"Listening in response to criticism mandates a shift in our internal psyche that marks perhaps the most important single evolutionary shift humans can make."

"Listening is self-empowerment via the empowerment of others."

"The belief that men don’t need help is part of the problem."

"Men are still playing protector of women’s transitions, and both sexes expect only men to make transitions on their own."

"Helping men express feelings starts with understanding why men don’t express them."

"Sharing instructions about how to perform better for others is very different than sharing feelings about life experiences that make us happy or sad."

"The nature of men’s responsibilities distanced men from feelings, whereas the nature of women’s responsibilities encouraged the expression of feelings."

"Men’s pay paid women to love and nurture, to connect and feel. To be nurturer-connectors. In contrast, men received their pay by being some form of killer-protector. By becoming a human doing (a captain or a coal miner), not a human being (a person who feels happy or sad)."

"Societies in which men were unwilling to dispose of themselves in war were societies that usually got disposed of. Societies that were protected were protected by killers, which is why I call the traditional role of men the role of killer-protector."

"Both sexes had an unconscious investment in keeping men from expressing feelings of fear and vulnerability."

"No legend told its children of beautiful princesses falling in love with conscientious objectors."

"If we taught men to repress feelings and rewarded him instead for being a captain he might be willing to die to protect us; if we paid him enough to feed his family if he worked in a coal mine, he might be willing to die sooner to keep us warm. But all that required him to forfeit his feelings – his power as a human being – and substitute it for “power” as a human doing: feeling obligated to earn money someone else spent while he died sooner."

"Becoming a human doing was exactly what society needed. But for an individual man, becoming a human doing was his undoing."

"All of this is men’s genetic heritage. However, men’s genetic heritage is in conflict with their genetic future."

"In the future, women will increasingly want men who can nurture them and connect with them."

"In the future, women will increasingly want nurturer-connectors, since part of what he will be nurturing is her ability to protect herself."

"In order to connect and nurture, it is not just helpful to be in touch with feelings, it is necessary. So men’s first job – their next evolutionary strategy – involves being in touch with their feelings."

"During the past thirty years, the women’s movement has supported women to express virtually every feeling women felt. To other women. To Men. To society. Women’s feelings became course curriculum, women’s studies, TV specials, talk shows, and Lifetime cable. Women’s feelings were called both education and entertainment. Men’s were repressed until they were called ulcers."

"Because men complained less, we made the false assumption that the complaints women experienced were only women’s complaints and, therefore, only women’s problems. Which created the rationale for women’s problems to be solved – or at least addressed – by public policy."

"A father’s traditional role prepared him to love his family by being away from the love of his family."

"A mother’s traditional role prepared her to love her family by being with the family she loved."

"We think of the division of labor as being outdated, but in fact it has reemerged. In the early ‘80s, a mother was 43 times more likely than the father to leave the workplace for family responsibilities; more recently, a mom is 135 times more likely to leave the workplace for family responsibilities."

"Women are socialized to take advantage of four informal options for emotional support: husbands; womenfriends; children; and parents. Men are socialized to take advantage of only one of these informal options: their wife or womanfriend."

"Men tend to put all their emotional eggs in the basket of their wives (or womenfriends), it is difficult for a man to communicate feelings of disappointment to his wife because, if she withdraws, it feels to him like his entire emotional support system has collapsed."

"After a conflict, women are not only more likely to turn to other womenfriends for support, but are nine times more likely to be with their children should conflict become divorce."

"A woman living with her mother has limited freedom; a man living with his mother has limited freedom and limited respect. For most men, the vacuum (of no support system) is so devastating, they’d rather agree with their wife than express their feelings and risk emotional withdrawal."

"After divorce, women’s biggest fear is economic deprivation; men’s biggest fear is emotional deprivation."

"Divorce laws have given women economic support after divorce; no laws have given men emotional support after divorce. Men are required to continue their obligations to their exes in the form of alimony or child support; women are not required to continue their obligation to their exes in the form of homemaking or nurturing."

"We had affirmative action programs to help women help themselves economically. Is it now time for affirmative action programs to do for men’s feelings what the government did for women’s economics?"

"By the mid-’90s, the anger at men had become so palpable that even sedate publications like The Economist were characterizing women’s vs. men’s workload as “A woman’s work is never done; a man is drunk from sun to sun.”"

"What is the impact on our children of this international “Sisterhood is Victimhood” bonding?"

"Hochschild’s biggest mistake, though, was one made by almost every popularized housework study: not adequately measuring men’s contribution to work around the home. For example, if mom drives the children to daycare, it’s called housework; if dad drives the family to grandma’s, it isn’t called housework."

"Notice that much of what men do is also done by single mothers so appreciating what men do also helps us appreciate what single moms do."

"The best way to use these lists to replace anger with love in real life is to nurture each other by doing for your partner what your partner normally does for you."

"Even men who share their personal experiences find that, instead of empathy, they get the response Dear Abby gave this man: “Women have it worse.” This belief is so strong that over the past quarter century, women’s old fantasy of marrying a man-as-protector has been tainted by women’s new nightmare of husband-as-batterer."

"If we believe that it is predominantly men who batter women, it is hard to see why women also need to change: We will continue saying, “Just change the men. They’re the batterers.”"

"Four men describe how their wives hit them in the lower back with a pole, cracked them over the head or in the neck with a frying pan...the audience renews its laughter after each story. The men are part of a “PMS Men’s Support Group.” Imagine an audience of men laughing as battered women describe how their husbands threatened them with brain or spinal cord injuries by battering them over their heads or in their necks with a frying pan."

"All of these battered husbands are still with their wives. When a woman stays with a man who batters, we provide shelters to encourage her to escape. If she decides not to escape, we say she is a victim of “Battered Woman Syndrome.""

"The emphasis of the men’s group was on understanding, coping, changing the situation and then, if all else failed, getting out; the emphasis of battered women’s groups is on getting out first, and second, locking up the problem (the man)."

"In brief, when women batter, men’s first priority is to support the women and help them change; when men batter, women’s first priority is to escape the men and put them in prison."

"The motto of feminists: “There is never an excuse for hitting a woman.” Shouldn’t it be, “There is never an excuse for hitting.”?"

"Sitcoms routinely portray women hitting men, almost never portray men hitting women. When he fails to leave, it is not called “Battered Man Syndrome”; it is called comedy."

"Note the men’s fear that if they reported this to the authorities, not only would they not be believed, they would be ridiculed."

"Men learn to call pain “glory”; women learn to call the police."