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dominikaduch 's review for:
Why Men Love Bitches
by Sherry Argov
First of all, let me say that I have read 31 percent of this book. The only reason I did so is because I read somewhere that the author tells you that you can’t change your mind about hooking up with a guy because he will feel like you’re playing him. I was sceptical and since I already had this book on my kindle (I think I need to have a serious conversation with my mother, who used it before me), I thought to finally give myself a chance to express an opinion so it doesn’t seem like I am judging something based on the title. Now I can judge it by its first 31 percent. Normally, I try, believe me I try as hard as I can, to finish books because I believe in giving things a chance. But not this time. I’ve only made it so far to confirm that the ridiculous thing I’ve heard was there. It was. After that, I stopped. I simply can’t do this to myself. Even at times when I hate myself, I love myself too much to make myself go through more of this.
I respect books. I really do. I never fold pages or highlight things (I once bought a second copy of a book just for this purpose, and I still couldn’t bring myself to do it) and I’ve never thrown away a book I don’t want unless it was literally falling apart. But with this one, I’m a little bit sad that I have it on my kindle, because the urge to do something horrible to it was unbelievable. If I could, I’d throw this book out of my window, cover it in dirt, ask my neighbour to have his dog pee on it, and set it on fire. So maybe it’s for the best that I never got my hands on a paperback.
Now that you know how I feel about it, let me tell you why. First of all, yes: the title. The author says that she means it in a positive way. Oh, well that fixes it then. Let’s just call everybody whatever we want and then try to convince them we meant it nicely. This reminds me of that time when a Muslim customer got a coffee at Starbucks with “Isis” written on the cup and a bunch of white people on Facebook suddenly had advanced history knowledge and said she should take it as a compliment, because Isis was an Egyptian goddess. That’s just simply not how it works.
I have to say, in the spirit of giving things the benefit of the doubt, I had to wonder sometimes if maybe the author was being satirical because I just couldn’t believe that such things could be written to be taken seriously. But as I kept reading, it occurred to me that no, this woman is for real. I shook my head so many times at the opinions presented as facts that I think I’m going to count it as my work out for today. Besides being terrible, the book is one big contradiction: in chapter one, the author says that her aim is not to teach you how to manipulate men, and then a few pages later instructs you to make him a dinner of boiled frankfurters and popcorn so that he’ll take you to a fancy restaurant next time. If that’s not manipulation, I don’t know what is.
Speaking of terrible things, the book is horribly sexist. The “bitch” has to be perfect: if you want to “keep” a man, you can’t display any emotions, god forbid you let it show that you care about him in the slightest, and if you want to do something for him, slap yourself and think about how much of a pushover you’ll be if you do your man’s laundry for him. And obviously there is nothing in between being a doormat and being a bitch. No. Absolutely not. There are two kinds of women. Figure out which one you want to be, and never be nice to anyone again in the spirit of having respect for yourself. Personally, if you want to respect yourself, I would recommend not reading this book, but what can I know. I only have a degree in psychology and know that telling women they need to go out of their way to fit within the Madonna-whore complex is just a little bit wrong.
Another amazing thing about this book is that it “subtly” informs you that if a man mistreats you, it’s basically your fault for letting him get away with it. While I do believe that people should set their own standards for how they want to be treated, you cannot excuse one person’s shitty behaviour by blaming it on the personality of another. I don’t like throwing terms like “victim-blaming” around, but some of what I’ve read in this book is simply disgusting. The author apparently based her examples on what “real” men have said to her. If I ever met her, I would tell her: “Sherry, you’ve only ever met douchebags in your life. They are not representative of real men. They are not worthy of anything, especially changing yourself so you can be with them. You shouldn’t want to be with them, period.” And then I’d tell her to go to therapy and think about past mistakes, such as writing this book.
What infuriates me the most is that this book advertises itself as one to help women, and then compares them to toys that boys get for Christmas. The fundamental message is that if you don’t behave in a certain way (and of course, there is only one acceptable way), you will be worthless, unattractive, and men will not want you. I get that it was written a while ago, but were women in 2002 really in need of advice such as “don’t give up your life for somebody else” and “if he calls you and says you can go out if his friend cancels, he’s not really serious”? Come on, women know this already.
So that’s what makes me mad. The thing that makes me sad is that according to Google, 93 percent of readers liked this book. Many of the positive reviews I’ve read say how much they’ve learned from it. Maybe I’m in the wrong, and maybe women really do need books to tell them that they don’t have to make themselves into somebody’s servants.
One final note is something from this book that made me laugh. Apparently, it’s a good sign for your relationship if your man gets jealous if he sees you playing with your cat. The explanation for it is obviously ridiculous, so I won’t bother to include it. But personally, if anyone I dated was jealous of my cat, I’d give all of my attention to him. The cat, of course.
I respect books. I really do. I never fold pages or highlight things (I once bought a second copy of a book just for this purpose, and I still couldn’t bring myself to do it) and I’ve never thrown away a book I don’t want unless it was literally falling apart. But with this one, I’m a little bit sad that I have it on my kindle, because the urge to do something horrible to it was unbelievable. If I could, I’d throw this book out of my window, cover it in dirt, ask my neighbour to have his dog pee on it, and set it on fire. So maybe it’s for the best that I never got my hands on a paperback.
Now that you know how I feel about it, let me tell you why. First of all, yes: the title. The author says that she means it in a positive way. Oh, well that fixes it then. Let’s just call everybody whatever we want and then try to convince them we meant it nicely. This reminds me of that time when a Muslim customer got a coffee at Starbucks with “Isis” written on the cup and a bunch of white people on Facebook suddenly had advanced history knowledge and said she should take it as a compliment, because Isis was an Egyptian goddess. That’s just simply not how it works.
I have to say, in the spirit of giving things the benefit of the doubt, I had to wonder sometimes if maybe the author was being satirical because I just couldn’t believe that such things could be written to be taken seriously. But as I kept reading, it occurred to me that no, this woman is for real. I shook my head so many times at the opinions presented as facts that I think I’m going to count it as my work out for today. Besides being terrible, the book is one big contradiction: in chapter one, the author says that her aim is not to teach you how to manipulate men, and then a few pages later instructs you to make him a dinner of boiled frankfurters and popcorn so that he’ll take you to a fancy restaurant next time. If that’s not manipulation, I don’t know what is.
Speaking of terrible things, the book is horribly sexist. The “bitch” has to be perfect: if you want to “keep” a man, you can’t display any emotions, god forbid you let it show that you care about him in the slightest, and if you want to do something for him, slap yourself and think about how much of a pushover you’ll be if you do your man’s laundry for him. And obviously there is nothing in between being a doormat and being a bitch. No. Absolutely not. There are two kinds of women. Figure out which one you want to be, and never be nice to anyone again in the spirit of having respect for yourself. Personally, if you want to respect yourself, I would recommend not reading this book, but what can I know. I only have a degree in psychology and know that telling women they need to go out of their way to fit within the Madonna-whore complex is just a little bit wrong.
Another amazing thing about this book is that it “subtly” informs you that if a man mistreats you, it’s basically your fault for letting him get away with it. While I do believe that people should set their own standards for how they want to be treated, you cannot excuse one person’s shitty behaviour by blaming it on the personality of another. I don’t like throwing terms like “victim-blaming” around, but some of what I’ve read in this book is simply disgusting. The author apparently based her examples on what “real” men have said to her. If I ever met her, I would tell her: “Sherry, you’ve only ever met douchebags in your life. They are not representative of real men. They are not worthy of anything, especially changing yourself so you can be with them. You shouldn’t want to be with them, period.” And then I’d tell her to go to therapy and think about past mistakes, such as writing this book.
What infuriates me the most is that this book advertises itself as one to help women, and then compares them to toys that boys get for Christmas. The fundamental message is that if you don’t behave in a certain way (and of course, there is only one acceptable way), you will be worthless, unattractive, and men will not want you. I get that it was written a while ago, but were women in 2002 really in need of advice such as “don’t give up your life for somebody else” and “if he calls you and says you can go out if his friend cancels, he’s not really serious”? Come on, women know this already.
So that’s what makes me mad. The thing that makes me sad is that according to Google, 93 percent of readers liked this book. Many of the positive reviews I’ve read say how much they’ve learned from it. Maybe I’m in the wrong, and maybe women really do need books to tell them that they don’t have to make themselves into somebody’s servants.
One final note is something from this book that made me laugh. Apparently, it’s a good sign for your relationship if your man gets jealous if he sees you playing with your cat. The explanation for it is obviously ridiculous, so I won’t bother to include it. But personally, if anyone I dated was jealous of my cat, I’d give all of my attention to him. The cat, of course.