Gynophobia: the Fear of Strong Women

I was recently made to consider that some men are intimidated by women. It doesn’t surprise me that psychology has a term for this, Gynophobia, because that seems to me to be what psychology does, find names for things. I quite like women, I’m even married to one, so this masculine fear of women seems a little alien to me.

This all started because I am a football fan, or soccer as it is known in some parts of the world, and the Women’s World Cup is currently underway in Canada, screened here in England later in the evening. I watched the recent Norway v England game, the coincidence not being lost on me that in my two novels, The War Wolf and For Rapture of Ravens, it is very much a case of Norway v England, and later commented on the game to an acquaintance. “Oh I didn’t watch it,” he admitted, “there’s something about women’s football that I can’t get my head round!”

“Really?” I asked somewhat puzzled. “It’s quite entertaining and the women are getting technically very good at the game now.”

“No, it’s not for me.” He insisted shaking his head and looking uncomfortable.

Now I am not sure if this means that this particular person is suffering from Gynophobia, I’m not a psychiatrist after all, but I did wonder if he was unsettled by the thought of women proving quite competent in an arena of sport traditionally thought of as a ‘man’s game’? The same could be said, I suppose, for men reacting in a similar fashion to women pursuing careers in science, engineering and other ‘men heavy’ occupations. I know it happens, men feel uncomfortable with it. Intimidated even. Perhaps even afraid?

Pat Savage by Ron Miller

When I think about it I believe that I much prefer strong women. I remember reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian books when I was younger and being mostly disinterested in the female characters because they largely seemed to be there simply as dressing. They seldom did anything to help the situation even when the mighty Conan could have done with a little assistance. There was Red Sonja to buck the trend of course, and Pat Savage, brave and beautiful cousin of Doc Savage, and it may be that I remember those two from my days of enjoying pulp fiction exactly because they were competent, self-determining women who got involved in their stories and did not just stand around waiting for the men to rescue them.

So what about my female characters then? I’ll start with Mildryth from the Sorrow Song Trilogy. She’s a Saxon woman of the theign class who has already been through pain and tragedy. Her husband and son were murdered by Tostig Godwinson, then Eorl of Northumbria, but she finds it within herself to live life again. More than that she refuses to simply sit and watch the world go by in her pitiable state but determines to grasp what happiness she can and make the most of it. That is how she comes to meet Coenred, a warrior of similar class and inspire him to love her.

Mildryth is strong because she refuses to surrender to despair even when faced with the most bitterest of personal tragedies. There is more than one way to display your strength, however, and she gets several other opportunities to do this. One such opportunity comes from a chance meeting with another man, Wulfhere, all round bad egg. He has nothing but dark designs for Mildryth but she stands up to him at every occasion and leaves her mark upon his face. She is courageous before despair and brave before villain like Wulfhere. I found her engrossing to write.

Another of my female characters is very different but no less as resourceful and self-reliant as Mildryth. Grace’s workd is the 1930’s Britain of Eugenica into which she has been born disabled and abandoned. To begin with she is insular, having learnt by experience that others care little for girls like her. Indeed, the Eugenics movement is at its height in Eugenica and the disabled are the subject of active persecution and incarceration. Grace at first simply goes with the flow, not objecting to being taken into a state run asylum because she has no hope for the future, no expectation of anything better, and no belief in humanity.

It is while she is in the Spring Bank facility that Grace comes into contact with other people like herself and, after realising that they hold no ill will towards her, slowly begins to form relationships with them. One of the very unpleasant consequences of eugenics was the rise of a negative application of its principles, that is, dysgenics. This version of racial betterment argued that the deformed and the infirm were better off segregated at first and then dead. Grace responds to this danger to her life by softening herself emotionally to help her new found friends. Fortunately her years of hard living prove very useful in helping her take the lead in the fight against their oppressors.

Grace is still a character in the making but I am thoroughly enjoying writing about her. She is not the same as Mildryth but they share similar traits, the kind of characteristics that some men might find intimidating even. Neither of them looks to anyone else to get them out of their troubles. Each of them works to their own ends but they know, or at least Mildryth does and Grace has yet to learn, that compromise can be beneficial. Sometimes it does not hurt to let someone else do something for you. It is not a case of surrendering independence or become reliant on others, it is a way of including that most fascinating, rewarding, exasperating, and life affirming people into your world.

Several female readers have told me that they like the way I have written Mildryth, well to be honest no one has told me that they do not, but I wonder if both she and Grace would be anything like what they are if I suffered from Gynophobia?

Technology is Great – Well When it Works!

My first book sold quite well when released and as a reward to myself for all the hard work that I put into it I decided to buy a tablet, a decision made all the easier when I saw a Google Nexus 7 on sale for less than £100! Now I see devices like tablets as essentially entertainment. It is great that I can download the Kindle app for free and read all kind of ebooks without having to buy a dedicated ereader like, well the Kindle. It is also great that I can connect to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites. It did the job I expected it to do.

Did, in a past tense.

At some point I don’t know when Google released an update for Nexus and, quite frankly, the thing has become a bit of a Jeckyll and Hyde character. When it is Jeckyll it is still fun to use but when it switches to Hyde the thing becomes a beast.

I am not the only one to complain about this, plenty of other owners of this once wonderful device have done the same and Google, surprisingly, have done very little to put it right.

When my Nexus turns all Mr Hyde on me it basically becomes unusable. Programs start running slow and then freeze. Often they prompt a request from the operating system asking if I want to close the program, wait, or report it. Normally I don’t want to close it because I was using it for a reason. Sometimes I try waiting. Occasionally I attempt to report it but then even that has turned into a trial by combat with the program responsible for sending the feedback crashing itself. On more than one occasion the tablet has just turned itself off! Not so much as a by your leave, as Monty Python would put it. It doesn’t automatically restart either, you, the owner but definitely not the controller, have to do that.

Now I am reasonably comfortable with technology. I have a laptop, a smartphone, a smart television, a digital radio, an iPod, a digital camera – you get the picture! Having said that I do not consider myself an expert so when I googled my problems and found plenty of other sufferers out there I was dismayed at the majority of the answers. Mostly these were references to downloading Jellbaby 5.1 or Icelolly 2.4 or something.

Perhaps I am too old fashioned for the 21^st century? I mean, when I buy something then I expect it to work as described on the box, tin, bottle, or whatever other package it comes in. Experience seems to support this assumption. My television worked from the moment I switched it on and subsequent updates seem to have only made it better. My Nexus, however, has not been so lucky and I, as its owner, feel even more aggrieved as it seems that although I have done nothing wrong it is I who have to figure out how to put it right again. The quickest way would be to reset it the factory settings, and lose all the data I’ve put onto the machine in the process. Nice.

I would like to see Google take responsibility for the machine that bears their name but that does not look likely. I liked my Nexus when it was Dr Jeckyll but not so much that I am willing to spend the time necessary to become au fait with rolling back operating system software so as not to damage my tablet further; I’ve got books to write for goodness sake!

I bought my wife an Asus Acer tablet, a device lauded as inferior to the Nexus 7 but it has one key advantage over its more prestigious rival; it works! Despite also having an Android operating system the Acer has not given her that much trouble. She spends plenty of time perusing eBay, playing Candy Crush, reading emails, and whatever else she wants and with nary a problem. It does what it said it would do on the box. My Nexus 7 did once but the people who branded it ‘Google’ don’t seem to care that much about it anymore. When I next have a little free money to spend I think that I am going to avoid placing any value on a brand name and just look at the reviews given by actual users. As Alanis Morissette once said; “you live, you learn.”