so that they so
• 5:50
  like think about it was like taxes, right?
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  So who the man or the woman and Joe average Jane average married
• 5:56
  couple who's going to want to take more taxes out of what
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  they, you know, that who's going to pay more taxes.
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  If it helps a little children, it does.
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  Don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that might be the
• 6:06
  woman. But either way, if this is not
• 6:10
  politically correct remember I'm not politically correct.
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  So wrong podcast, this is just what I see all the time.
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  So if you tried to tell your wife, who is a progressive
• 6:19
  liberal about that, you want her to act more feminine.
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  You better already have another place lined up to sleep that
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  night. So instead what do you?
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  Let's explore. What you may actually mean by
• 6:31
  that. So what are masculine and
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  feminine what to do. The average couple mean, by
• 6:36
  these construct, proactive is more what they mean by
• 6:39
  masculine, which the most Progressive liberal, women will
• 6:42
  say, I want a more proactive husband, that's like, for sure
• 6:44
  she wants. I want a more masculine husband,
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  but she'll say, I want a more proactive husband.
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  I want a less passive husband, I want a quote, real partner,
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  meaning a more proactive husband.
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  So, basically what women wanted to more, proactive husband, I
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  mean, this is like the thing that they say that they want,
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  unless they have somebody who is like.
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  So proactive that R like a mr. Perfect.
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  And they do everything in which case women want somebody who
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  then is nicer to them and takes their opinion into
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  consideration. So what a woman actually want, I
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  mean to be loved and respected what demand actually want to be
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  loved and respected. So there should be a lot of
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  overlap here in understanding one another.
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  Unfortunately, things are not usually understood at this basic
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  level so then it's like men and women want such different things
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  they don't. And that's what I try to keep
• 7:30
  saying about sex men. Just want to be loved and
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  approved of And this this close intimacy with somebody who
• 7:38
  accepts all aspects of them. And that's why they focus so
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  much on sex because sex can feel like that for a man.
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  If they are allowed to kind of do whatever they want almost,
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  you know, they have this Arena that's play Arena where they are
• 7:52
  loved and accepted for whatever they want.
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  They're not shamed there. When they say something, it's
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  considered a fun idea or at least not something horrific and
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  shameful. Well and so this is for men with
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  a physical touch love language, which is the majority, this is
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  this is the arena where they could feel fully loved and for
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  women that can frequently be with words or with Quality Time
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  or with acts of service some women do think that.
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  But, you know, it's interesting because I just read these
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  statistics that said, that 29 percent of men, have a physical
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  touch love language before age 45, but after age, 45 39 percent
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  of men have a physical touch love language.
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  Well, I I think that that's because sex was on more offer
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  earlier when men are younger so they don't understand that.
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  It could go away, you know. So if you're comparing like a
• 8:44
  guy who's 20 years old, with a 20 year old girlfriend and their
• 8:46
  fucking like rabbits all the time.
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  He doesn't understand that this like his love language this,
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  just like some awesome shit. That happens to him, you know?
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  So he might pick gifts or like whatever who gives a shit, you
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  know? But later, as monogamous people
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  as the woman's sex drive attenuates dramatically in her,
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  you know, post children and especially the Then later 30s
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  40s 50s. Then men realize oh shit, this
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  was something that was really important to me all along and
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  that I yearn for so relatedly. I wonder if acts of service goes
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  away in a much the same pattern for women over age 45, I
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  wouldn't be surprised because at that point you don't have young
• 9:22
  kids anymore. So it's not such a big deal if
• 9:24
  somebody makes dinner because you can make your own fucking
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  dinner, you don't have a baby on your hip.
• 9:28
  You don't have to nurse, you don't have to, like, do an
• 9:31
  elaborate bedtime routine with 20 books read, so I think That
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  the act of service one gets less important for women as a love
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  language over time. It's just my hypothesis and I'll
• 9:42
  probably do a podcast on it, because why not?
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  You know, it's interesting enough and it Bears.
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  It's what I see, you know, where all these guys that were always
• 9:50
  the Workhorse for all these years.
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  Then they continue to try to like take her car to get an oil
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  change because what she has more time than anybody now, shouldn't
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  even have to pick kids up at school, they're teenagers, they
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  drive, she get her own. Damn oil change.
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  She doesn't give a shit, you know.
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  So that's it. At that point, that we go to the
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  wife who wants more on her annoyingly satisfied, husband
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  Dynamic where she wants a different sort of language, then
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  had been very instrumentally helpful when she was a younger
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  woman with tiny little children, but okay, so let's go.
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  So, masculinity, reverting back to the topic masculinity.
• 10:23
  It couldn't be understood as proactivity.
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  And what about femininity? I think, sweetness and loving
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  Behavior, this affection. So if you say to your spouse,
• 10:34
  I'm unhappy that we are not affectionate with one another
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  that is basically the same thing, you know, like you want
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  that that you're associating it with a feminine.
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  Like she's cuddly. She looks up at me with love.
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  She's smiling at me. But what is that?
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  If not just affection, that's affection.
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  Now there's another component, which is so with masculinity.
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  It's not just proactivity. Because productivity could be
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  born of anxiety. It's also confidence.
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  It's like here I am. I am making a decision and I'm
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  good. Knock it out of the park you
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  know and with the femininity the affection is not just like
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  affection of course that you would have for you know your dog
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  or something. It's more of a more of an
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  affection to somebody that you also, like, look up to in some
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  way that you think is really great.
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  So it's admiring affection like how she used to act when you
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  started dating hopefully and like the man also, like, when
• 11:29
  you started dating, he didn't say, man.
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  I really know where we should go out to eat.
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  Why don't you pick You know, and you know what?
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  I don't even know if I want to go out to eat because like it's
• 11:38
  like cold out, you know? And like why are we even wasting
• 11:42
  that money? Like that is not how you acted
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  when you were dating. You were like, sure, how about
• 11:46
  we try. You know, like this restaurant
• 11:49
  at this time, I'll pick you up. So, like a confident,
• 11:52
  proactivity is what women associate with masculinity on a
• 11:56
  subconscious level and respond to, and a admiring affection, is
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  what femininity could be translated as As another thing
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  about femininity is, there's a lot of women who refuse to say
• 12:09
  that they are not that they want the man to take care of them.
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  And I have so many podcasts about this.
• 12:16
  I think I'd like three and like a post but there's a lot of
• 12:19
  women who are unhappy that the man doesn't take care of them,
• 12:22
  but they do basically everything in their power to make sure the
• 12:24
  man doesn't take care of them and then they don't get to feel
• 12:27
  feminine because for many women, femininity internally is when
• 12:31
  you feel like the guy is pursuing you.
• 12:34
  And Caring for you and watching out for you and protecting you.
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  But if you find it extremely difficult to accept this because
• 12:42
  you're trying to be a people pleaser and then over function,
• 12:44
  ER then you're going to end up with a guy who doesn't take care
• 12:46
  of you and you you may be drawn to a guy who doesn't have that
• 12:50
  even capability or you may have a guy who could have had that
• 12:53
  capability but you kind of you know, it's it's died on the vine
• 12:58
  because whenever he tried to take care of you and anybody,
• 13:00
  you said, no, no, I'm fine, I'm fine, I could do it, I could do
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  it, you know, I could do this and then I could do some shit.
• 13:04
  It for you on top of it so I'm fine.
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  I'm fine. And some women do this out of
• 13:09
  insecurity, because they think all they have to offer is their
• 13:11
  ability to do stuff. Like this is the people pleaser
• 13:15
  equivalent the over functioning equivalent of what I call the
• 13:18
  Workhorse. In men, this idea that your
• 13:20
  value is predicated solely on what you can provide.
• 13:23
  So there's women who are like, I'll pay, I'll pay for myself
• 13:27
  and I will do all the chores because at my own house that I
• 13:31
  bought with my money and I'll drive myself to the airport.
• 13:33
  And I'll park it, I'll pick my About drive myself back and I
• 13:36
  can do this on my own and on my own in this on my own.
• 13:39
  Cool. But what is your overall, goal?
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  If your overall goal is to have somebody who looks out for you
• 13:46
  and tries to make your life easier?
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  Then you're not going about that the right way, you're not
• 13:51
  sending out. Signals that indicate I need
• 13:53
  help, like any person needs help with anything ever.
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  So there would be no entry point for a man to take care of you
• 14:02
  and things are not like, you know, A romance novel where the
• 14:05
  woman is so completely independent but then somehow the
• 14:09
  man comes in and this amazing kind of way with like a
• 14:13
  helicopter and like you know, I don't even know what you're late
• 14:17
  on the road and he's his helicopter comes so that he
• 14:19
  could you know pull you in your car.
• 14:21
  So you get to your OBGYN on time.
• 14:23
  Like she like that doesn't happen, you know.
• 14:25
  So there is no amount of like awesome, you know, proactive
• 14:30
  masculinity or proactive confidence or whatever.
• 14:33
  We're going to call it that Can go up against a woman who is
• 14:37
  resolved to need nobody and to in fact show that she can do
• 14:42
  everything all the time and men do not generally consider such
• 14:46
  women to be quote feminine because they're not in any way
• 14:49
  interdependent. Now remember that's not
• 14:51
  codependent codependents when you can't live without each
• 14:54
  other in a very you know Twilight vampire movie Sense,
• 14:59
  that's like crazy but and not real but interdependent is I do
• 15:04
  need Need you for these things and you need me for these
• 15:06
  things. So a woman who cannot ever say,
• 15:09
  I need you for these things. And instead only says, you need
• 15:13
  me for these things. That is somebody who's generally
• 15:16
  not thought of, as this, as a woman who even really
• 15:21
  definitionally needs the man around.
• 15:23
  So, therefore, it's not very kind of romantic.
• 15:26
  It doesn't pull out the best of the man in terms of him trying
• 15:30
  to make her life easier because there seems no way.
• 15:32
  Seems like she's thought about everything.
• 15:34
  All right, And similarly, if you are a man who when your wife
• 15:38
  says, where should we go out to eat, you are so terrified that
• 15:42
  she's going to be mad at you for something that instead of
• 15:44
  saying, oh hey, she's throwing me a softball.
• 15:47
  Now it's my time to hit it out of the park and to like plan,
• 15:49
  something awesome and said you like I don't know.
• 15:51
  Where do you want to eat? Well then shit, you just took
• 15:54
  your opportunity to act more masculine and you just ruined
• 15:57
  it, you know, you lost it. So I mean it could come back,
• 16:00
  you know, unless you die the next day, you know there where
• 16:03
  there is life, there is hope. Hope.
• 16:04
  And the next time you can certainly plan a date from
• 16:06
  scratch. But if every time your wife kind
• 16:09
  of gives you a softball like, hey, why don't you take over
• 16:12
  this thing and really impressed me and you're like, Janna, you
• 16:16
  know, it's a lot of work, she probably won't be impressed.
• 16:18
  Anyway, I'll probably end up doing it wrong.
• 16:20
  Getting yelled at I'll just watch TV.
• 16:22
  Well, then you are letting your opportunity to impress her with
• 16:25
  your masculinity /. Proactive confidence, you're
• 16:28
  letting that died on the vine. And so then, it's obviously it
• 16:31
  takes two to tango. But if you're listening to If
• 16:34
  it's probable that your spouse is not and so you have decided
• 16:38
  that you want to try to change your relationship.
• 16:40
  So in that case, if you're in a heterosexual relationship or
• 16:44
  honestly, it's not like these constructs don't apply.
• 16:47
  I work with same-sex couples as well.
• 16:49
  And nobody likes the person who's passive and nobody likes
• 16:52
  the person who just does everything for themselves and
• 16:55
  doesn't never act, admiring or affection, nobody likes that but
• 16:59
  in these specific roles and it for anybody that's also and
• 17:04
  about masculinity femininity and feels that that applies to them.
• 17:07
  Try to think about it. In terms of am I acting in these
• 17:11
  specific ways that could potentially elicit more of this
• 17:14
  type of response from my spouse and, or am I just like hoping
• 17:20
  against hope? Right?
• 17:22
  That the, that, that, that, if I say it enough times, some little
• 17:25
  pointed passive-aggressive Barb's that somehow like my
• 17:29
  spouse is going to change and thereby allow me to be my best
• 17:32
  self magically because there's so Tens women come in there.
• 17:35
  Like if he acted more Alpha than I could be more feminine.
• 17:39
  It's like what about bi-directional?
• 17:41
  You know? This this equation is
• 17:42
  bi-directional. Do you like to more feminine?
• 17:44
  This is what the book surrendered wife is about which
• 17:47
  I really like nobody likes it because the title at least in my
• 17:50
  circles but it's really good books you should read it.
• 17:53
  It's not about surrendering to the man.
• 17:55
  It's surrendering your tendency to fucking micromanage
• 17:58
  everything so you should read it but you know that that isn't
• 18:02
  going to work, it's not going to work that there's this man that
• 18:04
  can Go up against any level of fully self-reliant, completely
• 18:10
  hating, dependence woman, and then make her feel taken care
• 18:15
  of, you know, by just like somehow shoving this care down,
• 18:19
  her throat. Like it just doesn't work like
• 18:21
  that and similarly, you know, it's not like the so in the case
• 18:26
  that a woman thinks that the man could act different and make her
• 18:29
  act different, there's just as many men who are thinking, oh,
• 18:33
  if I had this like law, Sweet feminine wife, then then then I
• 18:38
  will change careers and then I'd be my best self.
• 18:41
  Then I'd probably start running again.
• 18:43
  God damn it. And now, you know, I mean, with
• 18:45
  the support of a woman who like looked at me, you know, like my
• 18:48
  friend Bob's wife looked at him today and, you know, and we were
• 18:51
  sitting out there at the soccer game and, you know, if I had a
• 18:54
  woman like that, you know, what's Bob doing?
• 18:57
  You know, he's probably not sitting around like a like a
• 18:59
  serving of mashed potatoes and the evenings, you know, if his
• 19:03
  wife is looking at him with respect, Respect and admiration
• 19:05
  and affection is probable that Bob maybe doing some different
• 19:09
  behaviors than you are. So this is just always, I
• 19:12
  encourage everybody to look inward before blaming the spouse
• 19:16
  for just, not being what you want.
• 19:19
  All right, so not of course, goes into this domain of
• 19:21
  masculinity and femininity as it goes, into every single domain
• 19:25
  with couples. Alright?
• 19:26
  I hope you enjoyed this and do subscribe.
• 19:29
  You can follow me on Facebook, Tick-Tock Instagram, YouTube
• 19:34
  Everywhere Twitter, I'm shitty a Twitter but you can follow me if
• 19:37
  you want to be a pal and I'll talk to everybody soon.
• 19:40
  Bye.