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Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships
Pussy-whipped. Why is it that the worst thing one man can say about another is that he is controlled by a woman, or more precisely, by his need for a woman? The surprising answer that is hidden in plain sight is that most straight men are scared of their intimate partners.
It’s pretty clear that women are afraid of men, and with good reason. Men hold positions of privilege and power in most personal and professional settings. The idea that men are also afraid of women is a radical one, and to some, even offensive. Men’s fears of women are less visible--more hidden--from women, from other men, and from themselves. Men have done such a good job of hiding their fears and vulnerabilities that even their mothers and lovers don’t know how scared they are. Men’s fears of women include: the fear of being dominated and controlled by women; fear of being entrapped by women; fear of being responsible for women; fear of being inadequate; fear of being abandoned; and fear of being feminized.
Men’s fears of women are one of the primary causes of many emotional problems for men and of their difficulties in intimate heterosexual relationships. Take the example of a husband and wife having an argument. The wife is hurt and angry. Her husband can clearly see that she’s upset, which makes him surprisingly uncomfortable. While he would like to feel empathic, there is something about her strong feelings that is distressing to him and gets in the way. Because he is uncomfortable with his own strong feelings, the husband begins to withdraw emotionally and detach to protect himself. For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, it becomes increasingly important to him to remain rational and unemotional, and he is increasingly critical of, and irritated with, his wife for being “too emotional.” The wife can feel her husband withdrawing, and the more he withdraws, the stronger her feelings become and the more urgently she pursues him, trying to find a way to make some kind of emotional connection with him. Now they are locked in a mutually destructive cycle; the more she pushes for the emotional connection that she yearns for, the more he detaches. The more he tries to control his own fear by detaching, the more upset she gets.
Dr. Avrum Weiss' Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships is a psychological non-fiction book about relationships and the hidden internal world of men. The book presents many scenarios with prescriptive content and guidance woven throughout. It is written for a popular audience in intelligent yet accessible, relatable language.
Male readers will recognize that this is a male-positive book, written by a man about the male perspective on relationships in a way that will not make them feel inadequate or shamed. At the same time, the book’s topic will interest women who often feel in the dark about men’s internal experience, and who will be intrigued by the opportunity to have a peek into the secret lives of men, to learn more about the counter-intuitive idea that men are as scared of them as they are of men.
It’s pretty clear that women are afraid of men, and with good reason. Men hold positions of privilege and power in most personal and professional settings. The idea that men are also afraid of women is a radical one, and to some, even offensive. Men’s fears of women are less visible--more hidden--from women, from other men, and from themselves. Men have done such a good job of hiding their fears and vulnerabilities that even their mothers and lovers don’t know how scared they are. Men’s fears of women include: the fear of being dominated and controlled by women; fear of being entrapped by women; fear of being responsible for women; fear of being inadequate; fear of being abandoned; and fear of being feminized.
Men’s fears of women are one of the primary causes of many emotional problems for men and of their difficulties in intimate heterosexual relationships. Take the example of a husband and wife having an argument. The wife is hurt and angry. Her husband can clearly see that she’s upset, which makes him surprisingly uncomfortable. While he would like to feel empathic, there is something about her strong feelings that is distressing to him and gets in the way. Because he is uncomfortable with his own strong feelings, the husband begins to withdraw emotionally and detach to protect himself. For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, it becomes increasingly important to him to remain rational and unemotional, and he is increasingly critical of, and irritated with, his wife for being “too emotional.” The wife can feel her husband withdrawing, and the more he withdraws, the stronger her feelings become and the more urgently she pursues him, trying to find a way to make some kind of emotional connection with him. Now they are locked in a mutually destructive cycle; the more she pushes for the emotional connection that she yearns for, the more he detaches. The more he tries to control his own fear by detaching, the more upset she gets.
Dr. Avrum Weiss' Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships is a psychological non-fiction book about relationships and the hidden internal world of men. The book presents many scenarios with prescriptive content and guidance woven throughout. It is written for a popular audience in intelligent yet accessible, relatable language.
Male readers will recognize that this is a male-positive book, written by a man about the male perspective on relationships in a way that will not make them feel inadequate or shamed. At the same time, the book’s topic will interest women who often feel in the dark about men’s internal experience, and who will be intrigued by the opportunity to have a peek into the secret lives of men, to learn more about the counter-intuitive idea that men are as scared of them as they are of men.
293 pages, Paperback
Published October 7, 2021
12 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Avrum Geurin Weiss
4 books5 followersAvrum Geurin Weiss has been a therapist and teacher-of-therapists for over 30 years and holds an adjunct faculty position in the department of Psychology at Georgia State University. He is the director of the Pine River Psychotherapy Training Institute.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 8, 2021
I rarely read a psychology book that feels both wise and practical, but that is what I found in Dr. Avrum Weiss’s book Hidden in Plain Sight. The book is full of insights into men’s psyches and seeks unrelentingly to humanize struggles men experience in relationships, especially with women. Like a good father, Dr. Weiss expresses warmth, insight, and compassion about men’s hidden fears and the struggles they cause while simultaneously encouraging men to lean in, learn more about themselves, and take responsibility for their behavior in relationships.
Dr. Weiss weaves together a complex, intricate pattern of how men’s earliest experiences and ongoing socialization lay a foundation of multi-layered fears of women in their psyche. In doing so, he steps beyond a shallow understanding of men simply being commitment-phobic or unemotional, highlighting a variety of layers of intense emotions that men experience, often without their conscious awareness. For that alone, this book is a worthwhile read.
The chapter on couples helping each other is one that I would like to memorize and have with me in each couples session I conduct, and would like to give as required reading for each couple I see. It’s that good.
Overall, I highly recommend reading Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships. The book offers a great deal of depth, insight, and wisdom about the fears that underlie men’s struggles in intimate relationships with themselves and others. It would be a helpful resource for men interested in understanding themselves better, women interested in understanding their heterosexual partners, and therapists who want to explore richer ways to work with men and heterosexual couples in therapy. What more could you ask for?
My complete review can be found in Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Vol. 57, No. 2, 2021.
Dr. Weiss weaves together a complex, intricate pattern of how men’s earliest experiences and ongoing socialization lay a foundation of multi-layered fears of women in their psyche. In doing so, he steps beyond a shallow understanding of men simply being commitment-phobic or unemotional, highlighting a variety of layers of intense emotions that men experience, often without their conscious awareness. For that alone, this book is a worthwhile read.
The chapter on couples helping each other is one that I would like to memorize and have with me in each couples session I conduct, and would like to give as required reading for each couple I see. It’s that good.
Overall, I highly recommend reading Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships. The book offers a great deal of depth, insight, and wisdom about the fears that underlie men’s struggles in intimate relationships with themselves and others. It would be a helpful resource for men interested in understanding themselves better, women interested in understanding their heterosexual partners, and therapists who want to explore richer ways to work with men and heterosexual couples in therapy. What more could you ask for?
My complete review can be found in Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy, Vol. 57, No. 2, 2021.
October 4, 2021
I love that this book is so accessible. Its short chapters address very specific problems. The writing is clear and not bogged down by clinical language. Flip to a page, any page, and you’re sure to find something you’ve struggled with in the past, or currently struggle with, wherever you look. The implied pervasiveness of these issues is immediately comforting and normalizing. (You mean other couples go through this?) Its simplicity is brilliant. On every page, the book goes to the heart of some of the most common conflicts that get couples stuck.
February 25, 2022
Really really great insight into the inner world of men, while not making excuses for their behavior. I would super recommend this book.
August 28, 2023
In my opinion, a failed project. Plenty of interesting insights and data marred by wrong causal explanations. Freudian assumptions (the concept of fear itself, to start with) and devotion for the tenets of the patriarchy theory, even in the face of contradictory data and clinical findings provided by the author himself. Social constructivism and blank slate all over. A pity. The book is worth reading, though. Some failed projects are.
October 23, 2021
The astute and well documented insights Dr. Weiss shares about why men often struggle to relate effectively with the women in their lives, offer valuable learning opportunities for men, women, and heterosexual couples. Hidden in Plain Sight is accessible, intelligent, and fascinating. I highly recommend this important book.
October 1, 2021
Once in a while a must-read book comes along that will open your heart as well as your eyes. Hidden in Plain Sight is one of those. In a descriptive style without psychological jargon this read is an emotionally enriching and insightful journey through the struggles men experience in relationships with women. This is no mere self-help treatise but a warm, compassionate, and insightful rendering of the challenges, frustrations, as well as fears that issue from a man's yearnings for intimacy with another eclipsed by his training as a young boy into what it means to be a boy, a man, a husband, a faher. As boys we make incremental choices on our journey into masculinity such that over time we can fall asleep to the meaning and purpose of those very choices we made. We essentially fall asleep to the socialization that led us to minimize if not ignore our feelings while we develop emotional armor against the fullness of who we can be a men. In this way authenticity and being real give way to a presentation of self in everyday life that is false as much as it is protective. Weiss not only draws out and elaborates what our fears are, but also how we can reconcile to them, have all our feelings, and learn how to be resilient, giving, and engaging with our partner or wife. Weiss is pragmatic, candid, and grounded in his acknowledgement of his own fears and how he came to move into a fuller capacity for relationship. Expect yourself perhaps to fend off his insights initially, but if you can be gentle with yourself, you will master those fears this book will evoke, and you may even find yourself talking about it with your wife or partner.
When I read Avrum Weiss’s book I stumbled upon a realization that I had not yet formulated for myself. As a boy emerging into a gay sensibility, I was anxious, scared, and insecure about my capacity to be male, a boy as others were boys. What his book helped me understand is, the other boys, who would one day love girls and women, were just as lost, anxious, scared and insecure as I was. I did not know that, but neither did they. Their bullying was the mirror image of what they did to themselves in that project to become not authentic men but acceptable men.
Hidden in Plain Sight is a gem of a book. Enjoy!
When I read Avrum Weiss’s book I stumbled upon a realization that I had not yet formulated for myself. As a boy emerging into a gay sensibility, I was anxious, scared, and insecure about my capacity to be male, a boy as others were boys. What his book helped me understand is, the other boys, who would one day love girls and women, were just as lost, anxious, scared and insecure as I was. I did not know that, but neither did they. Their bullying was the mirror image of what they did to themselves in that project to become not authentic men but acceptable men.
Hidden in Plain Sight is a gem of a book. Enjoy!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews