“Obesity is One of the Last Bastions of Prejudice in our Society.”

Last week, an obese news anchorwoman, Jennifer Livingston, confronted a cyber bully. That confrontation went viral on the internet and the young woman received a lot of public support. A writer friend of mine, Ginger Calem, who is a well-known blogger on health and fitness issues, then wrote a great blog post about this incident, Being Mean Sucks.

These two events got me thinking that the time might be ripe to dispel some myths about weight gain and loss.

I started my psychotherapy practice thirty years ago specializing in weight management and compulsive eating issues (later I became a trauma recovery specialist). I thought this specialty would be an ‘easy’ way to jump-start my practice. It did get my practice rolling quickly, but dealing with these issues turned out to be far from easy.

Weight management (Notice I don’t call it ‘weight control.’ We cannot control our weight; we can only attempt to manage it.) is one of the most lucrative industries in this country. Want to make a fortune? Write a book, develop a program, or better still come up with a pill that will supposedly help people lose weight quickly and effortlessly.

There’s just one problem. Weight loss is neither easy nor quick. And all these get-slim-quick schemes do is perpetuate the myth that it is.

The title of this post is a statement made by one of my clients years ago. She went on to say, "And sadly, this group of oppressed people believe they deserve to be oppressed." Why do they believe that? Because they too have bought into this myth. If they are fat, it is simply because they are lazy, out of control, lacking in willpower and/or just plain inferior human beings. Doesn’t matter what other remarkable things they have achieved in their lives, they are not completely okay in their own and others’ eyes.

Nothing is simple or easy about losing weight. The mechanisms that control human weight, both physical and psychological, are the most complicated I have ever encountered as a psychologist. I’d rather try to explain how someone ends up a serial killer than try to explain why we have so much trouble losing weight.

But I will attempt to do so here because I think the time has come for our society to stop making people feel bad about something they have little control over.

During the next couple posts, I will share with you the reasons why it is not easy, and some helpful hints on how to combat the problem. These reasons can be broken down into four categories. I will address the first two in this post.

• Physical factors that affect everyone’s metabolism and eating behavior.
• Physical factors that make it hard to lose weight.
• Social connections/issues with weight and food.
• Psychological connections/issues with weight and food.

Our metabolism slows down in winter and/or when we are inactive:
Our bodies were designed to handle much more primitive conditions than we experience in modern society. In order for the species to survive, human beings needed to be able to make it through cold winters and other times when food was in short supply.

So imagine this. It is early summer and the elk have grown fat eating that rich spring grass. The hunters chase the elk herd down and manage to kill a good number of them. The elk are butchered, a portion of the meat is set aside to be dried for winter consumption, and let the feast begin!

The guy who eats until he can’t possibly stuff anymore in ends up nice and fat. The prissy little miss who says, "Oh, no, I can’t possibly eat all that" stays nice and slim.

Then winter comes along.




Snow covering ruins of cave dwellers in Cappadocia, Turkey (photo by Nevit Dilmen)


Fat guy emerges from his cave the following spring, lean and hungry. But he emerges. Skinny miss died of starvation in mid February. Fat guy woos himself a bride and starts a family, passing on his genes for overeating when highly palatable food is available. Skinny miss didn’t live long enough to reproduce.

Fast forward a couple of eons and you have an entire human race that overeats when delicious food is available in large quantities. Except that we now don’t just overeat a few times a year, after a big hunt, with lots of lean times in between. Now we are invited by every clerk in every fast food restaurant to supersize that high fat, highly palatable meal we just ordered. So we have a huge cup of sugary drink and a large container of fries to go with that quarter pound of beef and cheese and special sauce. The sandwich, by itself, would have provided enough calories to get us through the day, but more importantly it would have filled us up. But we eat it all because it tastes so good!

Fat people don’t lack willpower any more than skinny people do. Human beings in general are not programmed, as a species, to have the willpower to resist highly palatable food laid out in front of them!

Back to that winter-time cave. There’s pretty much nothing to do. So everyone huddles around the campfire and tells stories. This is a good thing, because activity burns more calories and they need to conserve their food supply and their bodies’ fat reserves to make it to spring. Some of those cave dwellers have a natural tendency to have their metabolism slow down when they are inactive. They survive better than the people who can’t relax and pace up and down the cave until spring, or until they die of starvation, whichever comes first.

Eons later, we have an entire species whose metabolic rate slows down when we are inactive. And we have television and computers and video games enticing us to be less and less active.

Okay, time for some Helpful Hints before this gets too depressing.

HH#1: Do NOT make losing weight your goal. Make becoming more fit and healthy your goal. You can’t control the first, you can the second. And chances are pretty good that if you get more fit and healthy, you will lose weight, or at least inches. More on this in a bit.

HH#2: Participate in some kind of rigorous physical activity two to three times a week for at least an hour. Go to the gym, aerobics or Zumba class, take up running, power walking, whatever. (If you have been completely sedentary, work up to this gradually.) Aerobic activity not only burns calories but it also raises our metabolic rate for some time after we stop. But try to find something you really enjoy, otherwise you may not stick with it.

HH#3: Do some kind of activity every day. Walk the dog, mow the lawn (ride-on mowers don’t count!), do something. Park your car at the far end of the parking lot, take the stairs instead of the elevator, etc. Look for ways to put more activity into your daily life painlessly.

NOTE: It is impossible to lose weight and keep it off while remaining sedentary! It is also impossible to be fit and healthy while remaining sedentary.

HH#4: Limit eating in restaurants, especially fast-food ones, to a rare treat. At fast food restaurants, don’t order the meal. Order a sandwich and water, coffee or tea, and if you must have fries, order a small one separately. Trust me, you will be just as satisfied when you are finished eating, and you’ll feel less guilty. At regular restaurants, ask for a box up front and put one third to one half of the meal in the box before you start eating. You will be less tempted to overeat if it is out of sight, and you can anticipate how yummy it will be tomorrow when you heat it up for lunch.

Sleep deprivation increases hunger:
There are several chemicals in our bodies that regulate the delicate balance between calorie intake and energy expenditure. Two of them are ghrelin, a hormone secreted by the stomach lining that stimulates hunger, and leptin that is secreted by your body fat and inhibits hunger. These two hormones, ideally, counterbalance one another. But when we are sleep deprived, our bodies compensate for the lack of rest by decreasing leptin levels and increasing ghrelin levels, i.e. our appetite goes up.

HH#5: Get enough sleep. This will also give you more energy to be active. If you are sleep-deprived on any given day, be extra careful to avoid high-calorie, low nutrition foods.
　
Genetics does play a role for many people:
Ever heard either of these statements. "Being overweight is not inherited." Or, "if someone’s had a weight problem all their lives, it’s probably not caused by biological factors." These are both myths.

And sadly, the second one is a direct quote from an endocrinologist regarding a client of mine. She was resisting taking a referral from me for an evaluation because he had "always had a weight problem." (To me that indicated it was more likely to be biologically based.) I insisted; she gave in. Good thing, because it turned out he had a rare disease that would have killed him if it had gone undetected for even a few more months.

Research has found that there are a multitude of genes that affect body mass and metabolic rate so yes, genetics do predispose us to be skinny or heavy or somewhere in between. But our behavior and the environment also impact on how those predispositions pan out.

In addition, genetics may or may not play a part in a couple other factors. Obese people tend to have leptin resistance. Their brain just doesn’t absorb all of the leptin their fat cells are releasing so their appetite is not inhibited like it should be.

Obese people also tend to have a lower number of dopamine receptors in the part of the brain that registers pleasure. So how do dopamine receptors affect weight? Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has many roles. One of them is to stimulate reward centers in the brain that give us that "ah, that felt good" feeling. Without these reward centers, we would not be all that motivated to do the things we need to do in order to survive as individuals or as a species, i.e., to eat, drink and have sex. With fewer dopamine receptors in these reward centers, it takes a lot more pleasurable activity to achieve a sense of satisfaction. So these people are motivated to eat more (this is also related to other addictions).


Metabolism slows down when we cut back on our eating:
To make sure we survive periods of short food supply, our bodies are designed to maintain our current weight (this is called ‘set point’ or sometimes, ‘settling point’). If our calorie intake goes down, our metabolism slows down to compensate. So after a few weeks of dieting, we plateau, get frustrated and stop the diet. And then gain all the weight back, and then some, when we go back to our regular eating patterns. So dieting doesn't work. We have to change our eating behaviors for the long haul (more on this next time).

'Set point' is no longer a theory. Scientists now understand how this works biochemically. But I think we’ve had enough chemistry lessons for one day.
　
HH#6: Cut back on calories slowly (while increasing your activity to keep your metabolism stimulated). Start by reducing and then eliminating empty calories (high calorie, low nutrition foods). Don’t buy the junk food; don’t bring it into the house. Nobody in the family needs it. Not you, not your spouse, not the kids, not the dog. Again, human beings are not programmed to resist highly palatable food that is readily available!

HH#7: Next step is to reduce portion sizes. Again, do this gradually. Notice how many spoonfuls of something you tend to put on your plate at a meal (especially starches). Cut back half a spoonful for the next few days, then another half a spoonful for a few days.

And if you are like me and are used to taking seconds (a hard habit to break), slowly cut back the first serving, while not allowing yourself to increase the second one, until you are taking two servings that equal what used to be one.

HH#8: Replace desserts with something equally satisfying but more nutritious. When you feel a yen for something sweet after a meal or as an afternoon snack, have some fresh or canned fruit, perhaps with yogurt.

Men can indeed lose weight much easier than women (in general):
A woman will naturally have more fat and less muscle than a man of the same weight. Women are hormonally programmed to carry more fat reserves so that if we are pregnant or nursing a baby when famine strikes, mother and child are more likely to survive. Muscles burn calories, fat just sits around and, well, gets fatter. So men have a higher metabolic rate, in general, than women do.

HH#9: If you are a guy whose woman is trying to lose some weight, tell her you love her and you are rooting for her. And then shut up, because you have no idea how much harder it is for her to lose than it is for you. If you are woman trying to lose weight, show this post to your man.

HH#10: Put the scale in the attic! As you start to lose fat by increasing exercise and slowly reducing caloric intake, you may not lose much weight right away. Muscle is more dense than fat (think a small, lean steak versus four sticks of butter). So as you increase the muscle and decrease the fat, you will slim down and tone up without necessarily losing all that much weight. Indeed, you may even gain a little, but if the inches are coming off, if your clothes are looser, if you are feeling better, that is what counts.

How you look and how you feel is what it is all about, not numbers on the scale! Those numbers may just discourage you and make you give up even though what you are doing is actually working. The numbers on the scale have also become tied to our sense of self-worth in our society. But more on that next time.

And also more next time on ways to improve eating behaviors, after we talk about the psychological and social implications of weight and eating in our society.


(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.)
　

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address at the top of the column to the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

Men Are More Aggressive, Women More Emotional--Actually NOT

Most people assume that men, in general, are more aggressive than women, and that women, in general, are more emotional. In fact, the genders do not differ with regard to their natural
tendencies in these areas. You heard me right. These are not true gender differences.

Aggression:
It is true that testosterone when injected in animals, immediately makes them more aggressive. This experiment, to the best of my knowledge, has never been done with humans because of ethical and legal issues. But my guess is the results would be the same.

Male Nyalas fighting

It is also true that men have far more testosterone in their bodies than women do. So logic says that men should be more aggressive, and they are, physically, but not when you consider other types of aggression. More on that in a moment.

In the 1970's, researchers attempted to prove the testosterone/aggression link in humans by looking for a correlation between testosterone levels and violent crime. They compared the levels of this hormone in violent criminals in prison with those of non-violent criminals, i.e., those who committed "white-collar" crimes such as embezzling or insurance fraud. Sure enough, the violent criminals had more testosterone in their bloodstream. There was just one wee little problem with this study. It couldn’t be replicated. Several attempts to repeat the study did not get the same results. Some studies found no differences. Several found that the violent criminals actually had lower levels of testosterone than the nonviolent ones.

Here’s another piece of confusing data. If one just considers physical aggression, elementary-school-aged boys are more aggressive than girls. But guess what? They don’t have all that much testosterone in their systems yet. This hormone is not released in any great quantity until the onset of puberty.




Strasbourg porcelain ca. 1775, in Victoria and Albert Museum, photo by Valerie McGlinchey


There are several kinds of aggression. But first let me define aggression. It is the act of invading another person’s territory, physical or emotional, or of violating their rights. So here are the different types:

Instrumental aggression: the goal is to get something the person wants or avoid something they don’t want. Examples would be a child grabbing another kid’s toy because they want to play with it, someone intentionally butting in front of you in line, or the little brats above fighting over a bunch of grapes.

Reactive aggression: the person responds to something they perceive as a hostile act with their own aggression. One kid pushes in front of another in line (instrumental aggression); the other kid hits him (reactive aggression).

Unprovoked aggression: intentionally hurting someone, physically or emotionally, because the act of inflicting pain is pleasurable or rewarding for the aggressor. This ranges from the schoolyard bully to the sadistic rapist or serial killer.

And here is the one that levels the playing field gender-wise. Drum roll, please.

Relational aggression: using ostracization, spreading rumors, withdrawal of friendship, etc. to punish, manipulate or otherwise intentionally harm others’ social standing.

Studies that only look at physical aggression–be it instrumental, reactive or unprovoked–will most definitely find that boys and men, as a group, exhibit more. But when you include relational aggression, the gender difference disappears.

So despite the whole testosterone issue, level of aggression does not seem to be a true gender difference. What is different is the way girls and boys are socialized
to express aggression. "Boys will be boys" while girls are admonished to "play nicely." So the girls quickly learn to use other tactics to express their aggression.

Now, think about the men whom you know personally. How many of them are truly aggressive, physically, verbally or relationally? Probably just a few. Most men are as uncomfortable with anger and conflict as women are. Fighting is not fun, bottom line.

Now think about the women you know. How many of them are spiteful, or at least rather snarky when gossiping about someone they don’t like. You probably know about as many spiteful women as you know truly aggressive, ready-to-pick-a-fight men. Maybe more.


Emotions:
As an author, I struggle with making the emotional reactions of my characters realistic and also believable. But aren’t these the same thing? No, because people believe that women are more emotional than men. While realistically, they actually feel the same emotions, at the same level of intensity, as women. They are just socialized not to express them!

Say what?

Yup, you heard me right. Studies that tease apart how men and women actually feel from what they are willing to express find that the feelings are the same. One particularly good study asked both men and women to place themselves in the shoes of the protagonist in hypothetical situations. They were given several scenarios to read and then asked to identify what emotion they would feel if they themselves were in such a scenario, and then to rate the intensity of that feeling on a scale of 1 to 10. After they had done that with all the scenarios, they were asked to go back and describe how they would express those feelings.

Both the men and women identified the same emotions. The anger-provoking scenarios provoked anger; the sad scenarios, sadness; the scary ones, fear; and the you-screwed-up ones, guilt.

The more surprising finding, however, was that there was no significant difference between the genders in the intensity of the feelings!

But, boy, did the differences start to show up when it came to expressing those feelings. That’s where the learned gender roles came into play. These are called display rules–which emotions each gender is or is not allowed to express in any given culture.



Paris, 1940, the day the French army pulled out and the Nazis took over the city.


When I talk about gender differences with my developmental psychology students, I ask the question, "What emotions are women allowed to express in our society?" They list every emotion out there, except anger. Okay, they might say things like "annoyance" or "frustration," the milder forms of anger.

Then I ask, "Guys, what emotions are you allowed to express?" There is a long silence, and then one of the male students will say, "Anger."

"None of the others?" I ask. They think about it for a minute or two, then the guys all shake their heads.

"What?" I say. "You haven’t heard that women like a sensitive guy? Isn’t it okay for you to cry now?"

At this point, the room usually erupts into a lively discussion. The guys cite examples of times when they’ve let their softer sides show to girlfriends, and it didn’t go all that well. Unless she was a platonic friend. Then it was okay, but not with romantic partners.

And some of the gals will admit that it unnerves them when their guys cry. That they might feel empathy for him at the time, but there is a subtle loss of respect. But more and more, in recent times, the female students tell me that they are more assertive, more comfortable expressing anger. And yet the guys still can’t admit to being scared or sad.

In our society, gender roles for boys and men are actually more rigid than for females.

Are women still discriminated against in the workplace and a variety of other arenas? Sadly, yes, all too often. But when it comes to gender roles, we are much more accepting of females exhibiting more masculine roles than we are of males exhibiting more feminine ones. Think about the different implications of "tomboy" versus "sissy." And girls and women have been wearing pants since World War II, but how often do you see a man in a dress?

While a female police officer or firefighter may still experience harassment by some of her male colleagues, society in general will admire her for choosing that profession. But that same society will look askance at a male interior decorator or hairdresser, or even a male nurse, and may very well question his sexual orientation.

So, times have changed regarding gender roles in our culture, but perhaps not as much as we pretend they’ve changed.

What are your thoughts on all this? What gender differences have you observed recently in how men and women express anger and other emotions?


(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.)
　

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address at the top of the column to the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

Readers, Rebels and the Rules of Writing

(The third installment on gender differences in relating will be posted soon. Here is a post in our ongoing series on what Readers Really Want.)

I have always been a rebel. When I was a kid, telling me that something was against the rules was a sure-fire way to get me to do it. As an adult, I try to resist the temptation to break a rule at least once, just to see what happens.



From a 1915 musical score, public domain in the U.S.


When I retired from being a psychotherapist and turned my writing talents toward fiction, I was so relieved. No more having to follow the ‘introduction, literature review, evidence, conclusions’ format required for professional journal articles. My creativity would finally be free and unfettered.

Imagine my dismay when I discovered that writing fiction had rules! (One of which is to avoid using exclamation points. Teehee!) My editor probably ended up with muscle spasms in her neck from shaking her head so much over my first manuscript.

My editor probably could have used some of this. (Photo by Craiglduncan from Wikimedia Commons)

An internal battle then ensued, between the part of me that wanted to ignore the rules and the part that wanted to get published. The latter won and I beat the rebel into submission. Now, as a somewhat more seasoned novelist, I've developed a bit more of a compromise in my view of these rules. But before I get into that, let me present a few things to you, the reader.

Here are three rules that I find somewhat, shall we say, stifling: (1) Use exclamation marks very sparingly (as in, almost never); (2) only use said or asked in dialogue tags; and (3) avoid adverbs like the plague.

So imagine the hero is trying to seduce the heroine. He is nibbling on her earlobe and then starts trailing kisses down the side of her neck. *pauses to fan face, is it getting hot in here?* She is trying to resist but her body has other ideas.

"Please, stop," she gasped breathlessly.

"Please, stop," she said, in a breathless voice.

"Please, stop." Her voice was breathless.

You tell me, which do you like better? Which is more powerful? And which will tend to slow the story down?


Example number 2: The protagonist tells his buddy that his pet gerbil can talk.

"No way," Jimmy said.

"No way!" Jimmy said.

No way," Jimmy exclaimed.

"No way." Jimmy’s voice was incredulous.

I don’t know about you, but the first one sounds to me like Jimmy isn’t all that interested. Either the second or third one works for me, although I like number two best. Technically, according to the rules, the fourth one is correct. But looking at that one, and the third one, through my reader eyes (instead of those of the writer trying to follow the rules), I can’t help wondering why there isn’t an exclamation mark there, if Jimmy is so all fired incredulous.

Now, some editors would respond to this by saying, if you need an exclamation mark or the word exclaimed in order to convey the speaker’s emotions, then you need to rewrite the dialogue to make it stronger, or show (not tell; yet another rule) the emotion through action.

Okay, how about:  Jimmy’s eyes grew wide. "No way."

Nope, sorry, I’m still feeling like this reaction is too lukewarm without that exclamation mark. For me, first prize would go to:

Jimmy’s eyes grew wide. "No way!"

So here is the middle ground I have found, with three–soon to be four–published novels under my belt. These rules should be guidelines, because they have merit, but they should not be strictly enforced.

Use too many exclamation marks and they lose their punch (not to mention the fact that the speaker starts to sound silly.) Let’s not outlaw them completely, however.

Use said or asked most of the time as dialogue tags, because the reader’s eye glides right over them and they don’t interfere with the flow of the dialogue. But when describing the emotion or tone of voice would interfere with the flow of the dialogue, use a different dialogue tag to convey that emotion.

Likewise with adverbs; use them sparingly, but sometimes they may be the tighter way to convey the mood or tone.

Protagonist and her husband are in the middle of a disagreement that is about to heat up:

"Look, I know I go on and on sometimes, but I feel like you aren’t always listening to me."

"What, you go on and on? Naw, never!" he teased.

"Like right now. You’re not taking me seriously," she shot back.

He realized he had gone too far. "I do listen," he said softly, hoping to appease her.


Oh, yeah, forgot to mention the rule about avoiding italicizing words for emphasis. So here’s the same conversation, following all the rules:

"Look, I know I go on and on sometimes, but I feel like you aren’t always listening to me."

"What, you go on and on? Naw, never," he said, a teasing note in his voice.

"Like right now. You’re not taking me seriously." Her tone was now angry.

He realized he had gone too far. "I do listen," he said, softening his voice, hoping to appease her.
　

Now there’s nothing wrong with the second version. But, in my opinion, the emotions aren’t as powerful. And we have ten extra words that slow down the pace of the scene, which makes the interchange sound less heated.

Let me reiterate, however, that I have matured enough through the years to realize that rules usually exist for a reason. These elements should not be used too often. Note the following, which is not far off from several first-page samples I have read on Amazon in recent times:

Jeannette sat down on a bar stool, longingly glancing in Carlos’s direction, then blatantly ignoring him.

Suddenly, she felt hot breath on her neck. Carlos gently picked up her hand and, lovingly and tenderly, kissed the soft palm. "So you can’t resist me, querida!" he breathed lustily into her ear.

Jeannette shivered deliciously but kept her face turned away.

Another man had taken the stool on her other side. "Can... uh, I buy you a drink?" he stammered nervously.

Carlos leaned forward and stared aggressively at the interloper. "She’s taken!" he growled emphatically.

"I am not!" she protested, equally emphatically.

Carlos instantly jumped from his barstool and grabbed her arm firmly. "We’ll see about that!" he growled menacingly as he hauled her off her stool and moved her hurriedly toward the door.
　

Now this writer has promise (Ha, ha! It’s me, several decades ago), but the mood of the scene is ruined by all the melodramatic adverbs, exclamation marks and overused irregular dialogue tags. It reads more like a farce than a serious scene. My fingers are itching to go back and edit it. (I would keep two of the fourteen adverbs, one of the four exclamation marks, and two out of the five irregular dialogue tags.)

But I won’t bore you further by ridiculously hammering home an already obviously made point about the annoyingly frequent habit of over-using these temptingly easy elements rather than writing truly fabulous and exceedingly tight, emotionally tantalizing dialogue.
　

Please, wade in, readers! (Yes, I do so love those exclamation marks.) What do you think about these rules? Writers and editors, feel free to join the fray.


(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.)
　

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address at the top of the column to the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!



Men Do, Women Process

I decided the previous post on this topic was a little too serious, so I'm going to have some fun with this next gender difference in relating.

Meet caveman Charlie Spearhead. (Okay, folks, get your minds outta the gutter! We're not going to have that much fun.)

Charlie is really beat. He had to chase that damn elk halfway to the end of the world. As his stomach rumbles, he contemplates the rabbit stew that should be bubbling over the fire at that very moment, and afterwards a nice romp in the furs with his cavemate, Georgette. He grins even as his stomach growls a bit louder.

He soon discovers, however, that a fat elk haunch is not going to be sufficient to buy him a peaceful and fun-filled evening. Georgette starts in the minute he crosses the cave threshold. "You will never believe what that Gertrude Deerhunter did today when we were tanning hides."

"Hummpf," Charlie says.

"She had the audacity to imply that my hides are always stiff and I never get all the hair off. Oh, she didn’t come right out and say that but..."

Charlie yawns and scratches his chest, eyeing the stew pot hopefully.

"Charlie, are you listening?"

"Just ignore her. Why do you care what she thinks?"

"I don’t care about her, but she was putting me down in front of all the other women, and she was being so indirect about it that I couldn’t confront her. She’s gotten so high and mighty every since her husband got elected war chief... Charlie, what are you doing?"

"I’m cleanin’ my spear."

I’m trying to talk to you here."

"Hurummph."

"Charlie, are you listening to me?"

"Yeah, yeah." He puts down his spear.

"As I was saying, I couldn’t confront her directly. I’d be the one who’d come off sounding like a bitch, and we’re all going berry-picking tomorrow. I know she’s gonna start up again–"

"Why don’t you go out early," Charlie interrupts, "and strip all the berries off the bushes before she gets there."

"I can’t do that. All the other women will think I’m trying to cheat them out of their share. I just can’t believe how she’s just gotten so full of herself since..."

Charlie starts to nod off, sitting by the warm fire.

"Charlie!"

"Hummf, I’m listening already. Can’t we eat while you talk?"

Georgette dishes up some stew for him. "And I can’t believe that nobody else said anything in my de–"

Charlie jumps in. "Hey, why don’t you wear your good dress? The doeskin one that’s so soft. That’ll show her."

Georgette glares at him for interrupting again, then her expression softens. "Actually I kinda like that idea."

"Good, glad to help. Man you’ll never believe how far I had to chase that elk today."

"I still can’t believe that nobody came to my defense, not even Wilma–"

"Why are we still talkin’ about this, Georgette? We solved the problem."

"Well. I guess you just don’t care that they hurt my feelings. After all, why should my feelings matter when your feet are sore from chasing elk!"

"Hey, why are you getting mad at me?"

"Cause you never listen!"

"Hunh? What have I been doing for the last half hour?"

"Cleaning your spear and eating your dinner."

Kissing the idea of a romp in the furs goodbye, Charlie sighs.

Are you feeling a bit sorry for Charlie about now? Or are you thinking Georgette married a dimwit? This poor couple has stumbled into one of the most common pitfalls of male-female relationships.

This pitfall is caused by a major difference between the way men and women deal with feelings and problems. Men take action; women process feelings. I’m not saying women don’t act to correct a problem; they do. But they prefer to sort out how they feel about it first, and most women like to do that by talking about the situation and their feelings out loud. And sometimes they have to repeat themselves a few times until they’ve vented sufficiently to move on to a plan of action.

Men don’t get that, because that’s not how they are programmed. Their minds jump immediately to action-oriented problem-solving. So halfway (or sooner) through the venting/sorting out feelings process, they start jumping in to suggest what the woman can DO about the problem. They are then totally mystified as to why their woman is now mad at them!

　
Men, on the other hand, tend to mull it over inside their own heads when they need to sort out how they feel about something. Then if they think it’s relevant to share, they’ll tell you about it. So they get real quiet when something is on their minds.

Now, women tend to be fairly sensitive to the non-verbals of emotions (I’m not making this up; research has found this to be true). The woman catches on pretty quick that something’s bothering her guy. So she asks, "What’s the matter, honey?"

And what answer does she get?

"Nothin’."

"I can tell something’s bothering you. What’s the matter?"

"Nothin’. I’m fine."

"Is it me? Did I do something to annoy you?"

"I said, I’m fine," he says through gritted teeth.

Now she is totally convinced that he’s mad at her, and he is, because she’s not leaving him alone to sort things out. John Gray, in his book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus, talks about this. He shares the advice passed along by a woman who attended one of his workshops. She said her grandmother had told her, "When a man withdraws into his cave, do not try to follow him, or you will be burned by the fire from the dragon that lives in that cave."

Image by Antonella Nigro, share alike license on Wikimedia Commons

Does any of this ring a bell for you? Have you ever been burned by the dragon fire? Any fun, or serious, stories to share about venters vs. mullers? Or maybe you know of some exceptions to the rule?


(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.)
　

We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

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Why the H___ Does S/He Do That? -- Gender Differences in Relating

I think this is going to be at least a three-parter. If I try to cover all the gender differences re: relating in one post, it would be twenty pages long. In this post, I’m going to focus on one of the primary differences. (Please keep in mind that these are generalizations; there will be lots of exceptions to the rule.)

Photo by Lisa Hall-Wilson WANA Commons

Men tend to be more hierarchal; women tend to be more egalitarian.

Men are concerned about where they are in the pecking order. Women tend to emphasize that we’re all in this together. So someone in a mixed group at a social gathering mentions a problem he or she is having, and what happens? The men jump in with possible solutions (this is also related to another difference we’ll talk about next time). The women say, "Oh, I know just what you mean. I had a similar problem when..."

Now, notice that I didn’t say that men need to be at the top of the pecking order. Most men don’t necessarily need to be there; they just want to know where they stand. Which is good because not everybody can be king of the hill.

Men get frustrated with women who want to turn everything into a team effort. My husband once had a female boss who drove all the men in her department crazy. She had a "team" meeting every week that was (my husband’s words) "us listening to Jodie’s stream of consciousness while she figures out what she wants us to do that week." I’m sure Jodie perceived it as seeking her subordinates’ input. Indeed, she might have even been uncomfortable with the word subordinate.

My husband’s other comment was "She’s the boss; why doesn’t she just tell me what she wants me to do instead of wasting my time in these silly meetings." He didn’t mind having a female boss; he just wanted her to act like a boss, i.e., be the leader, the top dog.

This major difference between the genders was researched by the well-known sociolinguist, Deborah Tannen. She found this pattern in various cultures around the world. Her theory about its origins was based on evolution. In more primitive times, a man who understood and respected hierarchies was a better hunter and warrior, i.e., better provider and protector for his family (and therefore his children were more likely to make it to adulthood to pass on his hierarchal genes).

When you’re chasing a herd of elk or defending the village against an invading enemy you don’t have time to stop and have a committee meeting to discuss how to handle the situation. You have a hunting chief or a war chief who says "You go here, you go there!" And everybody follows orders because the hierarchy has already been established.

On the other hand, the tasks the women did to contribute to the survival of their families and tribes were better accomplished through cooperation. They minded the children, tanned the hides, dried the food for winter consumption, gathered roots and berries. So those women who were better at being part of the team were more likely to see their children make it to adulthood to pass on their cooperative/egalitarian genes to yet another generation.

This ties in with the whole issue of competitiveness. There’s a lot of research out there that indicates men are more competitive than women, in general, and that this is probably at least partly innate. They are much more likely to feel the need to be "one up" on the next guy.

Photo by kbowenauthor WANA Commons

Yeah, yeah, I know, there are plenty of women out there who are super competitive. There are at least two other factors that play into competitiveness. One is genetics. The personality continuum of agreeableness vs. ruthlessness has a heritability factor of 42%. What does that mean, you ask. It means that 42% of our tendency to be agreeable and cooperative vs. aggressive and ruthless is inherited, male or female.

The other factor is our perception of the availability of resources. If we think that resources are limited, then we need to compete for them. So the girl who grows up not getting much attention from her dad perceives male attention as a limited resource that she has to compete with other women to obtain.

This whole hierarchal thinking tendency is, by the way, why guys are reluctant to ask for directions if they get lost (this is less of an issue now, since the advent of GPS devices). Admitting that you are lost and need help is a one-down position. Women don’t understand this, because they have no problem with asking for directions.

Photo by Basher Eyre, Wikimedia Commons

I was explaining this to one of my developmental psychology classes a few years ago and one of my male students piped up, "Yeah, and if you do ask for directions, ask a woman, not a guy. Cause if he doesn’t know, he’ll make something up and get you more lost."

I gave that student an A for class participation. What an astute observation! The person asking for directions has just given the guy the one-up position. He’s not going to sacrifice that by admitting he doesn’t know the answer. He’ll make his best guess and say it with authority!

A woman, on the other hand, has no problem with admitting she doesn’t know. She’s okay with admitting that we’re all clueless together.

Now, ladies, before you start shaking your heads and exclaiming about how dumb guys are, let’s look again at more primitive times. The guy’s lost in the jungle. He encounters a male stranger. If he admits to that stranger that he’s lost, this may be perceived as a sign of vulnerability and the guy may attack him to steal his possessions. So he blusters his way through until the other guy shows that he’s friendly by inviting him to come enjoy the local village’s hospitality for the night.

Now if a woman is lost in the jungle and encounters a strange male, unless she’s armed to the teeth and has a pet tiger on a leash, she’s already physically one-down. So her best bet is to throw herself on the guy’s mercy and ask for his help.

So what do you think about all this? Have you noticed these differences in the men and women you relate to?

How about exceptions to the rule? My great grandma used to say, "There’s an exception to every rule, including this one."


(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington Mystery series.)
　
We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address at the top of the column to the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

Where I Am From...

This is a writing exercise that's been going around my online writers' group. I did it just for fun, and discovered it was a rather poignant experience, even a bit healing. I think anyone who grew up in the 40's, 50's or 60's will be particularly able to relate. Below is the template if you wish to do it yourself.

I am from black and white TV, Cracker Jacks and eating white bread and butter as a snack. I am from the white frame bungalow with the new bedroom under the eaves that was all my own, and the long narrow backyard that was the stage for my fantasies. I’m from the ugly green walls of that room, painted with Army surplus paint, and the cute ruffled skirt my mother made for my vanity.

I am from climbing the neighbor’s cherry trees and eating tart, cooking cherries until I was sick. I am from the locust tree in the front yard that I thought was so huge, with its round green leaves that reminded me of coins. I stuffed them in my pockets and pretended I was rich.

I am from Saturday nights watching TV as a family and from bum arguments, from angry Roy, and Marty, the peacemaker, and Mary Amelia and Randy, who taught me about unconditional love.

I am from stubborn determination and keeping secrets, and not holding a grudge. From "It is more blessed to give than to receive," and "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you."

I am from the little cement porch where I stared up into that locust tree and wondered how I had come to be, at that particular moment in that particular place, totally unaware that I was having a spiritual experience. Doesn’t everyone feel at one with God and the universe occasionally?

I am from "What can I get ya, hon" Baltimore and from dark wavy hair framing fair Gallic faces. And from equally Gallic tempers and passions.

From simple homemade bread dressing stuffed inside our Christmas turkey and Pop’s special cornmeal pancakes (with a fried egg on top) on Christmas mornings.

Photo by Michael Dorausch, Venice from Wikimedia Commons

I’m from sneaking down to the forbidden stream (off limits because it might be polluted) with my big brother, from making mud pies and catching tadpoles and playing pirates in the cattails. I’m from summer trips to Ocean City with my grandmother, and playing hide-and-seek after dark with my cousins.
　
I’m from the two big boxes of mementoes my mother packed to move to Florida, and never got a chance to unpack before she died of cancer. From the two weeks it took me to unpack them, once they’d found their way to my house, savoring each item. Souvenirs from two dysfunctional childhoods, hers and mine, that nonetheless had a lot of happy moments.



Where Are You From?

I am from _______ (specific ordinary item), from _______ (product name) and _______.

I am from the _______ (home description… adjective, adjective, sensory detail).

I am from the _______ (plant, flower, natural item), the _______ (plant, flower, natural detail)

I am from _______ (family tradition) and _______ (family trait), from _______ (name of family member) and _______ (another family name) and _______ (family name).

I am from the _______ (description of family tendency) and _______ (another one).

From _______ (something you were told as a child) and _______ (another).

I am from (representation of religion, or lack of it). Further description.

I’m from _______ (place of birth and family ancestry), _______ (two food items representing your family).

From the _______ (specific family story about a specific person and detail), the _______ (another detail, and the _______ (another detail about another family member).

I am from _______ (location of family pictures, mementos, archives and several more lines indicating their worth).



(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.)
　
We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes we blog again, on Friday or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address at the top of the column to the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!

Readers: How Do You Feel About Cliffhangers?

This is the first in a series asking readers what they do and don’t like in fiction. Please, readers, let us know what you think! We authors want to give you what you want.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, or maybe I should say a ledge, and assume that at least some readers are like me and don’t like cliffhangers.

My husband and I were watching Criminal Minds, Season 2, on DVD the other night. At the end of the last episode, all the main characters get into their various look-alike black FBI-issued SUV’s, and then the scene flashes to a black SUV blowing up! Grrr! We’ve learned the hard way to already have the next season’s DVD in hand before watching the last episode on the disc, so within minutes we knew whose vehicle it was. Our annoyance was short-lived, this time.

I find full-blown cliffhangers even more annoying in novels. Awhile back, I read a debut novel in a mystery series by an indie author. The story had come to a satisfying end, and then, as the loose ends were being tied up, the protagonist’s boyfriend suddenly disappears. I turn the page, and there is a note from the author telling me I should run, not walk, to my computer and order the next book in the series.

I don’t think so! Instead, I vowed never to buy another book by that author. I was offended by this blatant manipulation.

Now I don’t mind if an author leaves something dangling a little bit, such as a budding romance or hints of some other new development in the protagonist’s life. But please don’t hang me off the cliff! I get vertigo.

Then again, I know that semi-cliffhangers, have become a bit of a trend in some series and trilogies. I just finished reading a friend’s debut novel and she did this. The initial story, in which the young protagonist is running for her life from her abusive father with the help of her boyfriend and a stranger from another world, is resolved. But there are lots and lots of loose ends dangling when you turn the page and discover the book is done. What saved the day for me, the abhorrer of cliffhangers, was an excerpt from the beginning of Book 2 in the trilogy. It gave enough hints of where the tale was going next to turn the sour taste in my mouth to a whetted appetite. Well done, Myndi Shafer! (I highly recommend her book, Shrilugh)

And then there are soap operas–those time-honored, slow-moving series on daytime TV, and sometimes during evening prime time. I will confess that even I watched Dallas, in its first rendition. And I had an aunt who would do you bodily harm if you got in her way when she was trying to get home in time to watch her "afternoon stories."

How about it, readers, do you like wandering along paths close to the edge of the cliff? Or do you get vertigo like me?

All of these pictures were taken at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland (gorgeous country!)

Just how tolerant are you of loose ends at the end of a book? Do you have any other pet peeves about how some novels are written?


(Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She writes the Kate Huntington mystery series.)
　
We blog here at misterio press once a week about more serious topics, usually on Mondays or Tuesdays. Sometimes we blog again, on Fridays or the weekend, with something just for fun.

Please follow us by filling in your e-mail address at the top of the column to the right, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun!