- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
but was there an affirmative finding that women WERE influenced or was it just assumed that because there was no finding that resistance to being influenced was causing breakups that women were being influenced when in fact it was also possible that women were NOT being influenced but that that was not causing the relationships to break up
This is actually a good question, largely because I'm going six different directions with it. Briefly:
Because the layman's news blurbs do not (and cannot) lay out methodology, I did follow up my initial interest in Gottman's "press," and my layman sense is that the methodology is sound.
It seems to me your question would fall under the heading of "tracked variables" and had your suggestion of "uninfluenced women make for solid relationships" carried any water, I'm pretty sure Gottman would have been all over it. He's meticulous that way.
Investigate his research. I may disagree with some of his viewpoints, but the research is sound.
Your basic notion appears to be that men will put up with all kinds of shit for the sake of sex, and that women will not. What you appear to be missing is that women will put up with a great deal of shit for other, usually entirely rational, reasons.
Not so much now as in the past...women largely remain the responsible party in terms of monitoring the health of the relationship. Perhaps what you are seeing is more a balancing of "power," whereby women are FORCING negotiation and cooperation.
Women are not stupid, anon. We know that the very best outcomes for our children are predicated on the quality of Dad, and his relationship with Mom. And despite economic advances, we know how vulnerable we are once we have children...(we can get tight-assed right quick). For the last...oh what, 300 years?...women's publications have focused pretty much solely on what women should be doing for their husbands and their children.
That tradition continues today, and generates all kinds of revenue. So no, anon...I'm not buying your "theory." Women continue to seek to please.
