She's missing something about the "Surrendered Wife" thing, the bit that Steve and I found most creepy and objectionable. I've read interviews with Laura Doyle (and she started this movement over ten years ago; AFAIK she is still at it) and it's not that she's completely given over her will and selfhood it's that *she encourages women to lie about it*. The author here doesn't realize that men can take advantage of their wives' submission because the wives are supposed to keep it secret from their husbands and sneak off to "surrender circles" to talk about it.
I foresaw a lot of marriages wrecking out of "Surrendered Wife" not because of women getting frustrated with being doormats (and let's take a second to point out that Doyle doesn't seem to realize there's a lot of ground between being a doormat and being a shrew), but that men are going to wonder what the hell happened to their wives who used to be reliable about things like helping navigate the car.
The "navigate the car" thing is the most concrete example. "Instead of saying, 'Brian, that's the exit to the mall,' when he's going to overshoot, you're supposed to be silent, surrendering to where he thinks the mall is. You're supposed to let him get further and further lost and frustrated and angry rather than telling him where the exit is and getting to your destination.
Since you don't ever speak your mind, he's miraculously supposed to come around and give you everything you want. I've no idea how that's supposed to work, but Doyle insists it's the inevitable fruit of this deception.
More likely he's going to run off with a more interesting, more helpful woman, I think.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-12-16 05:13 pm (UTC)I foresaw a lot of marriages wrecking out of "Surrendered Wife" not because of women getting frustrated with being doormats (and let's take a second to point out that Doyle doesn't seem to realize there's a lot of ground between being a doormat and being a shrew), but that men are going to wonder what the hell happened to their wives who used to be reliable about things like helping navigate the car.
The "navigate the car" thing is the most concrete example. "Instead of saying, 'Brian, that's the exit to the mall,' when he's going to overshoot, you're supposed to be silent, surrendering to where he thinks the mall is. You're supposed to let him get further and further lost and frustrated and angry rather than telling him where the exit is and getting to your destination.
Since you don't ever speak your mind, he's miraculously supposed to come around and give you everything you want. I've no idea how that's supposed to work, but Doyle insists it's the inevitable fruit of this deception.
More likely he's going to run off with a more interesting, more helpful woman, I think.