Men have stood by quietly – did they
have a choice? – as it became normal for women to
fill roles historically reserved for males.
But it was not only in terms of career and
human rights that women were making great strides.
A recent study revealed that there is a dramatic increase
in the amount of women that are unfaithful to their partners.
It makes sense.
Women are no longer stuck at home.
Jobs outside the home - with the ready-made
excuse of working late or business travel - financial independence
and changing social attitudes mean that modern women simply
have more opportunity to meet other men and start affairs.
Mobile phones, social networking sites, chat rooms and email
also make it easier to fuel intimate encounters.
But while women's lives and sexual behaviour
might have changed, their willingness to be honest about
it hasn't.
'The biggest difference is that women are much better at
keeping their affairs secret,' says Dr David Holmes, a psychologist
at Manchester Metropolitan University. 'If you look at the
studies into paternity, even conservative figures show that
between eight and 15 per cent of children haven't been fathered
by the man who thinks he's the biological parent.'
Simply put, it seems that women are better
at having affairs than men, and they are better liars.
The
news that Farrah Fawcett had a secret affair for 11
years without telling a soul is a classic example
of the way a woman cheats: discreetly, in secret,
and while carrying on with the rest of her life as
normal. |
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In response to why they lie, the study reveals:
Because we must, and because we can.
In spite of apparent equality and a more sexually open society,
we are still more harshly judged for our sex lives than
men.
There is something particularly humiliating
for a man about being made a cuckold. So we lie to protect
ourselves from the judgments of others, and because sexual
'reputation' still matters more to women, whether we like
it or not.
But we also lie naturally and instinctively,
as a way to manage and control our relationships, to protect
our partners and our families, and to keep our options open.
In fact, we lie so much and for so many
reasons that often we don't even think of it as lying at
all, but as 'relationship management'.
Women are taught to lie from childhood.
Those simple, altruistic lies such as saying we've had a
lovely time when we haven't, that someone looks nice when
she doesn't, or that we're delighted with a gift we don't
really like, are just some of the small ways that lying
oils the wheels of our social lives, keeps the peace, and
makes other people happy.
Girls will lie to protect someone's
feelings or to build a relationship. Honesty, in these circumstances,
looks highly overrated, and we quickly learn the value and
power of being economical with the truth in relationships.
Many women also develop a habit of secrecy
about smaller issues in their relationship as a way of maintaining
some kind of control.
It's common, for example, for women to lie to their partners
about how much money they have spent - even when they don't
need to.
