Man and Woman He Created Them
Posted by: tony on 01/25/2008 03:52 AM
Updated by: tony on 01/25/2008 03:52 AM
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Expires: 02/25/2008 12:00 AM
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Jennifer at Et Tu? is one of my favorite reads. Her insightful, articulate prose usually surprises me. She writes:
At the time, I was part of the segment of society where traditional feminine qualities are disdained. As a woman you could express any desire, show any side of your personality, so long as it didn't involve behaviors that humans have always associated with women, like maternal instincts, the longing to nurture others, feeling sentimental, having fluctuating emotions based on your body's rhythms, wanting to be cherished by men, etc. Probably due to a lot of the recent changes in modern society -- high on the list being the constant touting of contraception as a good thing, making us start to feel that what it's "curing" must be a bad thing -- all the nurturing, life-giving aspects of being a woman were scorned. This left a huge elephant in the room around which we had to maneuver, and the result was that the two main options for acceptable behavior from women were either to act like a sex object or a man [ed.- I'm going to correct Jen here by replacing her word "man" with "male". Real men don't go for no-strings-attached sex] (or both, a la Sex in the City).
At the same time, we men were placed under the same pressures. Deference to women, such as holding doors for them, is interpreted as condescension. The desire to provide and protect their families is interpreted as patriarchy. Men are discouraged from being stoic. They need to be emotional, communicative and become in touch with their "feminine side". The competetive spirit, expressed either in a love of professional sports, hunting, fishing, golf, etc., are discouraged. Little boys have their toy guns taken away from them and are given dolls (though an interesting thing is that many boys, when handed a Barbie™ will bend her at the waist, grab her legs and shoot people with her head while saying 'bang!, bang!').
At the advent of "a woman's right to choose", men were absolved of responsibility with regard to any children they fathered. They were not held to the standards of previous generation where you took responsibility for their wife and children. The new sexual permissiveness in society, guaranteed that there would be a huge crop of children born to unmarried women. Men did not feel invested in their children, nor was there pressure from other men to do the right thing.
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