I sat across the room, finishing my dinner, cleaning up the kids and plates as quick as possible, so I could go and join the ‘circle of women’ on the other side of the room. I’m in a new place, with lots of new faces. I’m looking forward getting to know new friends. Scan the perimeter – Sean’s watching Samantha: Check. So Timothy and I go to join “The Circle”. One of the women hungrily scoops Timothy into her arms. And I settle in for a fun time.

My heart sinks. They’re ‘Husband Bashing’. Dredging up all the annoying things their Men do each day. Comparing notes. It’s a game of one-up-manship. “Your husband may do that, but look at what I have to put up with!” You figure out where you stand in the social order by level of Stupidity, Laziness, or Ineptness you must endure in your relationship.

Women sit around in our ‘circles’ and engage in it with gusto. We whine and complain about every little thing that our husbands (or the man in lives) do ‘wrong’. Wrong being, they don’t measure up to the perfect female standard of perfection and we must beat them into submission. It’s a National Sport. It pervades our homes, our churches, our schools, our work place, and the media.

A premise of the Husband Bashing phenomenon is that “He is male, therefore he is wrong”. They’ll never be able to live up to our standard. We tell them time and again, “Take out the trash”, “The socks go in the laundry hamper, not the on the floor” (yes, MUM!), “Ooh, isn’t that 15 carat necklace pretty!” But they just don’t get it. And we let them and our friends know all about.

More to come….