Discussion of the damaging impact of patriarchal gender roles
This discussion was created from comments split from: Gendered language.
Apologies, this is a little clunky - but this thread is plot off the gendered language thread to pick up the tangent on how gender roles can be damaging to individuals.
Doublethink, Admin
Apologies, this is a little clunky - but this thread is plot off the gendered language thread to pick up the tangent on how gender roles can be damaging to individuals.
Doublethink, Admin
Comments
That's what I'm thinking, yeah, but it would still be sending nasty sexual messages, as people here have discussed. Maybe even messages that are still horrible, but hurt comparatively less when they don't understand what they mean when they're kids, but become much worse ticking emotional time bombs for when they do understand later, as teens and adults, and years of nasty messages take on more developed meanings. (Also messages that apply to boys as well--being called "gay" as an insult, or the messages that a mature older guy should have lots of sexual conquests, etc. build up--I can see those leading to some elements of toxic masculinity in adolescence and adulthood, for instance.)
Oh God, I hate that shit. Part of what I'm working through with my therapist is the lasting damage that being brought up with "big boys don't cry" and other such nonsense has done to my emotional wellbeing.
I'm trying so hard to avoid causing such damage to the hatchlings, but it feels like a constant battle against the messages they're getting from friends, teachers, TV, and even (annoyingly) their grandparents.
Huge generalization, so of course there are exceptions, nuances, and local variations: Our cultures labeling girls and women "emotional" means we get to express our emotions, all but one - anger. That's the one emotion that seems socially acceptable for boys and men and is reserved for them. Womem get judged for being "emotional" but at least we in general get to feel our feelings. (Again, huge generalization, of course doesn't hold for all individuals or families.)
I've of course only dealt second-hand with what the suppression and repression of feelings means for and does to men, but my God, it seems so painful and damaging. Just horrific. Men do get to express anger, but when that's the main feeling someone is allowed to show, how many other things get redirected into expressions of anger?
Yeah, and addition to suppressing painful emotions in the way that Ruth describes, there's the accompanied suppression of positive emotions of love or tenderness. It's a bit old now, and I certainly wouldn't endorse all of it, but 'will to change' by bell hooks is a very good description of the kind of emotional constipation that results.
Or increasingly 'manosphere influencers', quite a few of my son's classmates watch videos by Andrew Tate and so on, and yes, it's a constant battle to present a different message.
I think an important aspect of being a man in settings with younger men, youths and boys is to model a better way of being a man and hope that they notice!!
Social media - tech platforms - no more choose their values than an axe chooses which trees to chop down. They embed and embody the values of the people who create, own and run them - and thus the people who exploit them - power, status and the master signifier itself, money.
I managed to get from Rev T's Christmas message to our old church on YouTube during Covid, via the sort of conservative, mega church I'd run screaming from to Trump's Christmas message to the MAGA faithful in about five recommendations. Watch enough of that stuff and you're totally believe what it's telling you.
Both seems more likely. People want easy answers to complicated questions and want a scapegoat. Tate, Farage etc give them that by the bucket load. The other side doesn't seem to have found a way to counter that (as yet, hopefully).
I wondered if the dad realized what he was saying. I know, for me, it sounded like someone was scratching on old chalkboard/blackboard.
And it's quite possible that the same dad, had he had a daughter, would have produced some kind of gender-neutral "there's no blood, you're OK" statement. It's much harder to shake somewhat positive stereotypes than negative stereotypes: parents who would happily affirm that their daughters are destined to be strong independent women who don't need "girly cossetting" may well, as in @Gramps49's example, fall back on more positive-seeming male stereotypes for their sons.
And it's weird to me because my parents weren't that sexist. They did traditional gender roles, but only because my mom's disabilities meant she couldn't hold down a job or do a lot of traditional grown up things. My dad carried the responsibility not because he wanted it that way, that's just how it fell out after a certain car accident, or so I understand.
But yeah, I definitely relate to "the only allowed emotion is anger." Everything felt squishy, uncomfortable, or like making yourself a target and the last thing you want to be in guy-world is a target.
Also, from my circles, I know guys who emote so loudly that they can fill the house with noise while not seeming to notice that they're experiencing emotions. Because we're trained to be logical and "in control" of ourselves. And it takes a lot of training to figure out that your emotional self is more akin to a horse than a computer. You can to learn to take your own resources into account instead of trying to be superman.
I think I've learned a lot over the years, but I'm still not good at crying. I usually laugh instead, with a bitter sense of humor and a keen nose for irony. It has taken years of personal deconstruction.
I've been known to ask my kids "Check yourself. Are you bleeding? Is anything broken?"
My attempts at instilling stoicism evidently worked too well as when Little Miss Feet caught her toe on the door the other day the first I knew was a rhythmic thudding down the hallway as she hopped silently towards me oozing blood from the nail bed. I then had to explain it's ok to shout when that happens.
Excepting massive emotional triggers (death of a loved one, total nervous breakdown) I literally cannot cry. There are times when I feel like crying, I want to cry, I even try to cry, and I still just can’t. The feelings simply have nowhere to go, no outlet. It’s awful.
I think the Brits also cry relatively little. It doesn't mean we're holding ourselves back from crying when we truly want to. Our brains recognise fewer situations in which they think crying is the thing to do. Consequently outside of those situations we don't feel like we want to cry.
I'm by and large a non-cryer even in high-stress situations where if feels as if it would be a relief to burst into tears, but if anything I become preternaturally calm. I can remember when I got a cancer diagnoses there was a hovering nurse with a box of tissues, but I was merely Oh, right. Where do we go from here?
Otoh, there are some recollections- of friends who are dead, or sentimental story even - which turn me into a perfect sponge.
In my job, I often have students crying in my office. I affirm that crying is good and healthy.
I need to try harder to take my own advice.
I don't know, but it feels like it might be true.
So, this is weirdly recent and personal. An author who I read a lot when I was a young adult and generally respected as an artist has been caught up in some truly revolting scandals of the #MeToo variety. And I do NOT want to touch that topic with a ten foot pole here, though it's giving me a lot to reflect on, because it's probably a legal matter and would derail a lot of conversations.
But weirdly, as I've been working it out in my subconscious in various ways, I was listening to a musician I deeply admire - who I think is a lot more honest about himself - and found myself laughing really hard with tears in my eyes to the thought of "Thank God this gentleman* has managed to be a famous male and not be a total insult to the human species at the same time." Plus he's still writing, unlike that other guy.
So my eyes seem to weep occasionally, sometimes under weird circumstances. And I'm sure there's a lot of displacement going on with current events. Though I think, internally, that politics feels a lot more dangerous for me to get emotionally invested in, so I don't directly emote about it even though it is, on some levels, a lot more personal than some author who apparently is allegedly a much uglier person than his public persona let on.
*Jason Isbell, if anyone is curious.
I know I said this privately, but I'll say it here. We really are a pair.
I think it was a release of tension, because you never know how powerful an individual quake is going to be until it's over.