And more f*** from Babu and I will restrict him to the Children's Corner for 24 hours! Having children stand in the corner for some minutes works really well with five year olds.

Am I the only one who thinks that, opposite to what the shastras say, men are the ones much more likely to be childish by being impertinent, playing with toys and demanding to be babied? This was one of my profound realizations running contrary to the official temple preaching.

No you are NOT the only one who thinks like that. I think girls take on responsibility much sooner, with their growing bodies giving men such a turn.

I agree with this very much, women are much more grounded than men and more practical. it's easier for them to be present and fulfilled in the moment. men are always looking to the future or attempting to reach distant stars and have the need for war games to arouse lost testosterone levels.

This is subjective.

It really depends on the men and women as individuals, the culture and family environment they grew up in, and personal situations.

I know as many practical and grounded men and women as impractical and head-in-the-clouds ones. I find more truth in the obeservation that, besides the exceptions, women in general are much more in touch with their emotions and communicative about it than men, whereas men are more prone to practical fixes.

However, depending on the criteria above, you can run into as many impractical women who obsess about the future and dwell endlessly in the past without spending more than an hour a day dealing with the present as men.

Likewise, you can run into as many practical and grounded men who live in the here and now and are very successful at it as women.

It runs the gamut.

You can't deny the world is flooded by grown mamasboys who want to be mothered / infantilized it's creepy and borderline incestuous. I think it comes from not having had a proper mother-relation so trying to recreate one. You will notice this especially among those with strong Cancerian influences. Good observation Milla!

Oh! How i miss your Chien Andalou performance art. Now must i give Rupa Gosvami my Gravest Considerations?

I think going from a Rupa Goswami Avatar to an Avatar like what I have now makes for provocative shock-value, which is my main prerogative in this lifetime and the next . I am after all born the same day as shock-jock Howard Stern.

Oh, I can, because this is simply not my experience.

Sure, I see plenty of mamasboys as per your description, but whether this proves some kind of genaralization that "women are much more grounded than men and more practical. it's easier for them to be present and fulfilled in the moment. men are always looking to the future or attempting to reach distant stars and have the need for war games to arouse lost testosterone levels.", nope. This is what I commented on.

I agree that there are plenty of mamasboys with mama issues. I see quite some every day. But likewise, I see plenty of daddygirls with daddy issues. Mothers or father being too aloof from their children in guidance and love often gives rise to these children growing up with insecurities.

Now, in the West the possiblity of mothers not being able to give enough love and nourishment to their children is increased due to the enormous increase of nuclear family structures since the industrial revolution. Add to that the typical two-income set up, where mother can't spent enough time with the children because of work, and you get the picture. So there may be a bit more of that going on in the West, but to say that the world is flooded... Nah. I don't think so.

Well I can only speak for myself, and though no 'mamasboy' I am quite lazy and like to be cooked for and cleaned up after. I also know a lot of women in the same predicament.

evakurvan - sorry but I have to concur with this as well, ah I was married to a social worker from queens for years.

My mamasboy post was mostly a performance (with grains of truth). I do think the word flooded is is exceptionally tasteful in these Katrina times, although I don't really think the world is *flooding* with these people. Sure the word can be associated to cooking and cleaning, but that is not so much what I had in mind, as much as I had in mind a range of more subtle behaviours like what Milla was describing and others. It is not any better that the girls end up in the role of "scolding mothers," but that is how the chain-reaction goes. For example you can see this dynamic in the sitcom "Mad about You," a really annoying sitcom. Yes daddysgirls exist too, except it is not so shocking since we are conditonned to not find it so weird for the girl to act infantalized, because this is often seen as appropriate or even charming. Therefore, when contrary to popular perception, you note the pervasive mamasboyism, it becomes especially fun to point out. (Especially after such a reasonable post by Maryada:



which of course I agree with).

I agree too. Last year I read a tongue-in-cheek pop psychology book called "Why Men Can't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps" (there is also a sequel to it "Why Men Don't Have a Clue and Women Need More Shoes") by Allan and Barbara Pease. I loved it and had quite some laughs reading it. Some people say that there are much better books out there on the subject of gender differences, but to me it was good enough, esp. since I read this kind of stuff very occasionally, the last but one book being "Men Are From Mars, Women Are from Venus" in my temple years.

So according to the book, what we perceive as stereotype male/ female behavior is related to the level of testosterone which can vary greatly from person to person. Add to this the nurture factor (the specific environment and family situation one grew up in) and the picture becomes even more complicated. Still, there is some general, albeit very crude, image ascribed to men and another one ascribed to women, and my post about the childishness of men referred to that image in our collective consciousness. By no means does it refer to all men or to even most men.

I take care of a board that has a feature called "Replace Words." It allows you to take these kind of words and their variations and replace them with something else. Since I administer this board for a major IT department, I simply replace these words with [expletive], but otherwise you can get as creative as you like. Changing f*** to kiss and **sh*** to sweetheart should make for interesting posts...

Does Invision Board not have such a feature that can be used for the most expletive and offensive of these words?

Also, if individuals still come up with variations to purposefully bypass this feature, you know something more about their attitude.

I read quite some of these book and found that the difference is mainly in the approach. The same psychological differences are shown from different angles depending on what situation is highlighted.

The Mars/Venus book is pretty general, for instance, whereas Husbands Who Won't Lead and Wives Who Won't Follow deals mainly with how these differences may lead to certain dynamics in marriage relationships. The famous Fascinating Womanhood and Men of Steel and Velvet (both a bit too pie-in-the-sky for my taste...) discuss the same issues, but from a predominantly Christian basis.

Likewise, there are interesting books that deal with the differences in psychology between adults and teenagers. If you have teens, I recommend you get them You're Grounded for Life!: And 49 Other Crazy Things That Parents Say.

Maryada, which other books on this subject have you read? I read Fascinating Womanhood when I just got married and I remember that I liked many things there. I had very little marriage experience and was trying to understand and recreate the Vedic ideal in my own life and this book made more sense to me than the numerous quotations about grihastha life about submissiveness, pleasing the husband, etc. There was a chapter about common problems and pitfalls in marriage and I could see there some of the dysfunctional dynamics in my parents relationship word-for-word.

I don't know how I would see it now if I read it again, I also remember that it seemed to promise too much ("If you just apply these principles, you will have the perfect marriage/relationship" kind of stuff typical for American self-help books). It offered some tools for manipulation and mind games which was presented as feminine behavior and ways. My impression was that it expounded family ideal of the fifties. A more realistic view of this ideal can be found in Steinbeck's "The Wayward Bus".

I don't remember much about Men Are from Mars.... I liked a lot Why Men Can't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps and could see myself in many of the stereotypes about women. There was a funny but true chapter about the point system with which women rate unconsciously men's behavior and deeds, and when the score is lower than expected, women become upset and men have no clue why. In the second book, Why Women Need More Shoes, there was an interesting test to determine your testosterone level and brain gender.

Probably too many...

I was rather clueless when I got married, so I figured getting a few clues. Unfortunately, most devotee couples around me didn't offer many clues beyond mostly failing attempts to live up to the Grhastha Handbook. And the few who did were vastly beyond where my wife and I were both materially and spiritually -- and now I get to think of it, also vastly beyond where I would ever want to be.

So my wife and I read books together and we discuss them. We didn't spent that much time in the Lollipop Marriage section, though. We figured out very quickly that successful relationships depend on how well the individual understands him/herself in the first place, and how well he/she understand the partner second. So I read a lot more in the Get to Know Yourself While You're Conditioned and Married in the Material World section.

We also followed a couple of the Foundational Satvatove courses, to learn more about empathy and reflective listening.

I read the Venus/Mars book, the books from the Andelins, Women May Be from Venus...but Men Are Really from Uranus, Dr. Phil's Relationship Resque (which has great conflict resolution methods), Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget, Tongue Fu! How to Deflect, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, and many more.

It kinda funny, because many of these books would give the impression that I have a sucky marriage, no? It's not true. Both my wife and I are very interested in studying interpersonal relationships. A devotee in Alachua once had a garage sale (for those outside of the US, a garage or yard sale means you collect all the stuff you no longer want and sell it straight from your yard or garage -- usually on the weekends) and he had literally hundreds of books on relationships and self help that he sold for a buck a piece. So we just bought about 80 of the ones that sounded interesting. No, I haven't read all 80. Most we have sold off again to second hand bookstores.

Because my wife suffers from hormonal imbalances, I have also read a plethora of books on hormones and PMS/PMDD, which has given me a good understanding of the role hormones play in mood changes and relationships. Therefore my personal recommendation to men who want to understand women better is to learn about hormones and cycles first, before all the pop psychology.

Not to forget about the age-issue. I think that has a lot to do with how a person acts. Maryada mentioned about the hormones, so there you have it, too. What I mean to say is, that I remember being much more feminine in my younger days.
Outwards I looked pretty macho and my speaking and opinions were likewise, but inwards I was sensitive like anything. Now I look outwards pretty harmless and have softened in my speaking, but inside I feel more like a "man" than ever before.
I do not know if this had anything to do with the topic started here, but now that you have read it, what kind of changes have you noticed in your self?

Fascinating Womanhood! Oh goddess!

Yes, it went around in devotee circles and I tried to follow it to keep myself from being abused. Basically it promises that if you are a model of submissive womanhood and elevate your husband to ridiculous heights in the process, he will be wrapped around your finger and do anything for you. There's a companion book for men that my husband refused to read: Man of Steel and Velvet. He (Mahasraya) called it Man of Steel and Bullsh**.

Once I became a feminist I did go back and reread it once and I was horrified.

I suggest that instead couples use the information in the classic "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk" as it works for communicating with anyone in a respectful and straightforward manner. (Of course there are some things that do only apply to kids and the role we have with them.)

Yes there are some gender differences but they aren't vast and insurmountable.

Also, men have hormonal fluctuations as well.

That's why I said that even after reading these Andelin books, they were a bit too fantasy like for me. As Milla aptly noted, what they idealize are the the good old 50s in the USA. The Leave It To Beaver family values.

Also, the roll models they use are often misrepresented. For instance, in MSV one of the main roll models is Abraham Lincoln, a president in the civil war that I think most modern average Joes have a hard time relating to. Needless to say, there is no mention on how this man of steel and velvet held that the process of ending slavery would only be complete if all blacks were shipped back to Africa, because otherwise they would cause great problems for the culture and economy of the country. Maybe a bit too much steel for comfort?

The bottom line of MSV is that you need to be a schizophrenic to be a successful husband, changing personalities as you walk in and out of the door. Out of the house you must be a type-A personality on the cutting edge of manhood and in the house the ultimate cross breed of Dr. Phil and Richard Simmons. I am not surprised that the book is therefore much more popular with women than with men. Ha! Yes, of course do men who can only handle submissive little mousy wives love Fascinating Womenhood! It was pushed around in ISKCON for quite a while, notably by the supporters of polygamy.



My conclusion is that it all boils down to communication, and communication has suffered greatly after the dawn of the industrial age, in which socializing took a second place to economic development. Although it is the information overload age, people communicate less on a personal basis than ever before -- even within the family. And multi-media hasn't made anything better in that sense.

In L.A. in the 70s it was women who were pushing Fascinating Womanhood on other women as the guidebook on how to be a chaste wife.

And yes, my ex embraced the concept of polygamy and tried to put it into practice both with me and his subsequent wife. He only succeeded in destroying the marriage he had both times.

I fail to see the lure of polygamy in a traditional sense where one man is supposed to financially support both wives. Although I think my ex dreamed that we would both support him.

I find myself wondering this week how gender differences get played out in forums. Do we have different expectations based on the gender of the poster? Do we expect "nicer" posts from women and more challenging types of posts from men? Do we get more or less offended by the same types of comments if they come from a man or a woman? Have you ever read a letter to the editor and thought it was from a member of one gender only to find that it was just the opposite? (I have, and then had to check what caused me to assume the gender I attributed to the author.)

Does age also play a role in how you receive someone's words?

Do we get more or less offended by the same types of comments if they come from a man or a woman?
Does age also play a role in how you receive someone's words?

I was brought up in a family where there was never any kind of consideration of who was speaking or voicing his/hers opinion, neither was there any consideration where from or which colour the person had. The only thing that mattered was what was being said and done. I was lucky in that sense. Iskcon was a shock to me. Older devotees were respected no matter what they were saying. Women were second-class citizens. It started to affect me and yet I was already 24 years old when I joined. Now, at the ripe age of 46, I shudder when I look back what I had to hear and witness in camp Iskcon. Keeping that in my mind I would definitely say that age plays a role, but even bigger role is played by ones upbringing and surroundings.

I still have the book and will post some choice excerpts. Can't resist ruffling the Goddess a bit!

I read this book with the premise that devotee marriages and relationships are different from ordinary ones and was open to learn some role playing. In the same vein, I also thought that temple devotees are a different (superior) species from the karmis in the street and that especially initiated disciples of Prabhupada are very special and spiritual people. Needless to say, within a couple of years all these assumptions turned out to be false. I remember speaking about the dynamics within a Vedic marriage with Gangadevi in Korsnas. Ganga, who is a very wise lady, exclaimed, Why on earth would it be any different than a non KC marriage? We are the same people we were before we came here. True.

Milla, I have to disagree with you here. I definitely think that devotee marriages and relatiosnhips were different. No explanations needed....

I would be hesitant to give say anyone is wise unless they blooped for ten years but it appears Ganga may have been an undercover karmi walking around in devotee garb.

I have fond memories of Ganga. She was one of a kind. You do not meet very often people in Iskcon who have kept their common sense so much in tact as she had. I wonder though how all these years have affected her?

Yes, it is certainly different to be married while full-time in ISKCON with the high KC ideal the main consideration in the marriage than to be married or in a relationship with someone simply because you want to be together with that person.

Yet the gist of my conversation with Ganga was that even in the first case you can't disregard material compatibility and choosing someone as a possible husband or wife just because he or she was a good devotee wouldn't do. There was a big talk about compatibility when I got engaged. From the mid-nineties on, all prospective couples had to have a compatibility chart before making the engagement official.

Some Fascinating Womanhood, to get a taste of the old days of , , and

(Opening the book at random:)

**********************************************************************

How to Listen to a Man

Follow this rule and you will be a good listener: Do not listen only to what he is saying, but to the man who is saying it. Notice how absorbed he is in the subject, how he has mastered the intricate details, what skill and knowledge he has gained, what mental and moral power he can wield, what a genuine man he is when you stop to appreciate him.

If he is talking about politics, religion, or world events, don't folow the conversation so closely that you fail to appreciate the man talking. And don't become so wound up in the subject that you form strong opinions which lead to arguments. Follow the conversation, of course, but follow the man too. He may display a special knowledge about the subject, a knowledge which comes from intelligence, experience, or dedicated study. If his attitude shows impatience with how things are, this may indicate that he has ideas on the subject, ideas which need to be expressed and appreciated. As his ideas unfold, look for idealism and devotion to the things he believes in.

If you cannot comprehend all of what he is saying, do not let this lull you to sleep. Look for traits of character which you can admire. In fact, if you only follow his subject and appreciate that, not the man who is expressing himself, he will be disappointed. You can rest assured that he is not talking only to have his subject appreciated. He wants admiration bestowed upon himself as a man. In fact, you can safely guess that if he deliberately talks over your head, he is doing so only to arouse your admiration.

You need not be well educated or highly intelligent to follow a clever man's discourse. In his pleasure at having himself admired, he seldom notices that his conversation is not fully understood. Even when he does notice it he relishes it, as in the following words by Maeterlinck:

"What care I though she appear not to understand.
Do you think that it is for a sublime word that I
thirst when I feel that a soul is gazing into my soul?

If you learn to listen to a man correctly, it doesn't matter if the subject is interesting of dull. You can converse on world affairs, of the details of his business career. You will welcome the most tedious discourse, to seek out things to admire.

Can somebody tell me what is the purpose of this thread?

Yet the gist of my conversation with Ganga was that even in the first case you can't disregard material compatibility and choosing someone as a possible husband or wife just because he or she was a good devotee wouldn't do. There was a big talk about compatibility when I got engaged. From the mid-nineties on, all prospective couples had to have a compatibility chart before making the engagement official.


Yes of course. When I joined the "guru chooses your spouse"method was still at work. I remember how one devotee told the visiting tv-reporters who were filming her wedding that first and foremost she loves Krsna, then guru and finally also the husband. So young and so innocent! Compatibility charts came in to picture later and certainly helped things a lot. Engagement period was also a betterment. In the beginning that meant sitting together and reading the Krsna-book. I hope it became a bit more humane later on. Luckily I was married already before I joined.

Horrible.
Who wrote this book? Was it a woman or a man?

This text makes the woman a thoughtless instrument and the man a despot.

Milla I think those emoticons say it all.

Oh, what a passage, it really brings back to me how disgusted I am with that book.

Neither the view of the woman or the man is at all flattering.

The man is simply talking to impress the lowly woman with his intelligence, in her representation, not because he cares deeply about the subject and hope she understands and shares his enthusisasm. If she simply looks like she admires him for thinking high thoughts, he's supposed to come away satisfied. If on some level he realizes he's boring her silly or that she's repressing her disagreement with his statements, he's supposed to shove that to the back of his mind.

The woman, it is assumed, can't really follow the intellectual pursuits of her husband, but rather must feign interest and pretend that she "gets it." So without really understanding the subject matter being discussed (or rather, that she's receiving a lecture about) the woman is supposed to put on a good act that she's understood it and is duly impressed with what she's just heard--or simply gaze at him in rapt adoration.

The concept that the couple can have a genuine conversation about shared intellectual interests or world politics that is mutually respectful even if disagreement arises, and that both parties can come away appreciating that the other is an equal match and full partner never seems to occur to either of the Andelins. That's a sad statement on their own marriage. One wonders is she asked her husband's permission to write the book!

I actually tried to put a lot of her advice to work in my doomed first marriage. So you can imagine my applying the principles stated above to my ex-husband's theories about survivalism and how we needed to move into caves in the Oregon national forest. It's really difficult to maintain an expression of rapt interest when one is biting one's tongue to the point of drawing blood.

This sounds like some creepy text only applicable to members of some strage cult or third world culture but if you break it down these are often the roles males and females perform in order to charm eachother even in the regular industrialized world of atheistic people even among highly intelligent and creative persons.

Oh I agree these dynamics get acted out between men and women (or even same gender couples) in cultures around the world, including ours.

I just disagree with the Andelins that it's healthy or desirable to act this way. Therefore I certainly don't think they ought to be preached via books or other media.

I reacted just as strongly to that whole "rules" phenomena several years back.

If I would find myself in the midst of a such "discussion", I would feel very strange. "Is she in hypnosis?", "Maybe she is on drugs?", "Is she making a fool out of me?". Finally I would just burst out in desperation: "LEVEL WITH ME!".

He-he, we are severely mistaken if we think that the image of the obedient, sweetly smiling wife is a thing of the distant past. The most famous woman who has adopted this image is Laura Bush, of course. I don't know what she really is like or her relationship with her husband, but her public image is very carefully crafted after the principles of Fascinating Womanhood. And she is immensely popular and often referred to as the "secret weapon" of G. Bush. (And "Fascinating Womanhood" has sold millions of copies.)

I still keep my copy of the book as a memory from the time when I sincerely tried to make sense of Vedic culture and discovered many "meaningful clues" in the book. It's unbelievable what we can come to believe if we hear it often enough and in general are encouraged to "follow" and not think so much. Helen Andelin does say that men and women are equal, just their roles are different, and she has a chapter about irresponsible husbands where she says that in such a case the wife should take a firm stand. But how is this going to be possible if in normal circumstances the wife
is a sweet domestic goddess who makes light of any arguments with girlish jokes and laughter.

Otherwise the book gives some useful tips on how to manipulate people (not just men) and get one's way. These things are universal and we all are susceptible to them.

A typically "masculine" question! Ahh - but I see you are smiling.
Your testosterone may be borderline ............

top five reasons why boys stink

1 they don't gossip
2 they love to get dirty
3 they don't brush their teeth
4 they wear the same clothes
5 they just don't get it

(from t-shirt i got for my friends 7 year old daughter for christmas)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051219/ap_on_...n_hating_barbie

“While boys often expressed nostalgia and affection toward Action Man — the British equivalent of GI Joe — renouncing Barbie appeared to be a rite of passage for many girls, Nairn said.”

Don't girls like big bazookas?

There was a Swedish research project asking a similar question. So they had a number of high-school kids, of both sexes, writing a kind of essay. Then they mixed them up, and assigned two different names to each essay, one girl name one boy name, sending them respectively to two different teachers to check them out. When they got them back, the found that there was essays that got the highest grade, when written with a boy name, and got a much lower grade when signed with a girl name. So qualities, of the essay, that were praised when written by a boy, were considered negative when written by a girl. That was a general finding.

It makes you think.

Back to Fascinating Womanhood: Wasn't that the icky-pink softcover that was all the rage in Korsnäs, when I visited there? I remember how the author encouraged women to wear "housedress" at home to symbolize their position as a household goddess. By this, she meant a simple dress with a pretty apron. I translated it to mean a cotton saree for the devotees, but ended up wearing a t-shirt and worn out long john most of the time. I'm not much of a goddess-type...

I do

I remember Fascinating Womanhood. It made the round in Honolulu in the early '80s, I guess. I remember my wife reading it and asking if I thought she should do some of that stuff. I told her I liked her the way she was, feminist leanings and all. C'mon--what I remember most was a suggestion that the wife greet the husband clothed in Saran Wrap ®! So I would come home on Saturday from the gurukula, and my wife would open the door to our little one-room apartment dressed in plastic wrap? Gimme a break! So many of the ladies in the community thought this was a great book--practical advice about how to be a great Krishna-conscious wife--but I wonder how many of them still are married to the same guy. (We're pushing 33 years, without the benefit of FW.)

Yeah, Fascinating Womanhood (or is that fascist womanhood?) has already come up on this forum, predictably, and I was one of the women who read it in the 70s, desperate to heal my abusive marriage. No I'm definitely not married to the same man! And if I started practicing that stuff on Dave he'd likely run screaming from the home, wondering who had body-snatched his wife!

Have a look at the movie Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe in which there is a very funny scene involving Saran Wrap.