Warren Farrell - Why Men Are the Way They Are (1986)

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As I looked more carefully at the listening matrix I saw that during the past twenty years we had taken a magnifying glass to the first of these four quadrants, the female experience of powerlessness. I saw I was subconsciously making a false assumption: The more deeply I understood women's experience of powerlessness, the more I assumed men had the power women did not have. In fact, what I was understanding was the female experience of male power.

Warren Farrell
Perhaps the most prevailing expectation of men is our Superman expectation: the fear we are merely Clark Kents who won't be accepted unless we are a Superman.

Warren Farrell
Male makeup is men's titles, status and paying for dates. Makeup is what both sexes use to bridge the gap between the power they have and the power they'd like to have. Both male and female makeup are compensations for feelings of powerlessness.

Warren Farrell
Male Message 1 is subconsciously experienced by the boy like this: 'Some girls in my class already look like movie stars. If they wanted me as much as I want them, then I'd know I was okay. They are genetic celebrities. I am a genetic groupie.'

Warren Farrell
For the first time in human history the psychology that is a prerequisite for intimacy has become the psychology that is a prerequisite for species survival.

Warren Farrell
The Female Western is the battle between the good and evil methods of getting the men who perform best.

Warren Farrell
Until recently, the question was 'Why can't a woman be more like a man?' It should have been changed to 'Why can't both sexes be more like the best parts of each other?' Instead, the pendulum swung to the 1960s feminist lapel button Adam Was a First Draft. True enough. So are we all.

Warren Farrell
The 'enduring theme' [in fiction] of male competition and female competition for the hero/survivor has taken us from the fittest surviving to the brink of no one surviving. Sex roles have gone from functional to dysfunctional almost overnight. This is why the enduring theme must be questioned now.

Warren Farrell
Only when a woman shares male risks can she really begin to understand men.

Warren Farrell
I would suggest that just as women who make it in the world of business need male business mentors, perhaps men who make it in the world of emotions will need female emotional mentors.

Warren Farrell
Was it possible for the sexes to hear each other without saying, My powerlessness is greater than your powerlessness? It was becoming obvious each sex had a unique experience of both power and powerlessness. In my mind's eye I began to visualize a listening matrix as a framework within which we could hear these different experiences.

Warren Farrell
Men tuned into women but not tuned into their own hurts usually retained the attitude that women needed special protection.

Warren Farrell
Women's vulnerability confessing their desire to see men as a success object is matched by men's confession of compulsiveness of sexual desire for women.

Warren Farrell
Sexism is discounting the female experience of powerlessness; the new sexism is discounting the male experience of powerlessness.

Warren Farrell
When divorces meant marriage no longer provided security for a lifetime, women adjusted by focusing on careers as empowerment. But when the sacrifice of a career met the sacrifices in a career, the fantasy of a career became the reality of trade-offs. Women developed career ambivalence.

Warren Farrell
Ralph had lost real power by trying to gain the appearance of power. He was a leader. But he was following a program for leaders ; therefore, he was a follower... he was, as he put it, a high-level mediocre.

Warren Farrell
When men give lines, women learn to not trust men. When women wear makeup, men learn to not trust women. Male lines and female makeup are divorce training.

Warren Farrell
In San Diego there is a highly popular course called How to Marry Money. Note that the marriage is to money—not to a person. I inquired about the percentage of men attending... 'The course is really for women,' [the instructor replied,] 'it's not relevant to men.'

Warren Farrell
Cosmopolitan is the best-selling magazine to single women. Cosmo tells single women how they can get a man to commit and achieve her primary fantasy of better homes and gardens. It's the single female's version of Playboy. Pornography is the male primary fantasy—access to as many beautiful women as desired without risk of rejection—at a price he can afford!

Warren Farrell
Is loving men contradictory to feminism? Hardly. Every true feminist, I believe, is deepened and matured by being also a masculinist—a person who understands the male search for equality and approval as the male experiences it. As is every masculinist deepened by being a feminist (a person who understands the female search for equality and approval as the female experiences it.)

Warren Farrell
Men will not change as long as women 'marry up.' Men won't change until we have a perspective on how powerless power makes us. A woman cannot help a man change until she has a perspective on how powerless power makes men.

Warren Farrell
He and she become selective at different points; she can be selective when he wants his primary fantasy — sex; he can be selective when she wants her primary fantasy — commitment.

Warren Farrell
The best-selling magazines to men are Playboy and Penthouse. These represent men's primary fantasy: access to as many beautiful women as desired without risk of rejection. The best-selling magazines to women are Better Homes and Gardens and Family Circle, representing the female primary fantasy: better homes and gardens and a family circle.

Warren Farrell
Commitment often means that a woman achieves her primary fantasy, while a man gives his up. In exchange for forfeiting his primary fantasy, what does he hope to fulfill? His primary need: intimacy.

Warren Farrell
One danger of a man succeeding is that it teaches his wife and daughter not to worry about success.

Warren Farrell
When men in relationships have more money, we say they have the power. When women in relationships have more money, we say they are being used.

Warren Farrell
When women are at the height of their beauty power and exercise it, we call it marriage. When men are at the height of their success power and exercise it, we call it a mid-life crisis.

Warren Farrell
So while in men's magazines success is a power tool to get sex and love, and therefore the look of success is crucial, in women's magazines love and sex are power tools to get success—and therefore both the look of love and the sexual tease/promise are crucial.

Warren Farrell
He gets sex, she gets sex; if that is considered unequal, no wonder men are afraid of commitment.

Warren Farrell
Men who work to make it as computer whizzes or owners of black Porsches[...] are confused when they're told they are not vulnerable enough. We can't fall in love with men who appear invulnerable and expect vulnerability. Why did he want a black Porsche? Because he never saw an ugly woman get out of one.

Warren Farrell