Maleness and femaleness

[avevale_intelligencer]

It's never wise to generalise about large groups, and "men" and "women" are among the largest groups in existence, whether you count the physical gender of the body at birth or the gender identified with by the individual. But everybody does it. People talk about "women's rights" as though all women wanted exactly the same rights, people talk about what "men" have done as if there was some sort of immortal male hive mind to which all males were in thrall (there isn't, is there?), whereas the spectrum of diversity contained in those two small, simple words "men" and "women" makes almost any meaningful pronouncement impractical.

But there is a cultural gestalt of "maleness" which, unlike the idealised notion of "femininity" against which the women's movement has been rebelling for years, seems to me to be more or less accurate in some if not most respects. Some of its chief characteristics:

Men believe only the opinions of men are important.

Men are either incapable of, or actively avoid, empathy.

Men exercise control over their territory through untidiness.

Men have no patience, and will resort to force at the slightest provocation.

Men do not consider consequences.

Men enjoy losing self-control and see no reason not to.

Men think women need them.

And so on. Obviously not all men fit this stereotype completely, though many in my experience have come remarkably close...but the problem I see, the difference between the male and female stereotypes, is that in general, this misleading image is not being rebelled against like its counterpart, but embraced and promoted. We (as a gender) seem to want to be like that, even to be proud of it. Magazines like Nuts and Zoo and Loaded, celebrating unreconstructed maleness at its worst, actually do well, and I see none specifically advocating an alternative image.

I remember a series of commercials for the first one of those, in which women were depicted trying to deal with domestic emergencies (and failing of course because Women Are Useless) while a sneering voice-over said "Women! Don't expect any help on a Tuesday!" Without a break, the same voice then went on "Nuts about women? Sport? Motors?" and extolled the supposed virtues of the rag in question. The jarring disjunct between the two uses of the word "women"--on the one hand, the real person in need of help but obviously not considered important enough to be given it, and on the other, the airbrushed, objectified nudes or semi-nudes with which male readers were invited to people their fetid imaginations--appalled me, as did the advertisers' seeming unawareness thereof. (In retrospect, they were probably perfectly well aware of it. Sometimes getting people talking about an advert is enough, even if they're outraged by it.)

As long as this state of affairs continues--as long as the brainless, infantile, violent caveman/lager-lout image is promoted as an ideal of maleness instead of being derided as an outmoded cliché--then while I will honour individual men who transcend the limitations of their gender and become something more (and I am privileged to know several), I can see very little hope for maleness in general.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I've got a couple of those problems, mostly the untidiness part. But I often think through consequences too much, so much that I delay action. And, bluntly, without the women in my life, their opinions and expertise and maturity when I'm an idiot, I'd be lost.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Me too, on all counts.

I don't think women are ideal beings either, but as a general rule they are reliably a cut or several above us, and that needs to be conveyed to all men in a way that will inspire them to be better.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

My firm opinion is people are people, and while there are social gender trends that have some validity, to judge any person, regardless of their gender, based on a stereotype is to do a disservice.

I assume all men and women are mature, intelligent, responsible and empathetic people until or unless they prove me wrong.

At least, that's my ideal. I fall short sometimes, but that is what I try for. I am proven right a decent amount of the time for both genders and all inbetween. :)

[batyatoon]

This.

Men are not inferior to women any more than vice versa.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe what seems to me to be a qualitative difference is my perception of a personal preference. And maybe that perception is also conditioned by the fact that women haven't been doing horrible things to men and telling them it was their fault for the last several millennia. Any gender whose members can regard that state of affairs as not only normal but desirable has something missing in my view.

But, you're right...one judges individuals as individuals. It's the only way.

[batyatoon]

... well, strictly speaking, there's no human being who's been doing anything for the last several millennia, for the simple reason that we don't live that long.

I say again that you do your gender a disservice. You personally don't regard that state as normal or desirable, and you have as much right to represent The Male as anyone.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

... well, strictly speaking, there's no human being who's been doing anything for the last several millennia, for the simple reason that we don't live that long.

And you know what I mean. :)

Looking back at the post, though, I still think my comments are fair, since they are primarily addressing a culture. The fact is that, while the women's movement is trying to build a cultural image for women that is truer and fairer than the one handed down by the patriarchy, there is no such concerted effort on my side of the fence; there seems, if anything, rather to be a concerted retreat into the old, hopelessly outmoded cultural image of the caveman, the "action hero," the lout. I wish it wasn't so, but I fear it is. I am male, but in many, many ways I don't represent what men think of when they think "male." I don't represent what *I* think of when I think "male," and in most ways that is the result of a deliberate choice. If I see a substantive change for the better, be sure I shall rejoice about it.

Anyway, if I were going to do any gender a disservice, what better than my own?