Attack of the 'awful man'

The patronising drivel of a woman who has no doubt sent her previous partners running for the hills with her scary and faintly backward stance to dating.

You don't have to be an especially observant person to notice that the Independent is worryingly turning into some kind of Cosmopolitan-meets-broadsheet hybrid, with articles such as 'Are you gender typical?', 'The ten best ways to impress a man/woman' in fact, earlier today I had to glance at the top of my browser to check that I wasn't reading More! magazine for a moment. Whilst confusedly reading through the list I spotted an article called 'What men don't know about women' and, interested, I read on.

One thing I despise about my sisterhood is the woe-is-me-they're-are-all-the-same pigeonholing of men. The whole tissue-kneading divorcee ranting really irks me like nothing else, especially because the greatest majority of these women (journalists aplenty, Kleenex-fiddler India Knight I hope you're reading) seem under the impression that all men truly are evil, responsible for bad weather, third-world debt and hunger, wheras women, however much of a bitch they are, are always entitled to be because they are so downtrodden from living in a man's world.

One individual who personifies this hackneyed attitude is a woman called Esther Walker.
Her column reads more like a self help book by a person who has been dumped a few too many times, and has questionable mental health and serious rejection issues. It brings to mind depressing images of a woman who, dragged through so many romantic thornbushes by 'the awful man' has to resort to writing this Bridget Jones, dreamland bollocks which has no relevance in real life.

Lying to women seems to be the easy key to making her happy, suggests Walker. Whether its pretending not to see your lady's arse bursting out of her skinny-jeans following the inevitable 'does my bum look big in this?' interrogation she offers this gem, "You must, always, simply put your head on one side and say, as if it's the first time you've had the conversation: "You don't look fat to me," and smile" brings a whole new meaning to stating the bleedin' obvious. Even more useful, when faced with the possibility of stealing a woman from her current partner, it's advisable to, "...know what to listen for. [Her partner]'s too passive? Take charge. He never listens to her? You're all ears! He didn't think her career was important? Women with careers are so sexy!!" So, what, Esther? Your prospective boyfriend must lie to you in order to get his leg over?

Or, heaven forbid he even thinks about spending the night with you on the first date, because Esther's chosen pearls for this dilemma, is "Most women sleep with men on the first date (especially in winter) because they are too pissed, cold or lazy to get themselves home."
Speak for yourself my love. I know us British women are a bit of a promiscous lot but I am yet to encounter one of my girlfriends telling me that she slept with a guy because she's cold. It begs the question, 'What is this poor excuse for womanhood on?' If a world-renowned newspaper lets a woman as patronising as her write articles, I can only hope that the editor was feeling so desperate for material he had to rope any old sod in to fill the gaps.

Women and men do not need a do's and don't's list like a Photoshop for Dummy's guide to understand each other. The truth is that men and women do speak a different language, and they do have a completely different outlook to most things in life. We have different brains, its biological. It's X and Y. This is the main reason why I find books such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and, unfortunately some female columists, such load of clap trap.