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Mars likes
By Cynthia Oi
to fix everything
... including Venus
Star-BulletinKEN Armstrong may be a brave man, a delusional man, an arrogant man or a really sincere man.
He admits he is a man; the adjectives pop up because this man is daring to conduct a seminar to help women overcome unrealistic female images mostly created and perpetuated by those of his gender.
In publicity material for "Love Letters: A Workshop for Women" this weekend, Armstrong says that it is because men helped to create the unrealistic ideal woman that they should also "take some responsibility" to help break down the concept.
He says he has the skills to do this, and at least two women back him up.
One, Janet Bender, executive director for the Hawaii chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, says Armstrong "has a way of challenging women to find their individuality."
The other -- business partner, friend and workshop producer Noa Batlin -- says she and Armstrong "have incredibly similar views on women and their problems."
Armstrong is 43 (his birthday is today), a 6-foot-2-inch former Coast Guard public information officer who is into his third week of his third marriage. He has a daughter, 15, from his first marriage and his new wife has two children.
The Southern California native has lived in various parts of the country and has been in Hawaii for about eight years. Until last year, he was executive director of Honolulu Habitat for Humanity. He volunteers with various nonprofit organizations, was a Kailua Neighborhood Board member, a civil rights counselor and is a prolific writer of letters to the editor.
Still, he is a man and there are going to be women who think that it is arrogant and condescending for him to think he can help women or that women would welcome his help.
"I hear a whole lot of that," Armstrong said in an interview last week. "But we're half of the dialogue. What we've got going on right now is men causing half the problems and women trying to solve all of them."
Women listen to negative reinforcement from men every day, he said. He thinks it helps them to listen to positive reinforcement from men, too.
Armstrong acknowledges that men and women have different ways.
"No man can know what it's like to be a woman and no woman can know how a man sees women," he said. "But I think some men get it more than other men. To the extent that I've been tuned in and listened to women for over 20 years, I probably get it more than the average guy does."
He said he realizes that there's no way he can verify how close he comes to understanding, but doesn't let that get in his way. He really believes he can help.
"I would never want to portray myself as the messiah, a person with all the answers, brighter than everybody in the room, but I do have skills," Armstrong said. "I have a certain ability to relate to people on a certain level."
He described the "Love Letters" part of the workshop as positive messages a woman can send to herself every day, "personal affirmations."
"There is no Ken Armstrong formula for saving your life," he said. "But maybe you write yourself a note every morning that you put in a conspicuous place, a recorded message you can listen to. Or you can carry something with you that reminds you to think positively about yourself.
"It's not a touchy-feely psycho-babble kind of thing," he said.
Women's focus on looks and appearance starts from childhood, Armstrong said. "Women grow up competing with their mothers for their fathers' attention. Boys aren't competing with their fathers for their mothers' attention.
"So from an early age, girls tend to be focused on externals. Where boys tend to focus on what they can accomplish, girls tend to focus on what they look like.
"That's one of the things the workshop is about," he said, getting past the stereotypes of having to be thin, beautiful, sexy, smart and competent.
But he acknowledged that even after a woman has changed her attitude and view of herself, the stereotypes about males and females won't go away, even in his own mind.
While discussing individual limitations, he talked about how he wishes he were able to handle plumbing problems.
"I can do all kinds of things in the construction trade, but I am the worst plumber that ever came along," he said.
But in comparing his limitations to a similar situation for a woman, he changed the task from plumbing to cooking, saying, "And yet a woman who is not a great cook grows up feeling inadequate because she's not a good cook."
When talking about appearances, he described a woman he greatly admires, but the first characteristic he brought up was her size.
"Noa and I know a woman who is a large woman. First impression -- she's not the most stylish dresser -- yet she happens to be incredibly brilliant, dynamic, funny woman with so much depth of character. On first impression, I don't think anybody would expect to get from her what they do, but because of her self esteem, her ability to just get past that ... she becomes one of the most beautiful people I know."
So while women may win the self-esteem battle with herself, isn't there a larger war outside?
Yes, he said. That's why upcoming workshops he and Batlin plan will include men.
And men are important in discussions women have about their self-image, he said.
"If it's only a monologue among women about what's important to them, then that's the only perspective that's ever going to be taken into the mix. You'll have this dysfunctional thing where women are only getting negative messages from men, but the only positive messages they're getting are involved in this monologue among themselves," he says.
"Women want men to listen to them. Women want men to try to understand them and talk to them. Some men have something to say that will start a dialogue in a constructive way," Armstrong said.
"It's the job of men to help resolve."
Workshop
What: "Love Letters: A Workshop for Women," presented by Out of the Box Productions
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