How Men Control Women (& What to Do About It)

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In the previous lesson, we have seen how women domesticate men into providers.

But men aren’t just sitting pretty, of course.

They have their own strategies for control.

And that is the focus of this lesson.

Please note though that games and strategies don’t exactly come with a gender label on
them. So some of these games can also be used by women.

Men Relationship Control Techniques

Male games can be more damaging to the health of the relationship.

Why so?

Because while many men end up happy while they serve their women, women are not
happy when men are successful with their control techniques.

Games men play are more likely to physically restrain her freedom, lower her self-esteem,
decrease her psychological well being, and even lead to health issues.

Let’s review them:

1. One-Upping
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Men, even men under her spell, want to feel like they are the man in the relationship and
like they are in control of it.

One way they do so is by making nasty jokes at her expense.

Or by commenting and remarking about their superior skills, knowledge, and
achievements.

Men who engage in one-upping often are afraid that their women do not respect them
enough.
Hence, they always try to parade their wins as if to say “look at me, I’m better, and you
should be happy you are with this great man”.

Here is an example:

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Her: I have over 37.000 followers

Him: 36.999 of which are mine

He cannot let her have a shiny moment but feels the need to re-assert his (supposed)
superiority.
Completely unnecessary, showing weakness much more than strength.

PRO Tip: Advertise your wins, but in an inclusive fashion

It’s OK for men to advertise their wins, especially if they benefit both. But they should do
so tactfully, in a way that says “this was a great win, it’s good for both” and “this was a
great win, let’s celebrate it together”.
The attitude is that your successes are not a show of superiority towards her, but a huge

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win for you, and since you are partners, it’s also a win for her. You are happy for her wins,
she should be happy for yours as well.
That’s the healthy way of winning and “showing off” those wins.

2. One-Down
The other side of the coin of one-upping, and nastier: instead of parading their wins, some
men push their women down.

Some men need the reassurance of having a big gap between themselves and their
women, which also makes them feel powerful and in control.

The fear here is that if she feels like she is above his own sexual market value, she might
become too independent and leave him.
Envy often underpins his fear and his “one down” efforts.
Says one researcher on spousal abuse:

Envy might prompt a husband to belittle his wife’s achievements to maintain his superior
rank in the marriage

The levels at which a woman becomes threatening for defensive-minded men varies
depending on his own level.
A fit, smart, high SMV billionaire will rarely feel threatened.
Furthermore, he might be more likely to understand his own mental weaknesses and
avoid resorting to put-downs.

A jobless, low SMV ma, is more prone to feel threatened and, thus, more likely to resort to
put-downs.
And this might be why spousal violence is more common among low-income and low-
status men.

At the lowest levels, men are afraid that a mentally healthy woman with strong self-
esteem would not be with them, so they need to keep her emotionally frail and dependent.

The Hidden “One Down” Mindset: Stay Put, Please

Some men sometimes have a “one down” mindset without necessarily pushing their
women down.

But they will discourage her to not take her chances and not to develop.
They will tell her to stay put, not to re-enter the workforce, not to travel and not to learn
new things.

The woman might sometimes never find out that his motives are dark and selfish but,
alas, they are more often so that we’d like to believe.

How Men Put Women One Down

The techniques that men use are:

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– Poking fun at her
– Demeaning jokes about women in general
– Jokes about her race / nationality / background
– Nasty remarks
– Telling people -or family- stories that make her look bad
– Remind her of situations that make her feel bad
– Laughing loudly at her mistakes
– Pretending to misunderstand what she said in a way that makes her look silly

3. Put-Downs
I call put-downs a specific type of aggression.

It’s the aggression of men who want to have power, but who don’t really have any.

They can be physical or verbal, and they are fueled by anger.

Often, it’s anger against a woman who holds the judge role.

Put-downs are the equivalent of children’s tantrums.

And it’s exactly her superiority -and her role as the judge- that these men resent and that
makes them lash out in anger.

Here is a good example of a put down from the movie “Un Borghese Piccolo Piccolo”.
It’s the most emotionally painful movie I have ever seen and it’s really good to understand
the difference between the power of the judge role and the apparent power of a weak man
who resents her control.

You won’t understand the words, but you don’t need to:

Watch Video At: https://youtu.be/YdyBTEWeTDo

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She has become so used to his verbal abuse and she is so in control of the relationship that
she doesn’t even take him seriously.
Exactly like a baby tantrum.

Men must avoid this behavior at all costs.

It just screams “I am frustrated in life and I need to take it on you”.

4. The Factual Power Move

Men and women differ when it comes to intimacy and relationships.

On average, women are more comfortable talking about relationships and feelings, want
to talk more about them, and need their relationships to be of higher quality than men.

This can create a conflict of interest where women want to talk about feelings and
relationships, but men find ways to weasel out of it.

Imagine this dialogue:

Karen: “Get out of this bed! I don’t want you sleeping here!”
Frank: “What do you mean, get out? I bought this bed. It’s mine. I am sleeping here.”
Karen: “How can you say that? This is our bed. We bought it together. It went on our credit
card.”

This is how a man described him “winning” against his wife, without her even noticing.

What happened there?

For Karen, the problem of whether or not she’ll be sleeping with her husband is a
relationship issue. It has to do with feelings. She wants to discuss feelings, but she is using
a bad strategy, an indirect and drama-making strategy.
Instead of fixing the problem or confronting her on using better conflict-solving
strategies, Frank take advantage of it by taking her complaint at face value.

And he moves the conversation from one based on feelings, to a factual one.
Frank takes the conflict to a “safe” territory that he prefers, and where he can win more
easily.

Karen makes the mistake of following his path instead of insisting on the real issue.
She is still using a relationship mode: “our bed”, “we bought it together”. But ultimately,
she gets dragged down into a factual conflict that has nothing to do with the real issue.

In truth, they both lose.

But since the woman was the one who needed to fix the interpersonal issue the most, she
loses more.

Lesson learned?

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1. Speak directly about relationship and feelings issue, don’t use drama to get his attention
2. Don’t allow him to drag you away from the real issue and into more factual
conversation
3. Go back to the real issue, always (ignore his frame, repeat yours)

5. Insecurity-Stirring Strategy
Some men will leverage women’s hot buttons to keep them insecure.

It’s a twisted, sometimes unconscious strategy that can hide behind cutesy games and
jokes.
Just imagine the following:

1. Grabbing her love handles

2. Hugging her, grabbing her ass and saying “chub chub”
3. She’s eating ice cream and he says “hey, easy with that!”

This story was as a former teaser to this same course: I used to grab my ex-girlfriend’s calf
and exclaim “chub chub”.
Only when she said “stop doing it or it will make me feel insecure”‘ I realized what was
truly going on.

Was I doing it unconsciously to make myself more powerful in the relationship? Hard to
say, but it’s certainly not to be excluded.

You will also notice that most of these jokes try to unsettle her at what matters most to
women: looks and femininity.

6. Sexist Jokes
This is the real low-level stuff like:

1. You wouldn’t understand this (because you’re a woman)

2. Go to the kitchen, woman (what a man used to say to a lover of mine before she
dumped him for and got him all desperate)
3. “Oh please, you would get all emotional and cry” (like all the other women)

These are very weak power games.

First of all, it’s one of those cases where the accusation says much worse about the accuser
than the accused.
If a man thinks his wife is only good to be in the kitchen indeed, what does it say about
him for being in a relationship with her?

Often the sexist power games are weak attempts at control which only confirm her power
over him.

7. Mate Guarding (Restricting Her Freedom)

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Mate guarding is a time-tested technique to avoid potential infidelity.

It consists of restricting her freedom and/or keeping an eye on her moves.

The veil of Islamic countries, often presented as a religious and cultural artifact, might
instead be a tool for mate guarding and female control.
The veil covers the face, which is one of the most important sexual attraction signals, and
thus undermines the natural man-woman courtship process. Furthermore, by forcing
women to put on a veil, men are making a strong statement as to where the power lies in
the relationship and who lays down the law that needs to be obeyed.

Of course, hiding one’s mate is a very defensive play best suited for average men who are
afraid of mate poaching.
But don’t forget this: most men cluster around the average, so it makes sense for the
majority of men to insist on a restrictive culture.

8. Physical Sexual Repression

Across history, men have come up with some creative -and oppressive- ways of defending
against infidelity and guaranteeing paternity.

Some of the are:

– Chastity belts
– Infibulation
– Circumcision (limits her sexual appetite)

9. Cultural Sexual Repression

In the West, the physical means of sexual repression are rare.

But the socio-cultural pressures against full female sexual freedom are still raging on.
The cultural sexual repression is, at the core, the institutionalization of the “Madonna-
whore dichotomy”, such as that Madonna women are good, and that the ones who sleep
around are bad.

Why do men play the slut-shaming game?

Well, think about this: most high-status (and liberal) men enjoy “sluts” as in “liberal
women who enjoy sex” because that means more sex for them.
But high-status men are the minority, and for most men, it’s safer to keep women
under a restrictive cultural leash to protect against infidelity.

Furthermore, even liberal and high-status men gain from the slut-shaming culture the
moment they go steady or when they decide to start a family.

Of course, when men dominate the culture, they bend said culture to fit their own sexual
agenda.
And “honor and shame” male culture ends up like this:

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 Honor for me if I sleep around, shame for you for doing the same.
Unless you’re sleeping with me, in which case we hide it so that we can keep up this
charade.

Truth to be told, an honor and shame mindset is natural to most men, but it’s stronger in
some men and in some cultures.

I’ve seen it often growing up in Italy.

The father of my sister in law professed, publicly and in front of all the extended family:

If I hear any “stories” I take care of it personally, I don’t even let the husband stain his hands
with it

The “honor” in this case was also about “guaranteeing a high-quality woman” to my
brother and my family.
This is even more important when the man’s family has a higher social status, since a
good bride helps to make up for the status difference with the bride’s quality.

Do Men Really Control The Relationship?

Do men who use these tactics end up controlling the relationship?

Well, every relationship is somewhat different and we can’t make a blanket rule.

Sometimes they do, yes.

But the majority of relationships are actually controlled by women, and this includes
relationships where he tries underhanded tricks to stay on top.

As a matter of fact, these underhanded techniques are often used by men who are already
under her spell.
Men who are real leaders of their relationships rarely if ever engage in any of these games.

Even physically abusive men, they often lash out against what they perceive to be
mentally abusive behavior from their spouses.
Abusive men often say their women are better at verbal production -in general women are
better speakers- and they are too good at pushing their button.

That’s the description of men who feel judged and “owned” by their women.

Many abusive men indeed feel dependent and subordinate, and they rebel on their
subordination with verbal and/or physical assault to re-assert their independence and
(lack of) superiority.

Some Men Do Control Their Relationships

However, as we have repeated many times over the course of this course -pardon the
cacophony-, exceptions abound.

And many men do are in control of their relationships.

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These men who are dominant and de-facto leaders don’t really use violence and
aggression. Men who use (verbal) violence and coercion can be dominant during their
abusive spells, but they rarely are so on the overall relationship and they are never high-
quality men.

High-quality men are dominant and leaders in their relationships in a totally different
way. Their girlfriends -and the people around- want to follow them.

Other Games
The games above are the most “dangerous” as they threaten her psychological well being.
But here are some more games men use:

1. “You’re too sensitive”

Common power move to go from defensive to offensive.

She’s getting worked up about something?

Throw in that she’s too emotional, too sensitive, too over-reactive.

If she is indeed overreacting, this has a strong gaslighting effect. She looks at his
calmness, then at her own reaction and thinks “uh, oh, I am indeed overreactive…”.

2. Correcting mistakes

Correcting mistakes is higher level way of one-upping and a neat way to show intellectual
superiority.

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3. Challenging form instead of content

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Correcting mistakes is especially insidious when used during arguments.

He can focus on the form or on the small mistake instead of the content (mistakes are also
more likely to happen when she’s worked up and emotional).

Then he underlines the mistake like a professor correcting the student, and he pushes her
over the edge.
Again, strong gaslighting effect.

4. Contemptuous disapproving

I have seen this one even from non-abusive men.

Their girlfriend says something they disagree with and they look down, shake their heads
derisively or smile with a contemptuous expression.

It’s as if these men are embarrassed by their girlfriend in public, and make a big show of
distancing themselves.

They present themselves as “I’m better than her” instead of standing behind her.

Not cool.
If you’re with her, don’t be embarrassed of being with her. If you are, seek a different
mate.

Questions? Open A Topic & Ask Here!

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