Stronger Sex: Understanding and Resolving the Eternal Power Struggles Between Men and Women [Hardcover]

Richard Driscoll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1998

Why do women tend to dominate in intimate arguments, while men concede, placate, or withdraw? Indeed, why do women tend to force relationship issues, while men usually try to avoid them? Nature compels women to confront men to test their commitment and push them to provide, while it compels men to duck confrontations and avoid offending the women who can carry their genes into the next generation.


Not surprisingly, what is good for genetic survival can be bad for relationships. Our primeval differences set men and women on one collision course after another, producing the endless skirmishes in the battle of the sexes. Invariably, we're left exasperated, incapable of understanding the other sex.


It doesn't have to be that way.


According to this remarkable book, men and women can rise above their genetic programming to achieve a deeper understanding—and appreciation—of the opposite sex. In The Stronger Sex, you'll recognize your own natural strengths and weaknesses—as well as those of the one you love. In addition, you'll learn which gender:

• Dominates personal arguments
• Is more highly stressed in personal confrontations
• Jilts the other almost twice as often
• Falls harder when relationships fail
• Is more stressed by workplace conflict when it occurs with someone of the same sex than of the opposite sex
• Is more intrigued by casual sex, but is also more inwardly troubled by it
• And more


The Stronger Sex will change forever your beliefs and understanding of the opposite sex. It will help you improve your relationships in every area of your life and enjoy them more.



"Balanced and insightful. A triumph over illusion and misunderstanding."

—Warren Farrell, Ph.D., author of Why Men Are the Way They Are


"Compelling portraits, page after page. Come venture into the strange realities of sex, power, anger, confrontation, obligation, infidelities, and the real meaning of love,"

—Ann Cryster, author of The Wife-in-Law Trap


"Unconventional but thoroughly fascinating. Astute, helpful, politically incorrect, and softly outrageous."

—Joel Block, Ph.D., author of Secrets of Better Sex


About the Author

Richard Driscoll, Ph.D., is a psychologist who specializes in relationships, conflict management, and inner guidance. He has written three previous books and twenty professional articles. Dr. Driscoll is married to Nancy Davis Driscoll, who is also a psychologist, and they are in private practice together. They have a combined total of over forty years of professional experience working with relationships, and over fifty years of personal experience being married (to each other). They have three children.

Editorial Reviews

Review

If You Think Women Are the Weaker Sex, Think Again

From the Publisher

Who wields the power at home, in the bedroom, and at work? How can we go beyond the familiar power struggles that leave us feeling so frustrated and misunderstood? The Stronger Sex will surprise you with its many insights into the complex relationships between men and women. This remarkable analysis will help you see why men and women feel and act as we do--in spite of the consequences. And you will learn to use your own power more wisely, to resolve everyday conflict and build strong, loving relationships.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Prima Lifestyles; 1st edition (October 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761512802
• ISBN-13: 978-0761512806
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,989,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this book., December 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Stronger Sex: Understanding and Resolving the Eternal Power Struggles Between Men and Women (Hardcover)

The Stronger Sex by Richard Driscoll is going to make some people mad. Driscoll argues that it is women, not men, who dominate intimate relationships. Women might be flattered to be told they are the stronger sex, but they are less likely to accept that they hold the upper hand in relationships with men. At the heart of Driscoll's argument is the observation that women are much more comfortable with conflict than men. Driscoll says women are biologically better equipped to express anger, sustain anger comfortably, and recover their composure after an angry exchange. Men, Driscoll says, are far less at ease with the whole process of anger and conflict between the sexes. In the face of female anger, he says, men often collapse into themselves, making any mutually negotiated settlement of the conflict at hand almost impossible. Driscoll backs his argument with a host of fascinating biological and psychological evidence. Whatever a reader's initial political reaction might be to Driscoll's larger conclusions, he or she would be wise to set aside preconceived notions and consider the writer's subtle, detailed, and, I think, enormously helpful insights into the ways men and women interact in daily life. Whether or not you think women are winning the war between the sexes, this book is chock full of perceptions and advice that make the possibility of a lasting peace-for individual couples if not for society at large-much more likely.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh, do tell!, January 15, 2003

By 

Jack Maybrick (Shuttling between the streets of Whitechapel and the shadow of Coogan's Bluff) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stronger Sex: Understanding and Resolving the Eternal Power Struggles Between Men and Women (Hardcover)

The funny thing is that this might have been a passable mens rights book, if it were not for the insulting title and the authors Orwellian games with language.

That women use manipulative abilities and emotional ploys to counteract a physical strength advantage possessed by men in order to garner concessions from them is no secret, and this book adds to the understanding of the evolutionary perspective. That women, as a result, are less likely to withdraw from emotional confrontations with men than the other way around is also probably no real secret. It ties in with the first point, and again the authors academic studies of the phenomenon add some understanding to it.

This is all very well and good, but instead of merely arguing that the male view of the balance of power between the sexes should be taken into consideration, the author phrases this female ability in terms of genetic superiority.

Feminazi junk science has been dehumanizing men for years by suggesting that longevity of females and vulnerability of males to certain birth defects is proof of female superiority or female strength (if longevity is an indicator of strength or superiority, is a tortoise who may live several hundreds of years therefore the highest form of life on earth?)

Driscoll runs on a slightly different track which leads to the same destination, and one anecdote that he uses is that of observing a group of rhesus monkeys amidst limited food rations. The male monkeys are larger than the female monkeys and often more violent. Well then, arent the males stronger?

Apparently, it depends on whether you are using the conventional definition of the word or a nouveau definition chosen for the purpose of flattering female readers.

Because rather than the males as a group hogging the food for themselves, what happens is that the high status male rhesus monkeys elbow out the lower status males and share the food rations with the females in exchange for conjugal bliss. Yeah, its a pattern that is often repeated in human society, but what a strange example to support the proposition that females are stronger.

Driscoll certainly doesnt discuss the phenomenon from the standpoint of male altruism (or even the more values-neutral standpoint of male status-seeking) or female avarice, presumably because this would insult his female readers or his politically-correct peers at the academy. So he argues that women are stronger because one may insult men without fear of reprisal.

Yet there are certainly male professionals who are adept at using emotional ploys, and one might as well argue that the con man who coaxes money from the one who earned it is stronger than his mark. On the other hand, perhaps Driscoll would like to strengthen his case, to his own satisfaction, by arguing that the thief who steals money is stronger than his victim and that the woman who uses the court system to extract resources from men (either as tribute for a failed marriage or as compensation for some supposed employment wrong) is actually displaying superhuman strength.

Is it not more accurate to maintain, as Socrates might, judging from his Platonic dialogue with Ion, that the ability to coax or appropriate resources or concessions from others is a sort of knack?

Driscoll ignores the fact that there are areas of the world where women arent able to use their emotional means to inveigle favors from men with quite the same aplomb that they do in the chivalric West. In such places, men are presumably immune to the power of female histrionics or they use their will to prevent those histrionics from coming into play. And its hard to imagine any academic alluding to those examples from other parts of the world as proof of male strength. When we hear of places like that, we always hear them described not in terms of male strength but in terms of male malfeasance.

Specifically, what we hear is that men oppress women. But if the focus shifts from justice to ability, why isnt the ability of men to impose their will on women, either by asserting their authority or their physical stature, proof that men are the stronger sex?

It is a rule of thumb that male advantages over females are almost always expressed in terms of injustice or oppression and that female advantages over males are virtually always expressed in terms of inherent ability. And Driscoll, who is purported to have written a male-friendly book, compounds these rhetorical crimes. And Warren Farrell is well aware of such double-standards, having written critically about them in his own books. Shame on him for blessing this one!

Women should open jars, move sofas, hit home runs into the San Francisco Bay and throw dead weight over their shoulders and climb down fire ladders with it with at least the same frequency that men do before being flattered with the appellation "stronger sex".

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of good information, September 27, 2005

By 

Spiritual Finder - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stronger Sex: Understanding and Resolving the Eternal Power Struggles Between Men and Women (Hardcover)

Although I can see the point of another reviewer concerning the word "stronger", perhaps the point to be focused on would be that women are typically portrayed in society as needing men's protection (hence implicitly weaker) and this book shows why that is driven by nature.

I don't agree with all the remedies to problems that Driscoll presents, as there are alternatives such as using personal growth to move beyond the basic tool kit that nature provides us with.

Nevertheless, I think every man should read this book, as well as the books by Warren Farrell. They would also do well to subscribe to the Everyman magazine, which discusses men's concerns.