Can Christian Principles Promote Equality?

1. Can Christian Principles Promote Equality? New Promisefor a Relationship RevolutionGone Blindly Off Course by Richard Driscoll, PhD adapted from You Still Don't Understandby drD with Nancy Ann Davis, PhD Contact drD@theOppositeSex.info

2. Scope • Explores the fallacies of our commonplace masquerades. • Men and women are not who we believe we are. • Why we believe as we do? • Reconciles social sciences research with Christian principles • Provides guiding principles for solid marriage

3. A Call to Action • …stand up for the meaning, dignity, and sanctity of marriage and the family. 2009, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

4. Benefits • A committed marriage introduces meaning and purpose amid the confusion and rootlessness of life. • Married men grow out of some of their wild and reckless ways, become more responsible, and are healthier.   • Married women are safer and better off financially. • So here, the social sciences and Christianity arrive at the same conclusion: that most of us are better off married.  Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up. Joseph Barth

5. Gender Relations Head South • Ill will abounds • Who is more resentful of our opposites? • 34% of women report being typically resentful of men. versus • 14% of men are highly resentful of women. • So resentment runs twice as high among women. • Fatherless families • How manyof American children are born to single mothers? 40% • The traditional nuclear family is now an alternative lifestyle.

6. Head South (continued) • Women are more unhappy. • Happiness decreased 4½ percentile for women compared to men over 35 years • Attributed (wrongly) to working more than men • We look here at vast differences between men and women and how Christian principles bring us together. • How many of us believe men and women have innate psychological differences?

7. God created man and woman • So God created man in his own image… male and female. • Genesis i: 27. • Scripture tells us THAT God created man and woman and something of what God expects from us. • We look here at: • The sometimes surprising nature of man and woman, • How much of it is in our genes?

8. The Nature of Lust • Young males are more interested in casual sex • And any culture, primitive for industrial, past or present, anywhere in the world. • In any animal species (with only a few exceptions). • Tomcats go through rain, sleet, and snow, like the postman… • U. of Hawaii study • Students were approached by an attractive confederate, flattered, and then invited for a tumble. How many agreed? • Of the young men, 75% • Of the young women, 0%

9. Masquerades • Why are these findings hard to believe? • Single women often appear more interested in sex than they actually are, to attract a fellow. • Single men try to appear interested in more than just sex, to avoid looking like perverts. "We are what we pretend to be…"Kurt Vonnegut May I add in a slight modification: "We believewe are what we pretend to be."

10. Implications • Who has sex more frequently and with more partners, men or women? • Logically, since it is a joint activity, men and women do it on average at the same in frequency and with the same number of partners. • Men compensate women • By principles of supply and demand, since men are more eager, sex with women becomes the more valuable commodity. • So women are in a better position to require compensation for their sexual favors.

11. Origins of Human Nature • Evolution and parental investment • Since males may invest much less in each youngster, male genes proliferate through opportunistic sex. • Since females invest more in each offspring, female genes do better to go slower and choose more carefully. • Nature + Nurture • Individual qualities are from inheritance + experience • An estimated 30% or more of individual qualities are inherited • Men and women are seen to have innate psychological differences.

12. Evolution • The principal • (Random) genetic mutations • create variations and offspring • And the more adaptive survive and procreate • and spread their genes into the next generation.

13. Evolution and Christianity • Christianity and science meet halfway. • Pope John Paul II accepts the Big Bang and evolution (1996), reminds us"however the world began, God was there." • Biologists recognize that no amount of observation can determine whether mutations are random or by design. • Compromise: evolution proceeds by mutations (random or by heavenly craftsmanship) and by selection and propagation of the most adaptive qualities.

14. Emotional power While men ordinarily have more formal power (authority), Women appear to have more "informal" or "emotional" power

15. Eavesdropping on Arguments • John Gottman at U. of Washington and colleagues observe couples in his "Love Lab." • Helps couples identify and "area of concern." • Asks them to work together to find a resolution. • Naturally, of course, they argue. • Video cameras and stress indicators record reactions. The method is multiple observations of actual arguments, and then analysis.

16. Findings • Insistence • Women more often initiate arguments, argue harder, and have the last word, • Men are more apt to avoid arguments when possible or concede, placate, or withdraw from confrontations. • Stress • Women are more comfortable in arguments and recover faster • Men are more highly stressed, intimidated, and confused and feel trashed and bitter longer afterward. "In the sea of conflict," notes Gottman, "men sink and women swim."

17. Masquerades (again) While we expect men to dominate, the findings are just the opposite. • We pretend we are as we wish to be seen • Men want to appear stronger, and • Women want to appear sweeter an more understanding. • To avoid offending, we ignore times when a woman is a dragon and the man is a milksop.

18. Origins • Why the difference? • Men who acquiesce or otherwise avoid offending women have more mating invitations and more offspring. • Women who insist and criticize require more of a commitment from a man, and so gain more support for their offspring.

19. Suggestions • Marriages are better when men and women participate about equally. • Recognize it is normal to be stressed when women are angry or upset. • Tell your partner that her anger is highly stressful for you. • Avoid angry retaliation. It only makes things worse. • Realize that men are more vulnerable in conflict than they appear and slower to recover from it. • Be careful to accurately gauge how much stress your accusations inflict, and make allowances.

20. Christianity Promotes Equality • Traditional Christian standards thus acts to remedy an emotional imbalance, promoting more egalitarian relationships. • Patriarchy and the traditional Christian support for men have fallen out of favor. • Yet patriarchal Christianity calls upon women to soften their superior emotional firepower and to listen to their husbands, so that men might have a place in families. • In the absence of a counterbalance, women complain and men withdraw, leaving relationships emotionally barren and families increasingly matriarchal.

21. Nature and Souls • Human beings are flesh (nature) and spirit (souls). • Human nature is sometimes in accord with our heavenly calling and sometimes in opposition.

22. Favorite Sins • "Sin" usually refers to lust, but the other six deadly sins are just as important. • The ordinary natures of men and women include strengths and weaknesses (including sins): • Men are more inclined to casual sex (= sin #7) • Women are more inclined to casual resentment (= sin #2 ). • Misunderstanding our opposites • Women hardly understand why men look and lust. • Men hardly and understand why women fuss and complain.

23. Innate Appeal • Men find sexual images inherently appealing • (as do turkeys). • Women are more comfortable with anger toward men. "I have become increasingly angry, as the alternative is depression."Feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem "Choosing to be angry… means you're feeling fully alive. …your anger is a source of power and enlightenment" "Use Your Anger: A Woman's Guide To Empowerment" Is joy of sex from the 70s giving way to joy of anger?

25. Smarter marriages • Marriage relies on a strong ratio of positive experiences to negative experiences (conflict, grudges….) • So marriage is stabilized by increasing the positives and reducing, the negatives

26. Appreciation and Gratitude • Deep friendship is what holds marriages together (according to John Gottman and others) • Grows through appreciation and gratitude • Shared interests and activities • In which we appreciate and are grateful for each other

27. Social sciences and religion (again) • The Christian attitude of gratitude towards God transfers naturally to gratitude toward a wife or husband, who carry within the spirit of God. • The now popular positive psychology includes depreciation beauty and excellence, gratitude, and spirituality as building blocks to a joyful attitude. • Here again, research and religion coincide in the importance we should place on appreciation and gratitude.

28. Why so little appreciation? • Argument and accusation says:"You are not doing enough for me. You owe me more!" • Appreciation says: "What you are doing is important for me." • So appreciation appears to undermine the force of your own accusations. • But who is keeping score? (everybody). • Must recognize that we can appreciate and argue.

29. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change • If half of a good marriage is communicating about what you want, the other half is learning to enjoy someone exactly as he or she is. • Realize that much of who we marry is not going to change, and surely will not change because we get irritated with it. • Those in strong marriages joke about their foibles.

30. Is it Unfair? • Most of us have times we feel we are being cheated or treated unfairly. • Yet we tally our contributions and benefits wrongly, weighing contributions too strongly and benefits too little. • Appreciation and gratitude give more weight to the benefits of marriage. • Acceptance and forgiveness reduce sense of being cheated.

31. Part III

32. Interventions • Active family therapists intervened to show couples how conflict goes wrong, and how to fix it. • Passive therapists listened while couples quarrel and thereby smack each other and increase ill will • Marriage programs need to help participants identify how conversations go wrong, and how to fix them.

33. Cross Complaining • Cross-complaining is the most common form of misguided communication. • Each says, "I will ignore your complaints and offer my own complaints, to even the score." • Intervention: Each says the above aloud, to better identify it in oneself.

34. Overblown accusations (1) • We are well aware we should not use "always" and "never," but we do so anyway. • Exaggeration makes an accusation feel stronger and unquestionable right. • Exaggeration also makes an accusation false, and therefore provocative and easy to reject. • Suggestion: Identify your own overblown accusations, and practice stating them as understated problems and manageable requests.

35. Answering an overblown accusation (2) • It is easy to blow off an overblown accusation because it is not entirely truthful • Suggestion: look for the underlying concern, reflect it, provide an answer to it. • Example: • She: "You are never home in time for dinner." • He: "I am here about half the time. But I hear you saying you miss me and want me here more often than that. Tell me about it."

36. Repair Attempts • Most couples lock horns, so it is extremely important to find ways to break the gridlock. • A "repair attempt" is a concession, a smile, a joke, and acknowledgment, that says join me and take a breather. • Repair attempts are too often overlooked or ignored. • We should learn to identify repair attempts, and graciously accept them. • Suggest: That couples report repair attempts to each other, and responses to them.

37. Procrastination (1) • "Honey do lists" our standard, and it is usually the wife who assigns the chores. • A man can avoid the assignments through continuing delay, thus underhandedly asserting his independence and justifying himself because she is a nagging. • The assigner must then:hold it in her mind and continue to askthus nagging, being thwarted, and becoming angry

38. Do It Now or re-negotiate (2) • The key problem here is that the assignee is not forthright about what he is and is not willing to do. • Solutions: • Realize it is easier to simply do a chore than to set a reminder now, wait a right amount of time, and then do the chore later. • Be more forthright about what jobs you do or do not accept as your rightful responsibility. • Be willing to negotiate on what your husband will and will not do in an agreed upon timeframe

39. Accusation masquerading as inquiry • Why do you have to… • Why don't you…. • "I don't understand why… • Solution: Acknowledge together that these are accusations and not merely an issue of understanding

41. the Invisible Comptroller • Regardless of ideology or geography, affluence, race, creed, or color, or liberal or conservative philosophy… • We can agree that men ought to support and protect women and not harm them or allow others to do so. • Chivalry • Refers to the tendency for men to support and protect women. • Is considered a flimsy folktale and seldom mentioned. • Is found to be universal and involves intense passions. • Is the invisible hand in gender relationships. • A chivalrous ruse.

42. Chivalrous ancestors • A chivalrous Chimp rescues fair damselfrom his dastardly rival. • Origins • Males who support females against offending males gain mating opportunities • Males who support males against females leave a smaller genetic footprint.

43. Chivalry amid famine • Among Rhesus monkeys in Calcutta, females and a males ate while adolescent males starve • Among famished rats at Rutgers, females ate 60% of the provisions. • Amid shipwrecks, such as the Titanic, women and children are saved while men are sacrificed. • Is it human nature to sacrifice males so that females might survive?

44. Men take the risks • Inga, Org, and the snake. • Of the 10 most dangerous occupations, all are predominantly male. • Cell tower repairman tops most lists. • The most dangerous is suicide bomber. • War sacrifices men • In Iraq, women comprised 15% of the American military,but mercifully, only 2% of fatalities.

45. Dual standards for assault • A glass of whiskey in your face • Is an assault by a man, • but merely a rebuff by a woman • Marital misconduct. • If a man stabbing a woman to death is a 10 (truly heinous), • A woman stabbing a man is a … 6(serious, but perhaps understandable) . • He is hardly a man at all • Yet she is still a woman, and now maybe quite available although perhaps a tad risky.

46. Domestic violations • In physical altercations • Men and women grab, push, slap, and worse, at about the same frequency (in 11%–12% of relationships) • Women report such violations 10 times more often than do men • We are more concerned about men harming women, leaving the (simplistic) impression that domestic violations are mainly men against women. • Does God care equally about women hitting men?

47. The Master Illusionist • Being openly critical of women is socially improper now, as it always has been, while being publicly critical of men is more readily tolerated and increasingly prevalent. • The combination of superior feminine firepower and chivalrous sympathies turn public condemnation against men. " A man defending husbands vs. wives or men vs. women has got about as much chance as a traffic policeman trying to stop a mad dog by blowing two whistles." -Ring Lardner .

48. Oops! • Touting half of the controversies, supporting women and criticizing men, and suppressing the opposing half, creates a substantial bias. • As we look at only one side of the story, our chivalrous biases morph into an absurdly lopsided sense of reality. • Nobody has ever suggested we can understand each other by hearing only one side of the controversies. • Suggestion: Be careful about how much of the propaganda you absorb.

49. Why men earn more • We hear commonplace complaint that women earn only 78% or so of what men earn: • Such repetitious accusations suggest prejudice, and spread ill will. • Is it proper to counter the complaint, so that women might be less resentful? • Of mothers with professional degrees, fully 54% choose not to work full time. • Several analyses show men work tougher, riskier, and more specialized jobs and work more hours, which accounts for the pay difference. • Men scientists earn twice as many patents as women scientists.

50. Equal parenting rights • Equal treatment before the law helps stabilize marriages and softens the ill will when couples do divorce. • Researchers found that states that moved toward shared custody arrangements had falling divorce rates over the next five years, compared to states that maintained residential custody for mothers and visitation for fathers. • When fathers want to remain involved, a strong preference for joint custody should be a no-brainer. • Yet chivalrous sympathies run high, and most courts award custody to mothers while fathers fade into occasional visitors. • Suggestion: agree now to share custody.