The men who like women and the men who don't. Yes we can tell.

Glenn Powell does. Tom Cruise doesn't. Like is different than love.

A few weeks ago

Anne Helen Petersen

wrote about what makes actor Glenn Powell so appealing and I have not been able to stop thinking about something she said.

What makes him so appealing? Obviously he’s no eye sore, but Peterson points out that it’s far more than that. She says the main thing that sets Glenn Powell apart from other actors is that he likes women.

But isn’t that pretty basic? Don’t most men like women?

You would think so wouldn’t you, but actually no. Here’s what Peterson says about Glenn’s revolutionary quality of liking women:

“It’s different than knowing you can get women, or wanting to control women, or even loving women. He likes them. He appreciates them. He enjoys their company.”

Specifically the part of the article that keeps running around my mind rent free is this paragraph:

“Tom Cruise doesn’t like women. Neither does Miles Teller. Channing Tatum likes women. So does Ryan Gosling. Brad Pitt used to like women but doesn’t anymore. Leonardo Di Caprio only likes them occasionally. Bradley Cooper doesn’t, George Clooney does. Matt Damon doesn’t, Ben Affleck only does in that one scene in the J.Lo documentary. Marlon Brando didn’t, Montgomery Clift did. Paul Newman didn’t onscreen but did IRL. Cary Grant did, John Wayne definitely, definitely didn’t. Will Smith pretends like he doesn’t but I’m not convinced. Mark Wahlberg absolutely does not, but Daniel Day-Lewis does. So does Paul Mescal.”

Whoa. Mind blown emoji.

I had to set my phone down and chew on this for a moment.

I was taken back by how even though I have never thought of this metric before, I could immediately pick out the pattern in my own life.

Of its own accord my brain started scanning through the men I know. I was shocked how easily I could differentiate between who likes women and who doesn’t:

Doesn’t:

• The man Rich and I played pickle ball with this morning who only spoke to my husband and ignored me.

• My friend’s husband whom in my presence has never asked a woman a question about her life, who once said women speaking in general conference¹ were only good for naps and snacks.

• My uncle who after spending every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family and I for 18 years, did not know my name.

• My last Mormon bishop.

Does:

• The man we played pickle ball with who spoke to both my husband and I equally with humor and grace.

• My cousin’s husband who listened intently to my feminist soapboxing on a six hour road trip this summer responding with, “Wow, I’ve never thought of it that way before,” and “What was the name of that book again?” (Dan, you’re such a gem)

• My uncle who always asks me about what I’m writing whenever I see him.

• My second to last Mormon bishop.

Perhaps these are unfairly stark delineations. Perhaps my uncle developed single-issue amnesia. Perhaps I had spinach in my teeth which pickle ball man #1 found so off-putting that he had no choice but to direct all his words to my husband.

But still…. there’s something here. I can’t stop noticing.

It’s in the listening, the curiosity, the respect. It’s in the eye contact. It’s how they speak of other women or speak over women. It’s whether or not they ever read women authors, listen to podcasts hosted by women.

As Anne Helen Peterson put it:

“It’s a lot easier to not be an asshole when you’re not obsessed with performing dominance….. It's palpable in the way Powell looks at all these women — he really, intently focuses on them, which is a surprisingly rare thing onscreen and in real life.”

How is it that so few men like women?

It’s certainly disheartening how rare this quality is in men, but something I read recently in

Liz Plank

’s book For the Love of Men helps explain why it is that so few men like women.

Through hundreds of interviews she shows how men are penalized for not performing masculinity so early, so often and so intensely that to safely navigate the world, their unconscious north star becomes stuck on “be masculine.”

Kindergarten boys get made fun of at school for liking girly shows like My Little Pony, parents don’t allow their boys to leave the house in girly clothes, teenage boys are ridiculed for having a girly voice.

From the time boys are preschoolers on up through adulthood- the worst thing to be is like a girl. The worst way to run is like a girl, the worst music is girly music, the worst things to care about are the things girls care about, the worst way to act is like a girl.

“The smallest transgression of traditional masculinity, leads to huge, enormous acts of rejection from other men. Often from the men they care the most about.” - Liz Plank

Is it any wonder boys don’t like girls? Is it any wonder they grow up to be men who don’t respect women? When their entire lives they’ve been conditioned to shun all things feminine?

Why would they like the embodiment of everything they’ve been taught to hate?

But don’t men want to be seen as someone who likes women?

Even if it makes sense culturally why they don’t like women, you would like to think men at least want to be perceived as someone who does.

I would like to think that if Tom Cruise or Mark Wahlberg read Anne Helen Peterson’s article, they would be appalled to be listed as men who do not like women.

I would like to think that concern and self-reflection would flood their system upon hearing the news. That they would rush out shoe-less like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning in their haste to ask the women in their lives if they are feeling heard and respected. That Tom and Mark would immediately seek to course correct and improve, bubbling with urgency to change their ways and start listening to women.

But the unfortunate truth is… successful men have little reason to care if they are perceived as someone who likes women. How they treat women has little to no effect on a man’s career, monetary success, popularity or reputation.

There was no penalty to Brad Pitt’s career when it came out that he hit Angelina Jolie on that plane. Tom Cruise still remains the highest paid actor in the world despite the gross, creepy ways he controlled and treated all three of his wives. David Beckham is hailed as good guy father of the century despite the numerous times he’s been caught cheating.

The sad truth is that men don’t NEED to like or respect women to successfully walk through the world. Not at all.

In men’s daily lives- in their jobs, in their church, in their friend groups- social capital is gained solely through other men.

So they often don’t care if women feel disrespected by them. They care if men respect them. And the price of gaining mens’ respect often comes at the cost of disrespecting women.

And I’m not talking about sexual predators. Our standard for who we call good men is astonishingly low (basically anyone who is not abusing women, but sometimes even then).

Men get to proudly wear that title of “good” man WHILE not respecting women, not listening to women, not liking women. Treating women like an equal is not a requirement for being a good man.

Earlier this year I wrote an article called Never Meet Your Heroes’ Wives. I wrote about how Albert Einstein, the hero of modern physics used his wife’s research without crediting her, was never faithful and then left her to marry his cousin. I wrote about how Carl Sagan, the hero of compassionate atheism hit his wife, about how Gandhi, the hero of nonviolent activism forced naked teenage girls to sleep in his bed.

In order to be a hero in our world, in order to be labeled a good man, in order to be successful, treating women well is simply not a requirement.

I wish it was. I wish Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Mark Wahlberg were awash with shame to be seen as not liking women. I wish it was terribly embarrassing for any man to not respect women.

Here’s what I scribbled down this morning in my poetry notebook as I was pondering this phenomenon:

I imagine I was a man in a past life. Many times over. As a man in the 8th century, the 14th or the 20th, I imagine I thought of women only to the extent my circumstances required. I imagine my treatment of women was perfectly explained by my culture, conditioning, hormones, family, class, laws, religion, father and country.

I imagine it would have been understandable for me to objectify women as I sat around drinking with my mates. I imagine it would be understandable to be annoyed when my wife nagged me, when my female family members made demands of my time and attention. It would be understandable for me to barely think of women at all except when I needed something from them.

And yet. Through all of the understandable, explainable behavior- I hope I listened to the women in my life. Even with no good reason to. I hope when my wife spoke, I stopped what I was doing and leaned forward, granting her my full attention. Even though I didn't need to be, I hope I was curious about my niece's dreams. Even though there was no reward for doing so, I hope I asked for my sister-in-law's opinions on things.

And more than attracting them, more than needing them, more even than loving them, I hope the women in my life knew that I liked them.

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1. Annual world-wide Mormon conference.