Do talk shows on controlling men give dominant men a bad name?
Quite a few years ago, I saw a Sally Jessy Raphael progam on controlling men. One of the men made a point of saying that men are naturally in charge of the world and women exist to serve men.
Sally asked the man who America’s Secretary of State was. The guest shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. What’s his name?”
In sharply measured tones, Sally answered, “HIS name is Madeleine Albright.”
One of her guests said his wife has to bathe him.
Maury Povich often does shows on men who control their wives or girlfriends. “It’s my way or the highway!” is their motto. They appear on the show advertising their belief that a man’s home is his castle and his woman is his servant. One such man announced that he has his wife wipe him after he uses the toilet. Others have more usual desires for clean homes and well-cooked meals served on time but tell the audience that they will beat, choke, or spit on a wife or girlfriend who comes up short in her domestic duties.
One man on Maury told the audience that if his live-in girlfriend disobeys him, “I’ll choke her, I’ll beat her, I’ll lock her in the shed!”
A way in which these dominant men differ radically from each other is in their attitude toward their women’s sexuality. Some resemble the most stoutly traditionalist men of the most conservative Muslim cultures in their zeal to ensure their women have no opportunity to dally with other men. One man moved his family to a rural area to ensure that his wife would be around few other men. However, the mail carrier to their home was a man, a traditional “mailman.” This dominant husband called up the post office and persuaded them to replace the male mail carrier with a female mail carrier or mailwoman (would the forgoing make a fair tongue twister?). I couldn’t help but wonder what NOW would think of this man’s activism on behalf of female employment in a traditionally male field!
Other controlling men insist their women prostitute themselves and give the guy their earnings.
“Do you love this man?” Maury asks of the woman who is being harshly dominated.
“With all my heart,” is the standard answer, often accompanied by tears.
It seems to me that these programs tend to reinforce negative and destructive stereotypes about both sexes. There are few shows on controlling women and the men who love them although I did see a Jerry Springer episode featuring a man who had called the show because he said his live-in girlfriend was cruelly abusive. The Springer camera came into their kitchen and filmed the girlfriend putting dead cockroaches on the man’s cereal, ordering him to eat them, and his choking and gagging as a result.
However, dominant men and controlled women are a regular theme on television talk shows. The dominant men featured invariably lack the benevolent, supportive paternal charm of a fictional Ward Cleaver. Nor do they have much in common with a real-life Fred Schlafly, who was said by a biographer of his famous wife Phyllis Schlafly to have a sort of teacher-student relationship with her. The dominance of men who appear on these shows seems unleavened by humor, protectiveness, or even reasonableness.
While the shows seem to buttress the worst sort of “men are such beasts” stereotypes, they don’t do much to make women look good. Women appear absurd and psychologically weak as they “love with all of their hearts” such nasty and seemingly unlovable fellows. Indeed, they seem to shore up the idea that women gravitate toward the worst sort of brutality.
Of course, these are television programs and people could exaggerate the conditions of their relationships in order to appear on them. Indeed, one puzzle about these programs is that the submissive women who are being so brutally dominated nevertheless retain enough independence to seek help from a TV show although not enough gumption to just leave these creeps.
These are my thoughts about talk shows on controlling men and controlled women. Readers, what are yours?
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Stumble It!
August 20th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Could be, but then what does that say about Oprah or Dr. Phil?
August 20th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Perhaps when faced with the temptation to engage in sexual intercourse, a person should go watch an oil rigger.
-Denise Noe
August 20th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Fear of this dynamic, the overly dominant male, I liken to for example the media over-blowing fear of Christians as a result of a kook exploding an abortion clinic. There is not a preponderance of these uber controlling men, and I’d say in the extremes (the man eating insects as above) there likely exists equal gender numbers of these wackos both ways, man to woman, woman to man.
Setting these outliers aside, the issue of control is wildly a female problem. The lack of ability to control is the hidden grounds for no-fault filings being more abundant by women.
In my experience with couples counseling (layman of course) I see not only frustration on the part of women for what they can and cannot influence in their mate, but also an utter lack of the instinct to control present in the men, generally speaking. Where men get controlling manifests in budget and jealousy or how the wife relates to other men. As far as micromanaging this is nearly an exclusive realm of female behavior.
If you accept the complexity model of brain gender differences, how women think with intertwined areas of the brain running literally every thought through every possible iteration it can explain why this happens. It would seem that men, when pondering a task simply ponder the task, be it their own task or their mate. Women however will ponder the ramifications of the task in painfully microscopic terms and then attempt to use seemingly irrelevant considerations as fodder with which to influence the undertaking.
On balance the mere mention of controlling men via violence or whatever, and the pathology that accompanies the women subjected to it is unproductive in its mention here. I wonder if Denise thought that mentioning the weakness of the women mitigated the gender imbalance of this misandric article?
August 20th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
The dominance of men who appear on these shows seems unleavened by humor, protectiveness, or even reasonableness.
Most likely these “men” and “women” are actors, and bad ones at that. These shows are for women only, and their ratings come from confirming women’s prejudices (i.e. woman good, man bad). I’ve tried explaining to my wife why I can’t stand Lifetime (they basically hate men) but she doesn’t see it. I point out to her how it’s nearly always a man who is the bad guy but she sees the one out of ten where it’s a woman causing the problems. Even then there is always a man who made her the way she is. The only good men on these shows are invariably gay.
August 20th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
conservativation said,
On balance the mere mention of controlling men via violence or whatever, and the pathology that accompanies the women subjected to it is unproductive in its mention here. I wonder if Denise thought that mentioning the weakness of the women mitigated the gender imbalance of this misandric article?
(Denise) I’m disappointed that you see my essay as misandric, conservativation. It was meant to be an essay about a possibly misandric phenomenon or a phenomenon that could contribute to misandry. I actually think most heterosexual relationships are a lot of give-and-take with the man being dominant sometimes and the woman being dominant sometimes. I think many relationships have a female who is somewhat dominant and many have a male who is somewhat dominant. I wrote this article because I am concerned the media focus on the dominant man who is extreme in his dominance may contribute to negativity toward men overall. I thought it was necessary to mention the way women appear weak and sappy not to mitigate the misandry of the piece — which I don’t think is in the essay itself — but to show how a negative stereotyping of one sex often goes hand-in-hand with a negative stereotying of the other.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Pre-20th C there were circus shows with deformed people. Things have just got a tad more technological. These ringmistresses still make the lame hop through rings for the derision of the great unwashed. And while both Denise and Cons have points to make, the thrust of these programmes are generally very anti-male. No need to argue, folks.
The treatment of people, male and female, audience members, is puerile and factitious in the main.
Denise, close your eyes. Switch them off !
August 20th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
It all reminds me of the Spin Sisters, prioritizing their journalistic pricinples..
“find the victim”, “Find the female victim”, “Which women was the victim”.
This is now what women wallow in. The Spin Sisters did their jobs very well and changed the thinking of an entire sex..
August 21st, 2007 at 1:28 am
These shows are appealing to the lowest in humanity.
That said, there is a sexist view of men as controlling beasts running through our culture. These shows use that sexism, they feed it, to line their own pockets.