Hang with me on this. It's a little round about.
At lunch today I had an intriguing discussion with three other women colleagues. Each of us has a dynamic, interesting mother who does amazing things... takes big risks, pursues advanced degrees late in life, generally engages exuberantly with the world. Each of us had a father who was threatened by our moms in one way or another. The reactions ranged from fathers who undercut the moms verbally... became coincidentally sick themselves during a major household crisis... to those who outright physically abused our moms. All of our parents are divorced.
I've thought so much lately about how engaged and resilient many of the women I know are. There seems to be a realization that the world is exciting, challenging and unfolding. I think of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler - comedians and actresses who bring intelligence, authenticity and real joy to their work. They are so fresh. Honestly, I see so few men who feel that way. There seems to be a dark cloud over many men and I wonder what lies at the core of this.
Does it have to do with the fact women had a big revolution over the past century - but there was no similar, obvious opening for men?
Recently, I spoke with a young male friend of mine who is in crisis. He's talented... smart... charming. He's been battling substance abuse for years. I asked what demons are torturing him. He was embarrassed to tell me, but I was happy he did. He said, "I thought I was going to be a rock star... but it's obvious that I am not."
You could almost laugh at that answer, but he was serious. Could there be a clue in this answer about what is torturing men around us? Is this about huge societal expectations and inevitable failure? Or is it more nuanced than that?
I watched the Batman film "The Dark Knight" last night - and the film was one big indulgence around a brooding, depressed pathology. There was no resolution offered and none expected. The darkness was the point, the precious thing to be engaged. As one of the women at lunch pointed out - a resolution would make the movie happy. A resolution would make the movie a chick flick.
I think about other popular films... "No Country for Old Men", "There Will be Blood" both garnered Oscar nominations... and popular TV shows are "24", "House"... about men, depressed, repressed, dark, unresolved, unresolvable. Heath Ledger, star of "The Dark Knight" was so brooding and depressed that he committed suicide.
How do you reach a population about awareness of diversity issues and bring along a cultural shift when the majority of the population seems to consider their brooding pathology a form of poetry? The brooding pathology seems to be the root of masculinity in a vast part of our culture; the basis for much of our popular arts. To consider other individuals or possibilities out there would be a failure. You could lose your precious darkness.
My friend Amy Sarch teaches women's studies at Shenandoah University and is one person I know who is reaching a male audience around women's issues. One of the football players who took her class now proudly calls himself a feminist. I hope to speak with her soon - and some of her students to gain a little more insight. More then. In the meantime... I would love your feedback!!
8 comments:
This is a stream-of-conciousness, unpolished response. And makes huge generalisations about men and women. I apologise for that, and acknowledge the exceptions.
SO it starts with a reference to popular TV: Lost. There's a character in Lost called Locke. He has a multitude of issues in adult life (depression, disillusionment, anger) which we are lead to attribute to the fact that as a child he was told that he was special, destined for greatness etc. And it never materialised (until he crashlanded on an improbably idyllic enchanted island).
This, and your story about the non-rockstar, (not to mention observations of the relationship between my Italian boyfriend and his mother) got me to thinking:
Do we set them up for disappointment? In the way that we (women) care for boys and men, in the way that we nurture them and support them in their every creative dream, make them feel more special than they objectively are? And so do we lead them to expect things from life that in all probability are never going to happen?
And by rejoicing in the opportunities that are now out there for women, do we almost do the opposite for ourselves? We celebrate again and again that it's possible for us to have jobs, to vote, to survive financially independent of a man... And I know that these things were hard fought for, but the point is that (once the institutional barriers were taken down) all of them were also always immanently achievable.
Especially compared that is to becoming a world-famous poet, a rock-star, a pvc-wearing crusader of the night etc.
It's not exactly that our expectations are lower. It's just that women are still delighting in doing those things we always knew we could do, but were never allowed to. While a lot of men seem to want things that, whilst we would gladly support them to do, are almost entirely unattainable. And then there's this bitterness that we're having all the fun and they're not.
Just a thought.
Paulette - Have you read Susan Faludi's book Stifted? I think you'll find it speaks to this issue.
And while you're at it, I recommend her more recent book, Terror Dreams. It explores the gendered templates that shape the way Americans see their (our?) history and challenges.
Howard
Thank you!!! - I think there is truth in there - the setting up for greatness and inevitable disappointment. So are we really from Venus and Mars?? The whole concept of the sexes being in two worlds has been explored before.
Where do we intersect? How do we end up on the same page?
just a quick post . . . how did Lilly Ledbetter reached across the aisle and came up to fruition in yesterday's signing of equal payment bill in the US?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/opinion/29collins.html?_r=1
Venus and Mars . . . don't forget that even different planets, they orbit around the same Sun, Inti, Sol, Soleil, Sonne, 太陽, Sole, Zon . . .. lots in come right there!!!
:o)
Paulette! Your struggle with this question has really put my brain to work. The first layer of thought Thursday/Friday was filled with programs, interventions, etc that can be utilized to bring about the change, but that seems like such a superficial way to respond to your question. It seems to me that what you're looking for is a deeper understanding of how to bridge that gap created by dichotomous social roles and change attitudes that are so pervasive across cultures and country boundaries.
So I thought about it some more..
Here are some thoughts:
* It seems to me that the way boys are nurtured as children has a significant impact on what self-soothing mechanisms they develop over the years and thus how they later are able to handle natural human emotions such as fear, anger, and jealousy as adults. I'm not an expert in anthropology, but it seems that there is a distinction between what the majority of the human race seems to think of as appropriate forms of self-soothing for girls versus boys. For example, when a girl is cries, it seen as a natural reaction and thus that self-soothing mechanism is accepted and the girl/woman is allowed to engage in it as necessary. For boys, crying is positioned and/or interpreted differently, and thus leaves the boys looking for alternative methods of self-soothing -- this is where they look to male role models or to social norms for alternatives. So its possible that the gender roles (masculinity versus femininity) that have been part of the human race since old days, are passed on to new generations from birth and through critical developmental phases -- when this happens, the habits, behaviors, etc are learned in childhood are very likely to carry on into adulthood.
* Now, why do we glorify the poetic misery of men? Because people before us have. Building on what I just said above, I'll link it to the "pot roast analogy". I dont remember if I've told you about this or not, but the story basically points to the truth that we - as humans - look to others for examples of how to behave and what to do, etc - we learn from our teachers and our environment. Sometimes, we dont question the things we learn. So the story is basically such:
A young lady, recently married, cooks a pot roast for her new husband. When the husband pulls the pot roast out of the oven, he notices that his wife has cut off the four side corners and he is curious to know why. He asks, and she answers "that's what you're supposed to do", when he asked where she learned that from she responded "its what my mom always did". So then he asks the mother-in-law why she cuts the edges off the pot roast, and she replied "that's what you're supposed to do, my mom always did it". So then at Christmas when the whole family got together, the husband asked his new wife's grandmother why she cut the edges off and she said "I never had a pan big enough for the roasts, so I had to cut the edges off". So basically it's the same story -- why do we glorify the male misery? Because generations before us did, and not enough people have stopped to question it. Maybe it was necessary at one point to have dichotomous views of men and women, men as protectors, bread winners - and women as nurturers, delicate. I highlight also that there are men who are not caught up in their misery, who are not lacking in effective self-soothing mechanisms, and families who have questioned the "acceptable" gendered social norms and are raising their children differently.
*Lastly, I'll say that I dont think that this setup for greatness is gender specific. Plenty of women think or thought they were would be the next Audrey Hepburn, or first female president, and plenty of women are disillusioned out there. For example, I know my mother went through a lot of disillusionment. The difference, I think, is not that we have lower goals in our lives and avoid suffering disillusionment, but that women possess or allowed better ways of coping with our feelings in general, including disillusionment. This goes back to the self-soothing mechanisms.
As a resource/exercise, for how to begin creating change related to this issue area, I'll suggest that you take a look into Prochaska's model of change which has 6 stage. The stages are: 1. Pre-contemplation, 2. Contemplation, 3. Preparation, 4. Action, 5.Maintenance and 6. Relapse. From an evidence based perspective, this model is pretty effective for helping conceptualize and understand the process of change, and for helping someone/something change.
Each of these steps is critical to the process, i.e. Pre-contemplation - if someone isn't ready for change, to the point that they haven't even recognize the need or desire to change, they won't be ready for action and if you try to force someone to act on creating change before steps 1 and 2 are in place, they're very likely to fail.
There are textbooks and research articles galore on this topic if you want to know more, but below is a very quick reference:
http://www.cellinteractive.com/ucla/physcian_ed/stages_change.html
I appreciate that you're wrestling with this issue. Its good, too, that you're pushing us to struggle along with you too by engaging us in a discussion with you.
That's all for now :-D
Wonderful analysis and resources - Berenice - thank you. I AM struggling with this and I think it is critical to our section to begin at least to wrap our brains around what we have to work with. I agree - there are plenty of men who have found ways of coping.. and the NYTimes article about this years Oscar nominees points to a shift in cultural norms (at least from LAST year :) around the brooding male worship. That is the good news.. but that culture sneaks up on you when you least expect it!!
great pitch and ingaging discussion! i'm late in posting something with thought, but i'll try to jam myself.
first, i don't have theoretical background, just experienced knowledge. I don't know if there is a universal gap between geneders across the world each culture has different roles for each gender and age segment. My best friend at home and with whom i have the best interaction is my youngest sister, so the gender gap seems null here.
Also, I feel that i can only speak for the areas of the world that i've been and interacted. Other parts of the wrold seem so forwien to me that i need to be there to say something coherent. This came to me stronger when a friend working in the border between pakistan and afganistan said that while interviewing women with burkhas he was told that in their traditional dress they feel more free. How can i say much about their gaps if i have no clues about their lives?
But from the places i've experienced, i can tell something. A dear friend of mine from chile once told me that looking back at her life as a teacher, having lived her life with a lot of pressure to raise her family having divorced her husband, and looking at her daughters troubles with their husdbands, looking back she had only one way to explain her troubles. She could explain her conflicts by understanding that it's the way that them, teachers and mothers, raised the boys in their homes and classes. Otherwise, she couldn't understand the lack of commitment, responsability, courage and happiness that she had observed.
And this goes in line with what was commented before.Maybe one universal thing to take home is that the gaps in each culture are transmited to the next generation by induction, inbuilt mechanisms of culture transmission.
I am about to start teaching my spring course in the School fo Education for high school social studies teachers. I was challenged 2 years ago to introduce gender issues in my syllabus, and this conversation inspires me to take on that challenge. I would be interested to see how simpler issues as those in my class have different perceptions by gender . . . . i could find interesting things . . .
And last, in environmental education there is a 3 step way to approach change and it has been used to movilized kids in europe, India, Africa and Latinamerica: Feel, Understand, Act.
Bernice's 7 steps could be a subdivision of this basic steps. the idea behind is easy to understand. Nobody acts on something for whihc they don't have a mental representation or explanation, and nothing is understood internally if they don't feel in their skin the implications of it. Hope this explanation of the method we used in Argentina for long time might work for this project.
Good evening, from the kingdom far far away,
Javier
just found this about expectations when being a kid . . .it seems that the adults in the portrait are gender unbiased.
:o)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7MBrKb2ECQ&feature=related
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