If Dr. Helen The Psychologist Was A Guy

bababob · 19th-April-2009

Dr. Helen : Commentary on popular culture and society, from a (mostly) psychological perspective

Leave it to a woman at the Guardian to provide a sexist description of how she views being a man. In response to Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man, this is how the reviewer says she would act as a male:

Maybe that's why male-me would just give up trying to be great and succumb (with regret) to being arrogant, chauvinistic-appalling and subsequently having a whale of a time. I'd have the big red 'compensating' car, the smarmy chat-up lines, the commitment-phobia. I'd love 'em and leave 'em and, if it comes to it, pretend I never met 'em. I'd come home to my wife stinking of perfume, with my trousers covered in grass stains, and tell her off for being 'paranoid'. I'd trample on colleagues ruthlessly and swagger around the office like the undiscovered Donald Trump. I'd read Nuts on the loo because 'I like the articles'. And there you go. Not only does masculinity suddenly look a lot easier, it also looks a lot more fun. Odd to think, though, that women who are feminists might be more likely to become men who are chauvinists.

Lady, you must be one hell of a feminist.

bababob · 19th-April-2009

Anonymous said... Wow, the woman who wrote that article sure seems to have some issues. As a man she sounds EXACTLY like the woman we fear most. I can't really hate her for her article. She sounds so bitter and angry I can only feel sorry for her and fear dating someone like her by accident.

It is, however, a poignant comment on society that her comments will go unchallenged by most readers just as the did by her editors. Imagine, for a moment, that a man at the Guardian had written an article that hostile towards women. The editors would have killed the article at a minimum. He might have also be warned about harassment.

http://drhelen.blogspot.com/2006/01/...de-sexist.html

**Percy** · 19th-April-2009

Refreshing honesty from a female Guardian writer. Yes, that is exectly how she would behave. And it tells a lot more about her than it does of the typical male.

**themanonthestreet** · 19th-April-2009

Just look at her....

Nothing else to be said....

TMOTS

**MikeT** · 19th-April-2009

"Dr" Helen, has been watching too many 1970's repeats on TV.

I can only but laugh at her comments, I'm not sure where she lives, but the men that are around me, don't act like that at all, we are in the real world, not Fem-land.

This is also the reason why I have practically NO time for psychologists and their warped thinking.
Like the idiots that they are, they should be plainly ignored,(like feminists) as they only speak to a certain clique, that lauds their ideas as fact.

**Kim** · 19th-April-2009

Just to clarify....It wasn't Dr. Helen, but Guardian writer, Barbara Ellen, who wrote,

Maybe that's why male-me would just give up trying to be great and succumb (with regret) to being arrogant, chauvinistic-appalling and subsequently having a whale of a time. I'd have the big red 'compensating' car, the smarmy chat-up lines, the commitment-phobia. I'd love 'em and leave 'em and, if it comes to it, pretend I never met 'em. I'd come home to my wife stinking of perfume, with my trousers covered in grass stains, and tell her off for being 'paranoid'. I'd trample on colleagues ruthlessly and swagger around the office like the undiscovered Donald Trump. I'd read Nuts on the loo because 'I like the articles'. And there you go. Not only does masculinity suddenly look a lot easier, it also looks a lot more fun. Odd to think, though, that women who are feminists might be more likely to become men who are chauvinists.

Dr. Helen's commentary was,

Leave it to a woman at the Guardian to provide a sexist description of how she views being a man. In response to Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man, this is how the reviewer says she would act as a male:

and

Lady, you must be one hell of a feminist.