The Female Ego... not a myth.

For our entire lives as women we are educated about the 'fragile male ego'. We are told in so many different ways that we must guard the man's feelings. Well, here's a news flash, woman's egos are just as, if not more, fragile...

Why do you think so many women suffer from low self-esteem and struggle with weight? Why are 80% of American women on a diet or will be on one within the next year? Why do 70% women rate themselves as unsatisfied with their appearance? Why are there more then 500,000 breast augmentation surgeries a year? These are not the signs of a healthy female ego, and are those egos any healthier with bigger boobs and smaller thighs?... ahem... well, maybe... sure... but still!!

Harvard University did a study where men were asked to rate their spouse's looks on a scale of one to ten, and then men were asked to view Playboy (poor bastards, I hope they were compensated!) and then rate their spouses' looks again. Consistently, the men rated their girlfriend or spouses lower after viewing Playboy then before. Women know this. This is not a mystery to us, we know men don't go to strip clubs to see women they believe will be less attractive then the one they have at home. That's why we don't like your going to strip clubs! It not a jealousy thing, it's an ego thing!

Men don't understand the female ego, because we protect him from it. We get hurt and angry when our man ogles a waitress, but men don't seem to realize this is a question of ego not jealousy. We protect men from all those things we suffer through. We are careful not to ogle the cute 20 something male waiter because we know this would upset our guys. Do we ogle?  Sure! (Look at Taylor Hicks, no seriously, look at him!!.. Go on, he's on the home page, I'll wait...) Women are just so used to doing it in a man-friendly way, men don't even realize it's happening, and this is our mistake.

Men, on the other hand, drop their fork and start to drool when the cute waitress bends over. Men make it so obvious, it's like they have those little cartoon dotted lines coming out of their eyes, and attaching right to her ass, and then they wonder why we left tearful for the car, or threw our napkin in his face?

Men think they are being clever about their ogling when they just chat politely with the waitress, or remark how they like her top. We know what you're really looking at, that top didn't come with THOSE, so don't bother asking where she got it! Sadly, these are the smarter men. The dumb ones, the ones who never have peace in their lives, just go ahead and flirt and drool in front of their partner and have perfected the, "What's your problem, PMS?" face when we get annoyed. Poor Bastards, so cold on their side of the bed!

So why do we make such huge strides not to harm the male ego, and yet say next to nothing when our own ego is torn to sheds? Conditioning. We are taught to be nurturing, and men are not. We are taught to be considerate of people's feelings and men are not. Think back to the time, perhaps only once or twice in your relationship with a man, where you expressed any sort of sexual interest in another man out loud. We all know how that turns out, right? I remember talking to my boyfriend about a guy who came to visit myself and brother at work, who I mentioned had a striking resemblance to the actor from JAG, David James Elliott. My boyfriend pouted over that for three days.

Now realize, I didn't say he was attractive, I didn't say I was attracted to him (both true, but I never mentioned it!), I just mentioned he looked like a handsome actor, and he was off the rails. On the other hand, try and count the number of times your man mentioned something about a girl's skirt, a waitress's ass, some stripper's breasts. The smart one's say things like, "Wow, can you believe she's wearing her skirt THAT short? *tisk tisk*" And the dumb ones, "Jeeeeezuz, look at that ass!" How about how many times we've gone to pool halls or bars simply because that place had the prettiest staff. I can't remember ever picking a restaurant or bar based on the wait staff in my life. But then again, and at the root of all of this is, handsome men are very rare.

So the solution, if there is one? We have to recondition men, and hurt their feelings more. I believe that a man cannot understand anything painful, until he himself has been through it. This would explain why so many videos of some fool man riding a motorbike off a ramp, mashing his privates on the cross bar and then careening into the side of a building exist. So this is a call to action! We have to ogle with abandon, and when he pouts, say, "But, what's the big deal? Are you PMSing?". Their heads are thick, but, given enough practice, they will learn to show some compassion for your ego. Or, you'll get to ogle young men openly, either way, it's a win/win!