Thank you for the kind comments.

Mme Reclus' first husband was exactly the type of domineering, self-absorbed (and fundamentally helpless and incompetent) lout you described.

As for the Gorgon that confronted me, she was a fairly common stereotype in the Silicon Valley technocrat class, a model, unfortunately, that seems to be looked up to these days. In both men and women, it is an identifying characteristic of individuals whose work loyalty is to their careers, not their profession.

The men who exhibited this behavior in the past seemed to be responding to positions of powerlessness and insecurity in their working lives. They were dumped on at work, and they took it out on everyone else after. Why competent and prosperous professionals seem to act this way is beyond me. Men have cultural controls now which tend to inhibit this behavior somewhat, but amongst some women it seems to be seen as agressive, competitive and dynamic, that is, laudable, behavior. They not only act like this, they want to act like this.