Why Are Men Afraid of Being Controlled by Women?

"I’ve always been scared of women."—Cary Grant

Whipped. Why is it that one of the worst things a man can be accused of is being controlled by a woman, or more accurately, by his need for a woman?

Men’s fears of being controlled by women are readily visible in the language men use to insist they are not controlled by women—jokes about not letting the woman wear the pants in the family, or about their partner being a “ball buster.” Notice how much of men’s ridiculing of each other involves accusations about being more feminine, in other words, less masculine.

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Men are socialized to see themselves, and to look for ways to prove to others, that they are independent to the point of being self-reliant, that they don’t need help from anybody, that they are their own man and not influenced by others. If you ask any man if he is afraid of being controlled by his partner, he will, of course, adamantly deny it. He might tell you that he is angry about her attempts to control him, but scared is probably not a word that comes readily to his mind; it's certainly not the word he would use to describe himself to anyone else.

A shift in decision-making

While few would argue that men continue to enjoy a wide range of advantages in the world, there is no question that the large influx of women into the workforce over the past decades has threatened what was once men’s unquestioned and unchallenged status and privilege, dramatically changing the relationship between male and female partners. Men are rarely the “head of the household” in the way that their fathers or grandfathers may have been, although even in very traditional families there was some question about who actually ran the show. In the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a daughter complains that her mother allows her father to make all the decisions in the family. The mother replies, "The man is the head, but the woman is the neck, and she can turn the head any way she wants."

There is actually a significant amount of evidence to substantiate men’s belief that they are increasingly at risk of losing power in their intimate relationships. A 2008 study by the Pew Research Center study found that women make more of the decisions in most families than their male partners. Couples tend to share the decision-making in areas like how to spend their free time or making large purchases. However, women are more likely to be the decision-makers in financial matters, whether the woman works or not, or makes more or less money than her partner.

Interestingly, couples over age 65 are twice as likely as younger couples to share decision-making equally, suggesting that having a more mutual relationship may be something that couples learn how to do over time and that the younger generation may not be any better at it than those preceding them.

Fear of abandonment

On a deeper level, men’s fears of being controlled by women reflect their underlying fears of being abandoned. If men were truly as independent and self-reliant as they insist, then why is it that they remarry so much sooner than women after a divorce?

Men’s fears of abandonment in relationships are perhaps most visible in the lengths that men will go to avoid conflict. Men monitor their partners’ emotional states constantly and carefully, scanning for any signs of potential conflict, criticism, or disapproval. Any evidence of unhappiness or disapproval is often interpreted by men as criticism or failure. They immediately assume they have done something wrong, that they are “in the doghouse,” and will not return to favor until they figure out what they have done wrong and correct it. Reassurance from their partners that they are not “in trouble” is rarely sufficient for men to feel off the hook.

Men are afraid of losing the emotional reassurance and validation that their partners have provided so seamlessly for so long that they are largely unaware of it, until it is threatened. Men are afraid of losing the validation their partners provide by listening to their stories about work, laughing when they are trying to be funny, exaggerating their sexual pleasure during lovemaking, and a thousand other forms of reassurance. Men try to withdraw into self-sufficiency to protect themselves against the power of these vulnerable needs, but the threat of their partners withdrawing affection evokes the earliest fears of childhood emotional abandonment.

Adapted from Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men’s Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships (Weiss, 2021).