Emotional intelligence is key for both women and men. And since women are more likely to be emotionally abused, it behooves them to learn about their own psychology.
Interestingly, when Daniel Goleman’s famous book came out in the ‘90s, I read it immediately. I was in the middle of an abusive marriage, yet I concluded from reading the book that I had a high emotional quotient.
I was very, very wrong. It took a couple more abusive relationships and several abusive friendships before I figured out my own role in these scenarios.
Achieving a reasonable level of self awareness is painful. Most people seem unwilling to confront the pain.
Hopefully women in intolerable situations will read these books and find a way out.
I don't know if I'd say women are more likely to be *emotionally* abused - physically, for sure - but emotional, I think we're freaking evil demon masters at emotional abuse - esp. with each other. I really don't think either gender is more or less abusive overall; we're just different in how we express it. I have a book here that describes how violent women can get, and how murderous, and how we have a harder time believing women could ever commit such heinous crimes - esp when it involves killing children, and ESP their own children. There's a whole chapter on how women have murdered their own children and how doctors and lawmakers didn't realize until many years later that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome might not have been nearly as sudden or accidental as had been believed...that women may have been quietly killing their kids and no one thought to investigate because what mother would murder her own baby??? Well...women suffering from post-partum depression and stress, esp if they didn't have any familial support in raising a new, demanding, utterly self-centered baby.
Women notoriously kill through caretaking--in hospitals and in the care of the elderly. Whenever you find a spate of unexplained deaths in some facility, there's almost always a woman behind it.
It's a great book, and not very graphic. When She Was Bad by Patricia Pearson, who's written for several Canadian newspapers. You may have heard of her. She also wrote a terrific book recently on death, near-death, and supposed visitations that she notes the medical profession and scientists are finally beginning to take seriously as legitimate phenomena (I confirmed this by Googling about it later).
The funny part about EI is everyone thinks they're high in it and we're almost never as good as we think...and only like 15% of people actually are, LOL. I *know* I'm a little better than I was but I also know I've backslid in the last two years and that's why I'm reading the last book again.
There's always room for improvement...I'll bet even the Dalai Lama 'loses it' sometimes....but when he does, it's probably with the level of exasperation you or I would exhibit when confronted with long lines at the grocery checkout ;)
I think you are right. We are just as violent and abusive as men; we just do it differently. And we seem to be vulnerable to staying in an abusive situation- although I know of one man who refuses to believe he is being abused by his horrible wife- perhaps there are many more like him. Human nature is very unconscious. We only change when we are absolutely forced to. And men and women with power have no motivation to change
Yes. I'm addressing why some choose to stay in bad situations (not even necessarily abusive) in my next article. And for sure men are abused and often for similar reasons, and greatly resemble female victims - as their female abusers resemble male abusers (Johnny Depp & Amber Heard, for example). I want to write more about female DV, including lesbian DV, about which we know very little. It doesn't get much press. But apparently lesbians can have some pretty fraught relationships too.
Emotional intelligence is key for both women and men. And since women are more likely to be emotionally abused, it behooves them to learn about their own psychology.
Interestingly, when Daniel Goleman’s famous book came out in the ‘90s, I read it immediately. I was in the middle of an abusive marriage, yet I concluded from reading the book that I had a high emotional quotient.
I was very, very wrong. It took a couple more abusive relationships and several abusive friendships before I figured out my own role in these scenarios.
Achieving a reasonable level of self awareness is painful. Most people seem unwilling to confront the pain.
Hopefully women in intolerable situations will read these books and find a way out.
Thanks for summarizing them so effectively.
I don't know if I'd say women are more likely to be *emotionally* abused - physically, for sure - but emotional, I think we're freaking evil demon masters at emotional abuse - esp. with each other. I really don't think either gender is more or less abusive overall; we're just different in how we express it. I have a book here that describes how violent women can get, and how murderous, and how we have a harder time believing women could ever commit such heinous crimes - esp when it involves killing children, and ESP their own children. There's a whole chapter on how women have murdered their own children and how doctors and lawmakers didn't realize until many years later that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome might not have been nearly as sudden or accidental as had been believed...that women may have been quietly killing their kids and no one thought to investigate because what mother would murder her own baby??? Well...women suffering from post-partum depression and stress, esp if they didn't have any familial support in raising a new, demanding, utterly self-centered baby.
Women notoriously kill through caretaking--in hospitals and in the care of the elderly. Whenever you find a spate of unexplained deaths in some facility, there's almost always a woman behind it.
It's a great book, and not very graphic. When She Was Bad by Patricia Pearson, who's written for several Canadian newspapers. You may have heard of her. She also wrote a terrific book recently on death, near-death, and supposed visitations that she notes the medical profession and scientists are finally beginning to take seriously as legitimate phenomena (I confirmed this by Googling about it later).
The funny part about EI is everyone thinks they're high in it and we're almost never as good as we think...and only like 15% of people actually are, LOL. I *know* I'm a little better than I was but I also know I've backslid in the last two years and that's why I'm reading the last book again.
There's always room for improvement...I'll bet even the Dalai Lama 'loses it' sometimes....but when he does, it's probably with the level of exasperation you or I would exhibit when confronted with long lines at the grocery checkout ;)
I think you are right. We are just as violent and abusive as men; we just do it differently. And we seem to be vulnerable to staying in an abusive situation- although I know of one man who refuses to believe he is being abused by his horrible wife- perhaps there are many more like him. Human nature is very unconscious. We only change when we are absolutely forced to. And men and women with power have no motivation to change
Yes. I'm addressing why some choose to stay in bad situations (not even necessarily abusive) in my next article. And for sure men are abused and often for similar reasons, and greatly resemble female victims - as their female abusers resemble male abusers (Johnny Depp & Amber Heard, for example). I want to write more about female DV, including lesbian DV, about which we know very little. It doesn't get much press. But apparently lesbians can have some pretty fraught relationships too.