# Why Women Rule the Roost **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 26, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690 "2009-05-26T15:42:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/41 "2009-05-27T01:22:21Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > If women didn’t have to reform men, no one would ever marry. Good point. _My_ alternative take on this aphorism: men shouldn’t pat ourselves on the back too much. It’s not out of any sense of respect for women’s autonomy that we don’t want to reform them. We simply prefer them ‘bad’. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/42 "2009-05-27T01:50:55Z")
> [@stuthehistoryguy](#): > > Very true, Polerius. Put more empirically, it’s considered a crisis of sorts when boys perform better than girls on standardized tests - it’s assumed that there’s a bias there someplace. When girls do better in school, however, the general response is a shrug of the shoulders - that’s the way things are. What we’re dealing with is a sociopolitical system in which there is one interest group (feminists) that have a strong incentive to bargain for the female-maximalist position whenever possible, while there is no countervailing political force. The vast majority of people are fair and evenhanded about this sort of thing, but we have a rachet effect in which tiny incremental social disparities are only allowed in one direction. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/43 "2009-05-27T03:11:07Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I read an aphorism in Reader’s Digest once: _“Have you ever noticed that you never hear about a man marrying a woman to reform her?”_ _The Taming of the Shrew_? That sentiment seems to have been more popular in the past. In fact, I just recently caught the end of a John Wayne movie along the same lines. A musical, I think. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/44 "2009-05-27T03:31:25Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > _The Taming of the Shrew_? That sentiment seems to have been more popular in the past. In fact, I just recently caught the end of a John Wayne movie along the same lines. A musical, I think. That would be _McLintock!_. (The exclaimation point is part of the title.) If he did that today, the Duke would be charged with assault. And rightly so. Then again, so would Maureen O’Hara for dunking the “soiled dove” in the denouement. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/45 "2009-05-27T05:36:09Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > That said, I don’t think that the tools of psychological manipulation are something that take hundreds of years to develop–I think that they can be mastered easily, and usually by the age of 3. Men, individually, may be able to learn these skills quickly, but society will not “allow” men to sulk and use the silent treatment (“What’s wrong honey?”, “You _know_ what’s wrong!”) as much as women do. Such men would be stigmatized as being not manly, and not desirable partners. Society will have to change to allow this behavior by men, or men will have to find different, “manly”, ways to psychologically manipulate women, and I think this will take time. > [@](#): > > To me, the much more substantial shift in gender relationships has been from interdependence to dependence to independence. Pre-industrial revolution, marriages were vitally important economic units–the work men did on the farm and women did in the house and that children provided in both were all absolutely essential to survival–there is a reason people married young and remarried quickly. Then, we moved to a period of time when women and marriage were a luxury that filled social and emotional roles–the “domestic sphere” was born. This, if anything, was the most out of whack period because men were contributing much more substantially to the household and women had to find new ways to define themselves/give meaning to their lives (so you get the reform movements of the 19th C and the cult of motherhood/angel of the house). Now, things are moving back into balance, but instead of economic interdependence, we have economic independence–couples are having to learn how to hold a relationship together when the whole thing is a luxury, when both partners realistically have the option to walk away tomorrow. This is uncharted territory and none of the old patterns really apply. Interesting take on things. I agree that we are in uncharted territory. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/46 "2009-05-27T07:18:51Z")
> [@](#): > > **Manda Jo** : Then, we moved to a period of time when women and marriage were a luxury that filled social and emotional roles–the “domestic sphere” was born. This, if anything, was the most out of whack period because men were contributing much more substantially to the household and women had to find new ways to define themselves/give meaning to their lives (so you get the reform movements of the 19th C and the cult of motherhood/angel of the house). When was this blissful period when women had all of this time on their hands and didn’t work from sun-up until the children were in bed doing household and, if you lived in the country, farm chores along side your husband and children? Or if you lived in town maybe you worked beside him in the store you owned or a dress shop down the street to bring in a little extra to save up for your children. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/47 "2009-05-27T11:07:00Z")
Middle-class women in New England/American Northeast during the 19th Century: domestic labor (mostly Irish) was cheap and it was becoming increasingly unfashionable to have your wife work outside the home. It’s a small group, but 19th C New England had and continues to have a hugely disproportional impact on American society. And in that group, women were significantly more economically superfluous than their mothers and grandmothers were, not because their class changed, but because their gender role did. That ideal–that successful men support their wives–became the ideal for much of America for the next 100 years. It may not have been the reality for many, but the ideal shaped American society. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/48 "2009-05-27T11:15:08Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > Men, individually, may be able to learn these skills quickly, but society will not “allow” men to sulk and use the silent treatment (“What’s wrong honey?”, “You _know_ what’s wrong!”) as much as women do. Such men would be stigmatized as being not manly, and not desirable partners. Society will have to change to allow this behavior by men, or men will have to find different, “manly”, ways to psychologically manipulate women, and I think this will take time. I disagree: I think that men may sometimes pull from a different toolkit, but they are every bit as free to use that sort of manipulation–when two men interact there is all kinds of psychological jockeying going on, and a lot of those same techniques are used on women–this includes everything from “playing dumb” to moving into someone’s space to shouting. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/49 "2009-05-27T11:37:10Z")
> [@astro](#): > > This pretty much. Unless it’s going to bleed me dry financially or be otherwise impossible to deal with I’ll puppy dog it with a woman leading the way for most social engagements if that’s her thing, so will most men I know. Women keep the world connected socially and on a familial level, men have some responsibility to play along. I think this is true; however, my husband has no desire for social anything outside his sibs and mother, and occasionally my immediate family. He shirks this responsibility ALL the time. Won’t come to my family reunion, won’t go to breakfast with his brothers-in-law just to appease his sisters, etc. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/50 "2009-05-27T11:50:37Z")
In most male-dominated societies, men have a large social world outside of the home. They work, travel, go out with the boys, etc. Go outside in a patriarchal society and you will see lots of men walking down the street doing stuff, and only a smattering of women. In these same societies, women spend most of their time at home and don’t have much of a life outside of their immediate family. So of course things concerning the household are much more important to the women. The man pretty much needs meals and a place to sleep. But for the woman, the household is her entire life. So this stuff is going to be much more important for the wife than the husband. It’s only a couple generations back that our own culture was like this, and we still imitate our parents and grandparents in our family life even when circumstances have changed. No need to go back to caveman times. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/51 "2009-05-27T14:48:57Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > But again, I think it’d be easy for those extrapolations to be inaccurate: if you listened to me discussing moving when my husband wen to grad school. I’d have sounded totally passive : “Well, it’s whatever program he decides he likes, really”, but if you listened to him talk about our new car, you’d think he was whipped “Whatever car she wants. She seems to like X”. Neither is really true–we both just tend to defer to the other when we think the other cares more. It’s true that it’s easy for them to be wrong in a given instance. But they’re not likely to be consistently wrong in the same direction only. So overall you can get a picture. > [@](#): > > Do you really think the people around you have a solid understanding of the dynamics of your relationship? If so, you must be a much more extroverted person than I am–I don’t talk about the mechanics of my relationship with anyone, really. And I don’t think that’s all that unusual. Some people do talk about it. But the example I gave was of someone talking about their plans, not about their relationship. This type of thing comes up all the time, even among people who don’t go about talking explicitly about their relationships. In any event, my observations here are also backed up by a scientific study and assorted surveys, as noted. > [@MandaJo](#): > > That said, I don’t think that the tools of psychological manipulation are something that take hundreds of years to develop–I think that they can be mastered easily, and usually by the age of 3. It’s frankly insulting to men to suggest that if you take away the option to pop a woman, they are left defenseless against the cunning wit of the sly female–psychological warfare (and psychological abuse) are the common fare of both men and women in equal measure, IMHO. Different approaches come naturally to different people. Men appear to be naturally more blunt and direct than women. > [@stuthehistoryguy](#): > > What we’re dealing with is a double-standard in how society views psychosocial tactics by gender. If a man puts his foot down and stands up for his positions, he’s considered controlling and borderline abusive. If a woman does the same thing, she’s essentially celebrated. > > Framed another way, if a woman complains that her husband makes a disproportionate number of decisions, her friends and family (at least those below the age of 80) flock to her side, encouraging her to dump the fellow because he’s controlling her life. If a man has the same complaint, he’s (at best) consoled with “join the club”. I alluded to this in the OP as “societal protectiveness of women and a backlash against patriarchy”, which is the basis for the double standard, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/52 "2009-05-27T21:14:02Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > [And a pet peeve of mine is that it is, in this day and age, OK for someone to matter-of-factly state that women are smarter, while if someone states that men are smarter than women, he will never hear the end of it] I think we men will somehow manage to survive. And just to be clear, I was not claiming and do not believe that men are inherently less smart than women. Rather, I think the difference in intelligence arises from our social structure. Historically, men have spent significant portions of their lives in institutions where high intelligence is frowned upon, such as the military, ships, mines and other labor sites, sports teams, courtrooms, universities, fire houses, police stations, parliaments and state houses, and so forth. In such stifling environments, many men must have dumbed themselves down so as to avoid challenging the power structure. Women, on the other hand, rarely participated in those institutions, and were thus free to expand their intellects. It is, needless to say, the case that women are now expanding into those institutions, and in some cases pushing men out. It will be interesting to see whether this results in women becoming dumber and men becoming smarter. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/53 "2009-05-28T01:50:43Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Historically, men have spent significant portions of their lives in institutions **where high intelligence is frowned upon** , such as the military, ships, mines and other labor sites, sports teams, courtrooms, universities, fire houses, police stations, parliaments and state houses, and so forth. It is far from obvious that that is the case. The returns to intelligence and extraversion in many of those fields is considerable, more so than in the domestic sphere. Or do you think that a dumb general will, other things equal, hold his post longer, and be more celebrated, than a smart one? EDIT: “Universities,” of course is even more risible. ---
**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/54 "2009-05-28T03:20:55Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I looked around a bit to see if there have been any studies of male ego issues, and couldn’t find any - perhaps it was studied under a different name. Certainly the idea seems to have wide currency, e.g. [this woman’s](http://www.ehow.com/how_2325274_understand-male-ego.html) take (Step 2). Yes, I know the idea has wide currency. I just don’t know why. The idea that women don’t want control (over relationships, over their lives, over their jobs) doesn’t make sense. That idea is contradicted by the study I cited (the one with the babies and the pictures) and is in fact also contradicted by the study you cited - women want control over the relationship just as much, if not more than men. Perhaps what you mean is male posturing? I do agree that males tend to posture more, but that does not mean that females lack egos. > [@stuthehistoryguy](#): > > Very true, Polerius. Put more empirically, it’s considered a crisis of sorts when boys perform better than girls on standardized tests - it’s assumed that there’s a bias there someplace. When girls do better in school, however, the general response is a shrug of the shoulders - that’s the way things are. Maybe that’s because even though boys are performing marginally less well in school, they will still make at least $500,000 more than the girls on average over their lifetimes. Or maybe it’s because despite girls’ marginally better test scores, men still assume women are less capable in math and science. There is a lot of anger in this thread about women’s supposed “upper hand” in society these days, but I think it’s largely unfounded. Even in relationships, 84% of women who “chose” to opt out of their career to stay home with the children, said that they did so because they had no other options. Among the pressures that limited their choice was the husband’s desire that his wife stay at home while he remain the breadwinner. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/55 "2009-05-28T13:51:32Z")
> [@starryspice](#): > > The idea that women don’t want control (over relationships, over their lives, over their jobs) doesn’t make sense. That idea is contradicted by the study I cited (the one with the babies and the pictures) and is in fact also contradicted by the study you cited - women want control over the relationship just as much, if not more than men. I don’t see that. What the study I cited shows is that women want to get their way. It doesn’t show that women need to feel like they are the bosses/leaders. I’m suggesting that they generally don’t to nearly the same extent as men, at least. [I’ve heard women say they actually prefer for the man to “take charge”. I’ve never heard a man express this sentiment.] ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2009, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/56 "2009-05-28T14:59:42Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > It is far from obvious that that is the case. The returns to intelligence and extraversion in many of those fields is considerable, more so than in the domestic sphere. Or do you think that a dumb general will, other things equal, hold his post longer, and be more celebrated, than a smart one? > > EDIT: “Universities,” of course is even more risible. The ideal general is one who has great knowledge and ability in a very limited field, namely the field of military tactics and strategy. One would obviously not want a general who had very broad-ranging wisdom and an active intellectual life. Any general who was deeply concerned about whether a conflict was in accord with just war theory or whether his commander was acting in accord with the Constitution would be removed and replaced by someone less philosophical. That, however, is beside the point of the thread. This thread is talking about average men and women, and the average man in the military is a common soldier. The chief trait desired in common soldiers is the ability to obey commands. Any great intellectual focus in other directions would be undesirable in most cases. The social structure at universities is quite similar. At the top you have your tenured professors. Their job is to know an extraordinary amount in a narrowly defined field. However, if their intellect is too broad-ranging and incisive it causes problems, as Chip Morningstar demonstrated in his famous essay [How to Deconstruct Almost Anything](http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html). Each individual field in academia is based on certain assumptions that must be shared by all the practitioners. If those assumptions are called into question, the field may suffer. However, once again the average person at a university is not a tenured professor, but rather an undergraduate. And the undergraduate life centers less around high intelligence than around beer, dating, parties, and sports. Undergraduates who actually have high intellectual knowledge and want to apply it (by asking questions such as: “Is there anything better to do with my life than drink beer, go on dates, watch sports, and attend parties?”) are likely to find themselves ostracized. ---
**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/57 "2009-05-28T15:39:23Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I don’t see that. What the study I cited shows is that women want to get their way. It doesn’t show that women need to feel like they are the bosses/leaders. I’m suggesting that they generally don’t to nearly the same extent as men, at least. You study says, “wives behaviorally exhibited more domineering attempts and were more dominant” and it says that wives tend to make more decisions in the relationship than men. Women want to get their way…and they do that by making decisions, which is certainly one important aspect of leadership. Given that decision-making is all they were testing for in the study, we can’t really make any more generalizations than that about leadership skills. To be fair though, what the study really says is that women make **slightly** more decisions than men. Overall, it’s split pretty equally, so this thread really appears to be about the 43% where women make decisions. That’s not even a majority of couples - don’t forget the 26% of couples where men make decisions, and the 31% where couples split the decisions equally. > [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > [I’ve heard women say they actually prefer for the man to “take charge”. I’ve never heard a man express this sentiment.] My husband for one, but I could name three more offhand, and probably more if I thought about it. That’s just anecdotal evidence, but you certainly can’t say that men never express this sentiment, just that they don’t express it to you. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/58 "2009-05-28T16:09:28Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > When was this blissful period when women had all of this time on their hands and didn’t work from sun-up until the children were in bed doing household and, if you lived in the country, farm chores along side your husband and children? Or if you lived in town maybe you worked beside him in the store you owned or a dress shop down the street to bring in a little extra to save up for your children. There was a period between Reconstruction and around 1920 when there was a huge boom in having a full-time domestic servant; I’d guess that rising industry, and the rising wages therefrom, gave people the opportunity to hire help, often a recent immigrant. It was the top occupation for women for about half a century. Young, unmarried women would move in and do the chores for some money and free room and board. Around 10 percent of homes had a full time domestic servant in 1900. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/59 "2009-06-01T18:03:27Z")
> [@starryspice](#): > > You study says, “wives behaviorally exhibited more domineering attempts and were more dominant” and it says that wives tend to make more decisions in the relationship than men. Women want to get their way…and they do that by making decisions, which is certainly one important aspect of leadership. Given that decision-making is all they were testing for in the study, we can’t really make any more generalizations than that about leadership skills. The idea that women make more decisions is the central premise of this thread. I am obviously not questioning that. The question is whether they need to feel in control or just want to have their way on (many) specific issues. These are not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690/60 "2009-06-01T19:40:41Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The idea that women make more decisions is the central premise of this thread. I am obviously not questioning that. The question is whether they need to feel in control or just want to have their way on (many) specific issues. These are not the same thing. I guess I (a woman) don’t entirely understand how having your way on (many) specific issues is not being in control. I admit, I do sometimes engage in the stereotypical patronizing practice of “letting” my husband control the remote control or “letting” him choose where to eat or “letting” him win an argument. Therefore, I have at least as much control of the situation as he does - if I really wanted the remote or the restaurant choice or to have the final say, we would work that out together. But more often I just want to get on with our day, and I don’t mind being letting the argument go unargued. Easier to just let him feel like he’s in control - when internally I feel like that’s my control. It’s my choice. And my choice is to let him make a choice. _shrugs_ Works for both of us, even if it looks like he’s got the control in those areas of the relationship. Now, if he were to order for me at dinner without asking me what I want, I’d be livid. Even if it was what I would have ordered for myself. And he would feel the same way if I did that to him. _That’s_ getting your way without being in control, and no, I’m not at all okay with that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-women-rule-the-roost/497690.md?page=4)