Drama entanglement

Chateau Heartiste today takes a look at women who have been traumatized:

I’ve seen it myself, and I’ve experienced it: The lashing out of the hurt woman against those trying to comfort her. The proper response to the hurt woman is a nod of sympathy and a studied avoidance of getting entangled in her drama other than giving her time to cry it out, (and giving yourself a little distance from her bared claws).

Why is it not uncommon for traumatized women to push away their supportive lovers? It’s a mystery, but my theory is that it has to do with the natural revulsion men and women feel for sex role inversions. The caretaker and the nurturer is the woman; when a man eagerly tries to assume this role, it’s disturbing to women on a primal level. It’s similar to the aggressive career woman barging into a meeting ready to close a big deal. Men may admire her gumption in the abstract, but as a character trait it’s very off-putting to behold in a woman.

Another, related, possibility is the idea that a supportive man, in his readiness to “be there” for a hurt woman, inadvertently “betatizes” himself. He may be perceived less as a shoulder to lean on than as a cloying handmanlet who in his zeal to be helpful winds up reminding the woman of the source of her pain.

Traumatized men do this too, but it seems more common with women. Or perhaps, when it concerns women, it’s more shocking to men who witness it, given the pedestal-contoured presumptions that men hold of women’s receptivity to assistance in times of need.

Maybe there’s a reason why in large parts of the world women who are rape victims are considered sexual persona non grata. Could it be that, underneath the religious or moral justifications, men shun traumatized women because they know, instinctively, that those women will never be “right” as relationship material?

Read more here.