Women Affairs

JANE E. BRODY To women who were taught that it is unladylike to express anger, the presumably therapeutic yelling and cursing of the current let-it-all-hang-out generation is often shocking. But now a major new study has strongly suggested that both the old style of keeping anger in and the newer tendency to release it explosively are equally poor ways of expressing this fundamental human emotion. Both responses can catch women in a vicious cycle of low self-esteem and depression and can worsen anger because the issues that provoke it are never resolved, the study findings indicate. Far more effective, the researchers found, is to calm anger through physical or mental activities and to discuss angry feelings, preferably with the person who touched them off. The study involved 14 researchers and 535 women from 25 to 66 years old, most of them white married mothers who work full time outside the home. The women, who chose to participate, were recruited from work sites, educational...

HOPING YOUR MAN IS A MIND-READER It may be a feminine game, but it won’t get you what you want. Men just don’t think that way, and it’s disrespectful to later blame them for something they could never figure out from such indirect communication. Drop the games and be direct. Effective communication is what will hold you in good stead. If you’re embarrassed to ask what you want, use language which makes your meaning clear. Though you may find it difficult to express your emotions, he’ll need feedback to make sure he carries on enthusiastically. Losing your self in your bliss and not saying anything will make him wonder if you’re asleep, dead or uninterested, at which point he is most likely to stop. RESENTING HIM WHEN HE DOESN’T GET IT RIGHT If you want more foreplay, then you need to say so. If he charges straight into your erogenous zones after a few minutes’ of petting and kissing, then you need to educate him about what you want. Men are much more quickly aroused than women on the w...