Customer Reviews

Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Why Women Lie

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I spent about 90 minutes poring over this book and learned that the writer has basically written a book by asking women on Criaglist to talk about their patterns of deception. There is no evidence that the writer met anyone in person, and the preface says that the writer "combined sources" or something of the sort. The book is about 30 per cent email transcripts, as far as I can tell.

The interesting thing is the amorality of the writer and the female deceivers. They all have an excuse for telling white lies and creating worse deceptions.

Most interesting to me, as a man, was reading about the culture of female lying. As a window into an alien culture, this book is as useful as "Odd Girl Out" by Rachel Simmons. This book profiles women who are proud to lie, feel good by lying, feel like they have tricked the system by lying, and look down upon simpletons who won't lie. For a man who tries to speak the truth, this is a visit to an alien world. I feel like a bird gone down to live among the catfish in the murk at the bottom of a polluted stream. I do not want to live here, but it's interesting to see that indeed an awful form of life lives down here.

The writer's amorality is distressing, too. She seems to have no serious sense of what lying does over time to a human being, even a female. The internal corruption and loss of contact with reality...that results from lying and kidding yourself about your own lies...is a very high price to pay for "success." The author seems not to think it matters much. The author accepts the premise of her subjects, which is that "lying is a pretty good technique for advancement" and that the corruption of one's spirit through lying is no big deal.

Anyway, interesting trip into the mud. The author, as I said, comes off as somewhat amoral and unserious. Her refusal to make more than small token comments about the costs of lying--or to consider the diminishment of public trust that results from all this deception--is depressing.

Just another one of those times it's embarrassing to be female. This book in one way has good information about why women lie, or why they have to lie to survive in this world. Yet, at the same time it's shocking to read these stories and hear that some of these women have no shame and actually justify their lying. Some of these women feel entitled to lie. Proud as peacocks. We all lie to some degree (white lies). Funny how men seem to be attacking this book. So if you men can handle looking in the mirror try reading "101 lies men tell women and why women believe them" by Dory Hollander. I'd be embarrassed to be a man in America after reading Dory's book.

I picked up this book after I saw Ms. Barash on the Today show. I found it insightful and through provoking. It was comforting to know that other women felt societies pressure to be "perfect", and lying is a way that most women achieve that. It's a must read for all women!! It illuminates how we act/survive in this over-sexed and ageist culture.

Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets is a nonjudgmental research project
about a topic that's all too familiar to all of us. Barash's interviewees
vary in ages and social classes, and may live miles from one another,
but each has found a reason to lie to a family member, friend or work colleague. I found this fascinating because it's all too true and because women do it to save face and to make their lives better. Men should read the book to get the low down and women to recognize themselves and not feel alone.

The author is amoral and defends amoral women who don't care about lying even to women. The book provides useful information to criminally profile these types of women. How can we tell that women are lying and why would women lie? This book is a good mechanism for understanding the tactics of the amoral lying woman. Know your enemy to defeat your enemy. Arm yourself with truth.

This book has nothing of value in it. It's just anecdotes, without a shred of synthesis or intelligent commentary. It's basically a substanceless zoology of bad behavior, and nothing else. I'm not sure what the author's point is, beyond giving ammunition to somebody trying to rationalize their own poor morals.