The helpless are victimized. Women have long suffered the pain of being devalued thusly. They also have a more immediate sense of pain and grief. Menstruation itself is a kind of loss, a kind of mini-death within. Women are more immediately in touch with the emotional significance of coming into being and passing away.
Men fear vulnerability.
They are far more likely to verbalize their deepest fears than their deepest love or aspiration. On every hand is the suggestion of their inadequacy of every sort. Rejection of the father has been the American Way, and not just in situation comedies. It has even been said that the primary emotional experience of the average contemporary American male is a feeling of inadequacy. Every competition which has a winner must also have at least one looser, usually many.