Ken Solin

Anyone who rejects that women are smarter than men need only look at the recent statistics for students enrolled in the graduate schools of business, law, medicine, and dentistry. Women now outnumber men in those graduate schools and will soon hold the majority in those lofty careers. Does this make women smarter? I don’t see how anyone can deny this. They came from way behind fifty years ago, and are currently leaving men in their dust, proving that all they ever needed was an equal opportunity.

Women endure physical pain in a manner men could never consider. Think childbirth. And single mothers are raising half of the children in America by themselves, while holding down full-time careers. Are women tougher than men? Clearly they are. There are few jobs any longer that require brute strength alone, and even physically challenging careers in firefighting and police work are being handled capably by women.

But women’s greatest power is in their enormous emotional strength that they call upon when necessary. They can capably provide the love and emotional care their children need, and support their husbands’ needs simultaneously. They aren’t afraid of their emotions, and, unlike men, don’t hide from them out of fear or ignorance. They know how to deal with their feelings as they arise. Men who think women are weak because they cry more easily than they do are delusional. Women cry to release their pent-up emotions, instead of holding them in and blowing up. Men have yet to learn this simple lesson.

What does all of this mean to men? It means that its way past late for men to respond to the deafening wake-up call and become fully embodied men. That means becoming men who are confident in their manhood and can express, feel, and control their emotions. It means men who don’t feel threatened by women, and mistreat them because of their own inadequacies. It means that men are now the ones behind the eight-ball, and sadly, many still haven’t figured that out. Men are being left behind in so many arenas that they are becoming angry instead of resourceful, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Men used to wield all of the power in relationships and were responsible for the day-to-day, general well-being of the women they were in relationships with. That was a burden that men didn’t handle very well, and that women decided to assume. Women have beaten a path towards success and independence that is faster than any social change I can recall. They accomplished all of this with a minimal amount of fuss and noise.

How could women have achieved this if they weren’t smarter, tougher, and more emotionally centered, and what are the lessons men can learn from women? Men who fail to answer the wake-up will be left holding the bag of discontent and loneliness. Women are clever enough to realize that waiting for men to come around is going to take too long. Many now view men in the same way men used to see them, as necessary sexual partners with little else to offer.

Men should feel threatened, at least enough to change their dysfunctional behavior. Fathers who don’t spend time with their children damage them because they deny their children the most important aspect of fatherhood, emotional support. Fathers who cheat their children by withholding child-support because they don’t like the notion of supporting their ex-wives too, have to be plenty stupid, or in serious denial, to believe that baloney. Men can’t choose whether or not to be fathers. If you have a child, you’re a father, end of story.

Men are portrayed as jokes on television, and while it’s grating for me to watch, it’s not entirely out of the realm of reality. Most of the male dysfunctional behavior that causes so much pain to everyone, including men, is related to their inability to respond appropriately to their own feelings. Angry men aren’t angry at women; they just take their anger out on women because women are convenient and physically smaller. Imagine a man trying to rage against a male friend. How long would that friend be willing to tolerate that dysfunctional behavior before he said good-bye and good luck?

While women have been working hard together in small groups to find their places in the world, men have been sitting on the sidelines, watching helplessly as they’re being left in the dust. Men should be angry, but not with women. Men should be angry at their own emotional laziness, which causes them so much unnecessary pain and suffering. Men who continue on a path of emotional laziness will wake up one day to find that not only are women in charge, but that their services are no longer required.

The solution is for men to begin a dialogue with each other that’s entirely directed at their lack of an emotional center. I’ve worked with men for over twenty years, and I’ve seen how easy it is for men to engage each other in this dialogue. The results are men who aren’t afraid of their feelings, and who know how to use them appropriately to work through their issues. I hope I don’t see a time when men are permanently left behind, but all indications are that I might.

For a woman who has done even a minimal amount of emotional growth work, i.e. reading books, going to workshops, listening to talks, being in a relationship with a man who hasn’t, is exhausting and frustrating. I frequently hear from women around the country who are fed up with their men because of the lack of emotional dialogue in their relationships.

I suppose that the hundredth time a woman asks a man how he feels about her and has him tell her what he thinks about her, is about all any human being should ever have to endure. Women have been carrying the emotional dialogue football for so long that men have been relegated to tackling dummies. Have men fallen that far, or was their sense of importance simply inflated in the first place? I suggest both are correct.

I tell guys that the silent, tough guy thing isn’t working for them, and in truth, it never did. It’s past time for men to wake-up to their emotional shortcomings. There’s nothing macho or manly about a guy who’s behavior is that of an emotionally brain dead tackling dummy. Worse, men aren’t even getting their needs met because they’re too lazy to learn a minimal amount of emotional vocabulary. Saying I feel, is different from saying I think, and its inexplicable why men still don’t get that, because it’s an apples/oranges difference.

Statements beginning with I feel, aren’t debatable, which should be a welcome change for men weary from being second-guessed and criticized by women. If a man describes how he’s feeling to a woman, she can’t offer up any judgment, opinion, or advice about what he shares with her. It’s likely the only scenario in a man’s entire life with a woman that doesn’t allow for any snappy comebacks, criticism, or opinions.

If a man tells a woman what he thinks about her, that’s his opinion, and therefore debatable. Telling a woman what he thinks about her isn’t going to help their relationship grow, and like it or not, a relationship that’s stagnant eventually dies from a lack of oxygen, or in this case, dialogue,

“I don’t think we screw often enough,” isn’t likely to get most women into bed. “I miss the warm feeling I get when we make love”, is a more successful way for a man to ask for and get what he needs from a woman. The first statement says what he thinks. Maybe his partner disagrees. Maybe she thinks they make love often enough already, so there’s a difference of opinion that isn’t likely to get settled amicably. The second statement says how a man is feeling. There’s no argument associated with that statement. .

If a woman tells her husband, “I don’t think that you don’t spend enough time with the kids”, he would probably see that as an attack on his character as a father. If instead she said, “I love to watch you play with the kids and see how much they adore you,” he would be hard-pressed to find anything angry or judgmental in that.

Women are now a larger percentage than men in the graduate schools of business, medicine, dentistry, and law, which is ample proof that they have enormous abilities, are driven to succeed, and aren’t waiting around for men to save them. If men hope to ever exert any influence in relationships, they’re going to have to wake up to the fact that their dysfunctional behavior is making them expendable.

The pre-women’s movement attitudes about women are beginning to apply to men who are increasingly being seen as only valuable as sex objects. Women need men for sex, but they no longer need men to have children. Men don’t seem to be getting any of this, perhaps because they are choosing to ignore it. That’s a mistake, because the problem isn’t going away.

Women haven’t yet equaled men in terms of pay and advancement in the workplace, but they’re closing in. I’ve worked with women, and what I’ve noticed is that they’re less ego-driven and are more driven just to get the job done right. Men can learn how to behave in the workplace from women who seem to want to get the job done with a minimum amount of nonsense or bravado.

The age of the muscle aspect of work is over. With few exceptions, women are more than strong enough to compete with men in any arena. In terms of emotional awareness, they are giants compared with men. I have been working with men for two decades, just to get them to understand what it is they need to focus on, and why. For the most part, the men I’ve worked with, all got it. The problem isn’t whether or not men are capable of emotional growth. It’s whether or not they are willing to work to catch up to women who are emotionally superior and in desperate need of men willing to meet them on a level relationship playing field.

I’m hopeful and optimistic, but I also realize that men are going to have to leave the starting gate if they hope to compete in the race. Women have been carrying the heavy load in relationships for as long as I can remember. If men are in fact stronger, they can demonstrate their strength by showing up emotionally. It’s time.

Men rarely show up, emotionally, relegating women to compete for the few who know that in the tech age emotionally savvy guys are the new musclemen. For the rest, relationships remain a flabby mismatch. Just as physical flab indicates physical laziness, emotional flab suggests emotional laziness. Men have no training in the emotional arena, which means that they are either going to face up to their shortcomings, or continue to lag behind women.

One-sided relationships, one in which only one partner is emotionally savvy, never move to a higher level of intimacy. Absent deepening intimacy, relationships stagnate, and like a stagnant pond, begin to smell of decay. Not a very pretty image, but an appropriate one.

The old masculinity died with the start of The Industrial Revolution, 150 years ago, creating a vacuum in which boys never become men, and men behave like boys. There’s no balance between macho and wimpy. Men who lean too heavily on their emotions become sobbing basket cases. They are no more desirable than men who are completely out of touch with their feelings. So where’s the balance?

Women no longer seem willing to ignore men’s dysfunctional behavior. While they are rapidly evolving in business, medicine, and government, men are devolving. Men are lost, and women are frustrated because, for lack of a better term, amateur men, are unable or unwilling to meet their relationship needs.

Men are going to have to ramp up their game, just to catch-up to women on an emotional level. In practical terms, that means men have to stop being afraid of their feelings and learn to understand and control them. An angry guy becomes tedious and exhausting, and strains a relationship to the breaking point quickly.  Unless, or until he can figure out why he’s angry, and begin to work through his issue, a woman shouldn’t feel responsible for moving on without him.

It might help if men could watch other men on television in particular, behaving appropriately. Sadly, the men on television are the opposite. They’re shown to be stupid, foolish, and incapable of acting like men who set the bar higher. I suppose some people find that guy funny. I don’t, and I doubt most women do either.

Alternatively, men in public life have set an even worse example. Every male politician who lies to the public becomes just another man who can’t be trusted. Every thieving businessman suggests that men are not trustworthy. Every male celebrity who ends up in rehab suggests men can’t even take care of themselves, let alone a woman in a relationship.

So where are the good guys? Where are the men who are making a difference because they’re making an effort to relate to women, emotionally? One place to find men on the right path is in small, confidential men’s groups. There aren’t a lot of these men, yet, but their numbers are growing. I’ve been working with men in small groups for over twenty years, and in that time, every single man who dug deep and faced his issues, was able to overcome them, in time.

Men carry a tremendous amount of fear around with them, and it acts like an anchor. It’s heavy and severely limits a man’s maneuverability. Fear of not making enough money, of looking less manly, of being betrayed, of failing in career, of being unemployed, and last, but not least, of other men, all contribute to a dysfunctional man whose behavior reflects fear more than anything else.

An evolving man is one who understands his emotional shortcomings and works to overcome them. He understands that absent getting on top of his emotions and taking control of them, he will remain a victim of his emotions. When a man challenges his emotional issues by talking about them with other men, he begins the process of leaving them behind, like any excess baggage. Once he lightens his emotional load, he’s better prepared to work with his partner to deepen the intimacy in their relationship.

Women are drawn to his authentic power, because he wields his newly developed emotional strength with dignity and fairness. Other men want to emulate him, because he represents the new male paradigm; confident, courageous, emotionally strong, and with a clear sense of cultural position.

Do men’s groups really make that much of a difference? More than I could ever explain. I was an angry guy who raged in every relationship I was ever in, until I began my men’s group two decades ago. I talked about my anger and received helpful feedback from other men who had overcome their anger. I haven’t raged for years, and when I got married four years ago, I was grateful for the help I got from other, like-minded men. I never could have married if I was still wielding my anger like a weapon.

Individual therapy is always an option, but a better one, for most issues men face, is working those issues out with the help from other men. Once a man faces his biggest fear, fear of other men, change begins. There is no judgment, advice, or opinions offered in men’s groups. Men share their experiences instead, what they did that worked, and what they did that didn’t work. A woman’s support can make the difference between whether or not a man chooses the right path.