While the material gains in the workplace are quantifiable and tangible, she says emotionally, the impulse to submit to men is difficult to stop.

Women haven't yet mastered how to stand up to men emotionally "without whimpering or ball-breaking."

Equality is not erotic

According to Morris, the there is something 'very unsexy' about equality and that's the problem feminism faces.

"It's sexy to be possessed by a man, whether in bed or out. There's something erotic to being looked after and that's what women look for," she told The Australian Financial Review.

This is difficult territory because not far under the surface of the supposed 'trivial' domestic complaints she hears in the therapy room every day, there is an emotional minefield.

The workplace is a different realm to the home and confusion arises because women suppose the socioeconomic gains made at work should be applicable to the domestic setting – but here sex complicates everything.

In the kitchen, a women may find herself at a crossover point where her partner's reluctance to take out the garbage is characterised as a gender-driven political act, but is actually felt as an affront to her feelings. "Does he still care, does he still love her?"


Morris' highly readable book captures how astonishingly alike we all are from the love-sick to the obsessed and from the jealous to the unfaithful.

She shows how there's often movement between the male and female positions in a relationship and her observations apply to heterosexual and homosexual couples alike.

The book is comprised of short, insightful pieces that cover themes such as possession in relationships, sexual allure, power and separation.

Although she generalises for easy understanding, she warns that in real life, things are more complicated.

Paradox of feminism

Despite the cultural achievements of feminism, Morris suggests that complete gender equality is difficult to achieve because it gets in the way of sexual attraction which seems to matter more to us.

Although women recoil from admitting it, most covertly or unconsciously submit to men.

She writes that it is not unusual for a single woman, who says she is appalled by sexism, to baulk at asking a man she fancies for a date.


"Indeed, lest he think she is too eager, she will even hide her interest in him, sometimes so well he gets the impression that she is avoiding him. Meanwhile, if he doesn't reply to her last email, she will search for the meaning of his silence, scour social media for signs of his interests elsewhere and wait in agonies for his phone call."

"Afterwards, she will analyse the significance of his every phrase. She will hurt if he shows insufficient interest in her, as if her preoccupation with him legitimises her expectation that he respond in kind," she writes.

Paradoxically, despite describing herself as the equal of men, she will be offended or even feel threatened if a man leers at her. Violence and manhandling aside, she will be outraged, even hurt, if he directs at her his antediluvian sexism.

These responses are incompatible with self-assured equality with men.

When good sex is bad news

There is no end to the temporary blindness that love and sex can induce, says Morris.

Take a woman with battered self-esteem who tries harder and harder to please, as if her partner's disregard for her is justified.Trying harder may entail becoming a domestic skivvy, pretending there isn't infidelity, 'fetishising' their sex life or a lot else.

Morris writes that the abject partner often suffers from the delusion that good sex means that deep down her love is reciprocated. She sees great promise in their erotic symbiosis and supposes it signals a long-term happy outcome.


His frequent disappointing disregard of her does nothing to deflect her optimism. Rather, she assumes that later on, once he has chosen her and is in her 'possession', she will have the chance to correct what she does not like about him.

That the quality of sex and the endearments he whispers are independent of his view about spending the rest of his life with her, is beyond her present understanding.

The possibility of cohabitation, uppermost in her mind, may not even cross his. This doesn't mean he won't want to continue the relationship - on his own terms.

Possession

Morris says a woman is not secure in a sexual relationship until she believes she is in sole, public possession of her partner. He often fails to understand that she wants him to make a public display of his affection, of their being a couple.

She wants his arm around her or to hold hands in the street. She wants a ring on her finger. She wants it known she has public, quantifiable confirmation that he is hers.

While female biology often generates urgency to attain that goal as a prelude to establishing a family sanctuary, men aren't always in the same hurry and can feel pressured into tying the knot.

Morris says there is a difference in the way men and women want to possess the partner. The man often retains a sense of freedom from the relationship until the final commitment is made.


For the woman, from the minute she fancies him, she unconsciously needs to be sure of him, to have him. A lot of the conflict in the early part of that relationship is around that difference.

Different rhythms

Morris says a woman can go to bed once with a man she fancies and she's already wondering if this is forever. The man more often will be wondering if he can, or wants to, do it once again.

For the woman, getting attracted to a man signals the beginning of a long emotional journey if she wants to keep him.

This compulsion can emotionally 'enslave' her during courtship. Once he commits to tying the knot, paradoxically she feels free. She's got her man and she's arrived.

Men often don't get this, that the woman needs to be possessed, including in the sexual act, that she wants to be had, but always in a way that leaves her feeling safe rather than exploited.

Having made the commitment, the rhythm is different for a man in new relationship.

If it is well balanced, all will be well. Often, however, he starts to feel hemmed in. He panics and tries to control whatever he can.


Or it may be the moment when he can relax and have an affair. He's caught the prospective mother of his children, that's taken care of, now he's free.

Morris say women don't realise that, apart from the very rare exception, the affairs don't mean anything. From her observations and from available evidence, extramarital dalliances do not diminish the love a man feels for his wife.

Unfortunately these facts are of no consequence to his wife.

The book, published by Irene Press, is available through Amazon books.