Posted on 05/07/2002 11:11:25 AM PDT by Happygal
A book for women hunting a husband has enraged Americans. LAUREL IVES reports
There is bad news for women who see in themselves a shadow, however faint, of the demanding characters in Sex and the City. If you haven't yet found a husband or even a boyfriend I'm afraid you only have yourself to blame. You are too fussy, talkative and independent. You need to lower your standards, go out with the ugly man you're avoiding, and keep quiet over dinner, thus demonstrating your feminine qualities by listening to him.
So says Laura Doyle, the American author of a much-anticipated book on dating, The Surrendered Single: A Practical Guide to Attracting and Marrying the Man Who's Right for You. According to Doyle, if women follow her advice, they will be walking down the aisle before they can say "doormat", and living in conjugal bliss.
Her first best-seller, The Surrendered Wife, was inspired by her decision to stop nagging her husband, to let him control the family finances, and to have sex with him even if she had a headache. She says she went from being a "shrew" to a "surrendered wife", and her marriage was transformed.
Laura Doyle hopes her new book will touch a similar nerve with single women, and that they will sign up to an on-line dating website: www.surrenderedsingle.com. Her message seems to be getting through. Surrendered Single isn't on the shelves yet, but men and women are already posting their dating profiles on the website. And opponents are preparing to do battle.
"I think this book is dangerous and silly. The assumption that men can be fooled by false passivity is insulting to both men and women," says American feminist writer Anne Roiphe.
Doyle is undeterred: "After I published my first book, single women asked me how they could find an intimate, passionate relationship. These women, like me, recognised their tendencies to dominate and manipulate, and they identified with my message: control is the enemy of intimacy. When we surrender control of who pursues us and how he does it, we clear the way for the relationship we always wanted," she writes.
Surrendering control means going back to pre-feminist ideas of womanhood, Doyle believes. To attract a mate, single women should smile at every man they meet, always wear form-fitting clothes and make-up, and give "sincere thanks or a compliment to at least one male a day".
The Surrendered Single "never asks a man out on a date, because men prefer to be the pursuers". If a woman is lucky enough to be asked out, she should always say yes, and forget about whether she is attracted to him or not.
Heather Bourbeau, a 31-year-old single writer based in New York, regards being able to ask men out as one of the victories of feminism. "If I didn't ask guys out, I would never go out with anyone I like. Why should I say yes to sad, single losers? If this is what it takes to meet a man, then forget dating, I'm going to be celibate."
Women were equally offended when the book The Rules prescribed a set of old-fashioned codes for the rituals of courtship. Yet Surrendered Single goes further by suggesting that women should mask their true personalities by being quiet and submissive. Doyle says this allows the man to impress the woman and makes her seem more feminine, a must for the surrendered creed.
She does allow women to communicate their desires in two scenarios: if the man asks for their opinion or if he suggests doing something that would put her in emotional or physical distress. Otherwise, their feelings are irrelevant.
Katha Pollitt, a feminist columnist for the American political magazine The Nation, says: "A woman who follows this advice will get the man she deserves. Being false and submissive will please only a man who wants someone false and submissive. And what happens when the truth comes out? The man is going to be very angry and bewildered."
Lee Reinberg, a 35-year-old single film editor, agrees: "This book is based on lying and I find that shocking. Of course, there is a certain amount of game playing that goes on in the initial stages. If he takes you to a baseball game and you don't want to be there, you don't say so. But that's in the beginning before you've hooked him in. After that, I want a man who likes me for who I am."
Feminism encouraged women to feel confident in being themselves. Yet Doyle seems to blame feminism for the problems that men and women have in relationships. She thinks that successful career women let the bullying tactics they might employ in the boardroom spill over into the bedroom by mentioning commitment or marriage too early, for example.
"Taking a feminine approach to dating means that when you leave the workplace, you turn off your ambition and bossiness and relax into your feminine grace," she says. "Femininity is what men are fundamentally drawn to."
Not everyone is opposed to this book. Wendy Paris, author of Happy Ever After: The Fairy Tale Formula for Lasting Love, says: "You can emasculate a man by making all the decisions and being critical. Some women who are very competent in their professional lives make the mistake of being overly aggressive in their personal lives."
Not surprisingly, there are men who also think the book makes valid points. Jonathan Foreman, film critic of the New York Post and 36-year-old bachelor, thinks that women should lower their standards. "Here in New York, a lot of women date in the same way that businesses recruit. Dates with them are like job interviews. They want to know if you went to the right school, and have sufficient income. That kind of pickiness is incredibly unromantic." Yet he also believes that no woman should ever admit to having read The Surrendered Single. "When a woman has a man around to her place, she should hide every self-help book she has. It implies desperation and cluelessness."
For other men, the book is an insult: "It implies that men are such idiots and fools that as long as you let them talk and laugh at their jokes, they'll be happy," says Bryant Miller, a 31-year-old lawyer.
But are women really so desperate that they would need to follow Doyle's advice to the letter? Katie Roiphe, author of a best-selling book about date rape, says: "Most women know when to dabble in traditional femininity. We know to cry in arguments, and dress up for a date. But does that mean we have to wear layers of make-up every day?"
But, as many women who are fed up with the endless preaching by people such as Laura Doyle must wonder, where is the equivalent book for men? The one that tells them how to appreciate intelligent, successful women and abandon their search for Cindy Crawford with a PhD?
The Surrendered Single by Laura Doyle will be published in June by Simon and Schuster.
It's when I stopped picking about the non important stuff and yeah, that was hard... but that's when I started to see him for how wonderful he really is, and it gave me more credibility to get the important stuff acted upon.
(just one decade here for me and Cyrano)
In fact, the only women who didn't like my husband were snotty women who seemed to gravitate toward macho jerks who later they badmouthed.
What? No way - we can't win against you.
So, why do you "look at marriage as a weakness?"
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