Reason Men Hate to be Rejected from Women

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when someone says NO? An emphatic NO. Anger, despair, sadness, shock? A mix of them all, maybe? Marriage and family therapist John Amodeo Ph.D., writes in Psychology Today, the human brain when faced with rejection falls apart because “it is one of our deepest human fears”. We all have a biological inclination to belong – to a family, a peer group, a community, society at large. And fearing rejection from any of these groups makes us paranoid. Amodeo explains why: “Rejection confirms our worst fear: that we’re possibly unlovable or have little value. When these fear-based thoughts keep spinning in our mind, we become agitated,” he says.

As cases of spurned-lovers-turned-killers become almost everyday news in India and beyond (see box above), the next logical question that comes to mind is, do men and women view and experience rejection in different ways? Yes, says sociologist Shiv Visvanathan. “To a certain extent men don’t expect women to beat them in any sphere. And as women enter new domains where men have been dominant, they are feeling threatened. This new world has left men anxious and they have no visible signs of coping. Hence, they are lashing out.”
Actor Taapsee Pannu who starred in Pink, a film that deals with sexual harassment, believes most men are just playing to the prevalent narrative in society, where being rejected “could act as an affront to men’s sense of masculinity”.

Fear=Anger=Desire for Control=Violence

Clinical psychologist Dr Rajat Mitra says cases of extreme violence stems from men’s fear of losing their identity to assertive women. “The men I’ve talked to in therapy — the ones who have injured, murdered women — have confessed that they were actually scared of women, their identity came crumbling down; and to regain control they resorted to extreme violence.”

Where does this skewed sense of entitlement come from? Tumpa Mukherjee, assistant professor of sociology at the Women’s Christian College, Kolkata, says this social conditioning of entitlement begins quite early in life. And women too play a part in making men believe the patriarchal narrative. “Most men are brought up to believe the best goes to them. At the dinner table, the best portion is reserved for the father or son. They are learning early on from their wives, mothers, that getting the best of everything in life is natural, especially from a woman,” she says.

The same applies when they are pursuing women later in life. They think women cannot say no to their proposal or be disinterested in them, with especially disastrous results in a society in transition, like India, where regressive patriarchal ideas are clashing with modern reality on a daily basis.

Glimmer of hope

Dr Mitra cites an example from his life in a small Swiss town called Appenzell in the 1990s. “This issue rocked Europe in the ’80s and ’90s. In Appenzell women had no key role in decision making on the council level till 1992,” he explains.

But things were changing. Women were becoming assertive, going to work, demanding rights that men took for granted. Mitra adds that what was heartening was that these Swiss men took a solution-oriented approach to the problem they were facing.

Be Solution-oriented

Dr Mitra adds, “They wanted to discuss how to deal with this new assertive woman saying ‘no’ to them, and better negotiate with a woman when facing a problem. Till then, the concept of negotiation was almost unknown.”

The step to every conflict, as we must know, comes from acceptance of the problem.

DISTURBIA

Last month, Army Major Nikhil Handa murdered the wife of a fellow officer after she refused his proposal to divorce her husband and marry him.

In April this year, 25-year-old Alek Minassian drove his van into a Toronto crowd, killing 10 people. His disturbing Facebook post showed his murderous rage was a result of being sexually rejected by women.

In May 2014, Elliot Rodger, 22, killed six people in a stabbing and shooting spree in California before killing himself. He emailed an autobiographical document that gave a peek into his deep-rooted loathing of women, fuelled by an intense frustration over his virginity.

WHAT THEY SAID

As a society we have wrongly pivoted this masculinity theory – boys don’t cry, men are the sole bread winners... Once such an image is set, it puts the man under extreme duress to conform to that standard. This could be a reason why he feels the brunt of rejection. But I do feel we are all not equipped to manage rejection at various levels. The reason could be our thirst to win each and every competition. Rejection management is important and should be taught.