Women unhappy with men

Press, 20 October 1987, Page 10

Women unhappy with men

Shere Hite UM controversial view of J®fL tfonsNps, < reports -JANE MEREDITH ADAMS, NZPA-KRD.

By the time Shere Hite had responded to the last question about women who love too much, the great man shortage and the age-old puzzler “What will it take to get men to talk about their feelings?” the status of woman-man love relationships was looking grim. But Hite, who held a press conference here to promote her new study, “Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress,” maintained there were a few shreds of hope. Sure, 84 per cent of the 4500 women she surveyed were not satisfied emotionally with their love relationships with men and 95 per cent reported forms of emotional and psychological harassment. But, Hite said, she is a great believer in love for herself and all the women out there who are looking for it. Personally, 44-year-old Shere Hite has been married “happily” since

1985 to Friedrich Horicke, a 24-year-old classical pianist from Germany. She smiled at him throughout the press conference and after the crowd of 70 press people and observers dispersed, the couple embraced for a photograph. But whatever personal solution to the womanman problem Hite has found, she did not share it with the public. The hope for love for all women, she said, is that women are learning to define and defend themselves in relationships with men. “Things are less dismal than in the 19505, or even five to 10 years ago,” she said. “The minute you can name the problem you have a good chance of solving it.” In “Women and Love,” a 922-page tome that is the last of the Hite Report trilogy, Hite and the women who answered her questionnaire describe the problem in great detail. The book follows her

1976 volume “The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study on Female Sexuality” and her 1981 volume “The Hite Report on Male Sexuality.” Together, those studies have earned her JUS2.S million (5NZ3.77 million), she said. Women are happy in many areas of their lives, Hite found in her latest book, but they are unhappy in their love relationships with men. This unhappiness is not because women are “neurotics” who “can’t get it together” to “shape up” and find the right man, she said. Instead, the whole system of the way men relate to women needs to be ■changed. Woman are not “picking the wrong men”; the problem is “the majority of men hold antiwomen stereotypes and practise harassing ways of treating women in relationships.” This style of relating is reinforced by a patriar-

chai culture which requires men to be invulnerable and in control, she said. These men "have not begun the enormous job of reexamining their own philosophy.” What is remarkable, said Hite, is that so many dissatisfied women keep trying to make their relationships work. Hite surveyed women by mail through such organisations as the League of Women Voters,

local chapters of the National Organisation for Women and church groups, she matched the characteristics of her study population with United States census data and included 13 per cent black, 2 per cent Hispanic, 2 per cent Asian and 83 per cent white. Twenty-two per cent had a college degree or higher education. Critics have attacked Hite’s methodology, calling it “unscientific” and arguing that unhappy people are more likely to fill out questionnaires. Hite defended her study, calling it "careful” and arguing that the large number of people surveyed provided an important account of women’s voices. Richard Halgin, a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, spoke as a panelist at the press conference and offered the only slightly dissenting view of the day, admitting that when he read the book he felt “picked on” and “angry” about remarks made about men.

However, hesald,J'.‘at the risk of expulsion from my local athletic club," he found the book “helpful. Though the book focused on heterosexual love, Hite’s sample was 11 per cent lesbian and she includes one chapter on those relationships. She found that 96 per cent of the lesbians surveyed felt loved in a satisfying way and believed their lover treated them as an equal. Twenty-four per cent of the 4500 women surveyed had tried a lesbian relationship for the first time after the age of 40. Of heterosexual women, 84 per cent said men frequently respond to things they say with an attitude of ridicule or (Condescension. “Men have tended to treat me with amused indulgence, like a pet or child they enjoy," one woman wrote. About 83 per cent said they initiate most “deep talks” in a relationship. Wrote one woman: “He’s often silent for hours while we are alone, which

gets on my nerves, t would like him to talk more about feelings.,— reactions, problems — but he’s just ndt interested. He will only talk to me if he sees I’m desperate and I start to cry.” , , Some RD per cent said men have a special way, of distancing themselves emotionally in a relationship and 51 per cent said men become silent and arrogant during arguments. Problems in communication lead to extramaritai affairs, said Hite. Even though 83 per cent of the; women surveyed said they. believe in monogamy as an “ideal way of life,” ‘ about 70 per cent of women married five t years or more said they have sex outside marriage, ’ ’ Hite said she found it hopeful that women are; more willing to walk, out, of a bad situation and are eVen willing to be “poor, I with dignity" than to be in a relationship where they are not treated with dignity.