There are any number of men who think that women are irrational because they have feelings, and there are any number of women who think that men are neanderthals or abusers because they have anger. Often both find ways to “prove” their respective theories through deliberate goading people into, respectively, emotional or angry responses.

A man would deliberately aggravate a woman – typically his partner - by one or another poisonous statement. This would bring on an emotional response. The man would then say that he has been right all along and that the woman is – neurotic, irrational, crazy, whatever.

Women do the same thing with male anger. A woman would deliberately aggravate a man – in my experience, typically not her partner but someone whom she would find convenient to bully or to scapegoat. This would bring on an angry response. The woman would then say that she has been right all along and that the man is an abuser or a neanderthal.

If the people at the receiving end of either behavior start using their minds and responding rationally, suddenly the person changes the tune. Now the person is – cold, manipulative, sociopathic, dangerous, whatever. If you respond emotionally you are crazy. If you respond angrily you are an abuser. And if you respond rationally you are a psychopath.

With some people you just can't win.

I have of course seen plenty example of both types of predatory behavior. I want people who are vulnerable to this kind of abuse – both men and women – to see through it and see it for what it is. The men who do the first have no business claiming any kind of rationality, and the women who do the second have no business claiming any kind of enlightenment. In both situations we see behavior that is dishonest, abusive and morally wrong. And both reason and spirituality get insulted and discredited when they are used as a cover for such behavior.

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