Monthly archive January, 2007

Review of Men Are Clams, Woman Are Crowbars by Dr David Clarke, Ph.D.

When I picked up this book I wanted to learn more about these differences between men and women that I find fascinating in a never ending sort of way. And the analogy works well in the book explaining how men and women communicate and deal with stress in their relationships. What I did not expect was the typical “holier than though” attitude so typical of conservative Christian writers. And this spoils a book with some good practical advice. Overall this book must be aimed at a very small market of people and because of the bias of the author may be unappealing to everyone else. The last thing you want in a self-help book is a preaching tone.

As Dr John Demartini says, the moment you become infatuated with a person or subject yourself to an authority figure e.g. The Pope or Jesus Christ you import their values onto your own and this becomes a miserable failure.

The other disappointing thing about this book is that it almost exclusively focussed on couples in a marriage. And I don’t know if this Christian psychologist, as David Clarke, calls himself, lives in the real world. Expecting people to stay married, forever and ever. Dynamics in the world has changed, so there are a lot more unmarried people then ever before. People who could be married, but don’t for very valid and practical reasons. I also agree with the views of the radical American talk radio DJ, Tom Leykis, there is no benefit for a man, as it stands legally getting married. If you are curious just do a search for “Leykis 101” and you will get an education in manhood you may have missed out on.

This book is written mostly for women, and offers very little help for men. And I suppose that’s always been the target market of the author. Even as a man, I really do not appreciate his tone, talking down, toward men. So this author is what they call pussy whipped.