Yesterday at a home school event, I was having a conversation with a mother who worked in human services, and we both commented that our female clients seemed, generally, more difficult to deal with than male. That they could be very manipulative and energy draining.
Upon thinking about it some more, I began to think about some very difficult male clients I have known, and could name quite a few. Men who used covert means, manipulation and game playing to get what they wanted or to avoid what they didn’t want. They were equally difficult and equally draining.
What really started to stand out to me was the common thread that ran throught his kind of behavior, which really wasn’t gender, but a sense of powerlessness. Most of the manipulative or sabatoging behavior had to do with wanting to make their own choices. They were attempts to be self determining and empowered.
That those choices may not have been in their best interests, that they may not have been competent to make those kinds of determinations is beside the point. There was something within them that still felt the need to do so and balked at any interference.
It’s hard to feel empowered, when you are in a program and so much of your choices are made by others and so much of your time and life is regulated.
There may be reasons, extenuating circumstances that determine that, but the fact remains that even if for good reasons, the human spirit balks at being controlled or “kept”. So any power, even “sideways power” is appealing.
This just makes me believe even more that environment and societal expectations for women and girls not to be directly empowered has more to do with women’s greater propensity to use covert means such as relational aggression to deal with anger and conflict, than the nature of the female sex, itself.
Men, if deprived of the same thing will resort to manipulation and covert means to obtain that which is denied.
So…why did I find it so easy to agree that women were more difficult to handle, when actually, I’ve been challenged and severely taxed by both in my job?
Demian,
~DreamSinger – Healing Songs
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