People see weakness in a woman and their natural instinct is to protect from harm and nurture it until it’s strong. People see weakness in a man and feel revolting disgust and their natural instinct is to crush it out of existence and get it out of their sight as soon as possible. (This is a paraphrase of a quote by Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man) Feminism has been teaching women for decades that it is acceptable for them to express themselves emotionally and sexually in the same ways men traditionally have. This has lead men to gradually accept that the reverse is also true for them, that it’s now acceptable for them to express themselves emotionally and sexually in the same ways women have. And when they do it the results are disastrous. They bare their souls to their girlfriends and wives and cry regularly in front of them, thinking they’re bonding. They talk about their feelings nonstop. They think of any attempt at being macho as an outdated and unenlightened throwback concept and get totally comfortable with showing weakness, emotional wishy-washiness and sensitivity publicly. And instead of being rewarded as enlightened and progressive by the new age modern women they love and the peers they want to impress, it blows up in their face. Despite how our culture changes and celebrates gender equality, our biology hardwires us to expect strength and leadership from men yet excuses the lack of these traits in women. Maybe it’s an unfair double standard, maybe it’s not, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so you better accept it and adapt. People, and especially women, are ruthless about their digust at weakness and lack of leadership in men.

I have recently mentioned this raw truth in passing, but I have run across a great illustration of it. Many of you are probably familiar with Radiohead's song "Creep" - an example of a man showing despicable weakness if there ever was one. However, playing in a band with a female vocalist I accidentally discovered that the song works quite well when sung by a girl. The exact same lyrics which scream "hopeless loser" when delivered by a man somehow become likeable and cute when coming out of a woman's mouth. It's got nothing to do with the particular singer or the particular band - here is a completely different woman's version.

I know some women are reading this and thinking "Great! I can be emotional and self-pitying all the time and everyone will want to be nice to me!" Not so fast. Some forms of weakness can be appealing and even attractive when they come from a woman, but certianly not all. Take the Police song "King Of Pain". The music's great and it's fun to play, but the lyrics... The lyrics are about as despicable as despicable can get. If a guy sings them the message is "I am not just a loser, but a really whiny one". If a woman delivers the same lyrics, the message she sends is "My life is full of self-absorbed narcissistic drama for no reason at all". Somewhat different, but still completely unlikeable. The only way to save that song is to pretend that it's about a lorry driver from Sheffield who struck out on his own with a building supplies delivery business and over the years became so successful that he was known as the "King Of Paint".