From Psychology Today, The Big Stall
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Facial hair? Check
Big man boots? Check
Ugly tattoo signifying he ain't nothing to fuck with? Check
But why is he cupping his balls?
The great, overarching question always presented in these thought pieces concerning "men and gender" is thus: What does the author want to be true? Are we advancing as a society? Are men's wayward penises still the problem? How can feminism cure these problems caused by "progressive social policies" the lingering hangover of white male patriarchy?
Tagline:
Nothing is quite so irksome like all the supporting characters in a woman's life not behaving like they should. How come [not enough] men are advancing alongside their female peers?
Inferior? As perceived by whom? Assuming this amorphous group of individuals could be reasonably ascertained, his bright idea to disprove these irrational beliefs is to get a Ph.D. in psychology -- evolutionary psychology, no less. Doesn't he know people who think wetbacks were created to serve Joe Blow usually hate the monkey-science mumbo jumbo of evolution? Book-learnin' is for fags. Relax, jeez.
Anyways. What is important about this passage isn't this story about Jose Chung, but about how journalists use personal stories to frame particular issues. Instead of exploring a particular issue or demographic from multiple angles, these sorts of manipulative pieces pick a person to frame the issue in a decidedly non-objective way.
Here, Roberto is held up as an example of the right kind of male: inoffensive, marginally of color and emotionally expressive. He believes in evolution, can sympathize with being "seen as less" like women are and despite the crushing indignities visited upon him, still believes the best lies ahead of us as humans, not behind. Impressive.
Ah, the great question: Are women and men battling it out in the eternal struggle between the sexes and women are "finally" besting men? Or have men simply left the battlefield? Remember, we don't have Mulan without a bunch of men who look down on the wee little woman eventually getting one-upped by the woman.
What has to stick in the craw of many women is, despite all the social advancements conferred upon them, they feel a lingering sense of in-authenticity, fraudulence -- while they should be enjoying having it all, it doesn't quite work. It can't be that the whole system is rotten, corroded and based more out of economic exploitation than anything else, so the problem has to be men.
Go ahead and try to summarize her point here. I dare you.
Regardless of the author's convoluted language she undoubtedly learned getting educated, her point here is clear: this isn't how it is supposed to work for women. The restrictive, dully unimaginative gender roles of the past have been dismantled and women have finally been taught to go out and "conquer the world," embracing it in all of its glorious complications. But men haven't gotten the message. Or have they?
Apparently we haven't. Men just can't handle a strong, successful woman. While women bask in the glow of their partner's accomplishments (meaning it adds to their identity), men don't do the same.
The study cited is dubious, most clearly because it sounds jerry-rigged (the study's author expected men and women to rejoice in each other's accomplishments and she just magically found out that men behaved in a sexist manner? Please.). Further, and most importantly, it sounds like the men and women in the relationship weren't on the same page -- they do not share similar values or outlooks in life. When women aren't fully connected and happy with a relationship, the man is the problem. When men aren't fully connected and happy with a relationship, the man is the problem. Point taken, Hillary.
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I blame TV, action movies and relentless attacks on male and female usefulness in the home, but the author and the study seem fine with blaming ingrained gender roles and sexism. Gotcha.
The rest of the article is a predictable hodgepodge of selections from radical feminist theory and pseudo-psychology whisked together with a few dashes of evolutionary theory and Warrell Farrell-esq appeals. It is fine in the terrible and banal way most mainstream articles read about the crisis facing men, but the article wraps up with a bracing, fleeting bit of insight:
His conclusion is wrong, but the feelings of homelessness and abandonment are what is salient here. He isn't saying that his is free to define himself however he wants, he is saying what is important is to define oneself as a man as opposed to what came before. The article takes for granted that this isn't the '50's, we have had decades of gendered social upheaval, these men can't define themselves against their "sexist, macho" dads because they don't exist. That worked for their own fathers.
For these wayward young men of today, to define themselves against the wretched masculinity of the past is to cling to ill-formed and confusing stereotypes they have read about in school and watched on TV. Don Draper is nobody's role model, but Mad Men was wildly popular with the liberal demographic precisely because it afforded them peace of mind -- a batch of easy stereotypes to define themselves against. When you have such "clear" examples of who not to be, it is easy which path to chose. These men's fathers rebelled against the lazy, macho masculinity of the past and embraced a world full of meaning, life and decency, right? Isn't that what Kramer v. Kramer is about?
No. If these men are going to rebel against their fathers, it would be to chose apathy, self-neglect and stagnation. To piss on their father's world of unbridled consumerism, pansexuality and stale, idle preachments. These men aren't sundering under the yoke of sexism, they are struggling to identify in a world demands they achieve but saddles them with obscene amounts of student loan debt for an education. Then this world expects them to yield to women in the workplace, to fight for some vague, undefined future with women, but woo the dollies tenderly -- but not in a sexist way! -- on dates after work. Madness! Sheer madness!
The author of this piece -- The Big Stall -- merely hopes that the problem is sexism. With more feminism, more socialism (but all the brands of capitalism) and more androgynous males, the author thinks the storm of these "growing pains" will break and the healing sunlight of equality will brighten the land. That isn't what will happen because between the glib observations of male stagnation and increasingly fragile identities, the article manages to wrest up the belly of the beast -- that modern men are rootless, directionless and don't even have an sexist, macho father to define themselves against. But -- hope against hope! -- for something borrowed, something blue with a woman:
It is true that both men and women will have to learn to live with sexual tensions more gracefully if we are to have a future worth fighting for, but I'm not holding my breath on that happening any time soon.
Facial hair? Check
Big man boots? Check
Ugly tattoo signifying he ain't nothing to fuck with? Check
But why is he cupping his balls?
The great, overarching question always presented in these thought pieces concerning "men and gender" is thus: What does the author want to be true? Are we advancing as a society? Are men's wayward penises still the problem? How can feminism cure these problems caused by "progressive social policies" the lingering hangover of white male patriarchy?
Tagline:
Quote:Quote:
At school, on the job, and in mating life, young men are making no progress and even backsliding. This isn’t the way women’s advancement is supposed to work.
Nothing is quite so irksome like all the supporting characters in a woman's life not behaving like they should. How come [not enough] men are advancing alongside their female peers?
Quote:Quote:
He was born Roberto Valero in Bolivia and grew up as Richard Holler, first in Washington, D.C., then in Philadelphia, the adopted son of Caucasian parents. After graduating from Penn State, he spent a year interning at the University of Texas with one of the rock stars of evolutionary psychology, wending his way toward a Ph.D., which he hopes to ply in some unorthodox way—maybe in law, or in education, or as part of a traveling delegation. His friends consider him that rare specimen, an emotionally expressive male. “I’m not pure anything,” he says proudly. “I have a multifaceted identity.” And from it he draws an unusual degree of motivation. “I’m aware of the stereotypes of Hispanics,” he says. “Part of my success comes from being in a group often seen as inferior. I see that as not true. Now I’m proving it.”
Inferior? As perceived by whom? Assuming this amorphous group of individuals could be reasonably ascertained, his bright idea to disprove these irrational beliefs is to get a Ph.D. in psychology -- evolutionary psychology, no less. Doesn't he know people who think wetbacks were created to serve Joe Blow usually hate the monkey-science mumbo jumbo of evolution? Book-learnin' is for fags. Relax, jeez.
Anyways. What is important about this passage isn't this story about Jose Chung, but about how journalists use personal stories to frame particular issues. Instead of exploring a particular issue or demographic from multiple angles, these sorts of manipulative pieces pick a person to frame the issue in a decidedly non-objective way.
Here, Roberto is held up as an example of the right kind of male: inoffensive, marginally of color and emotionally expressive. He believes in evolution, can sympathize with being "seen as less" like women are and despite the crushing indignities visited upon him, still believes the best lies ahead of us as humans, not behind. Impressive.
Quote:Quote:
As women advance, however, men are stalling in their development, increasingly stuck in place and even backsliding
Ah, the great question: Are women and men battling it out in the eternal struggle between the sexes and women are "finally" besting men? Or have men simply left the battlefield? Remember, we don't have Mulan without a bunch of men who look down on the wee little woman eventually getting one-upped by the woman.
What has to stick in the craw of many women is, despite all the social advancements conferred upon them, they feel a lingering sense of in-authenticity, fraudulence -- while they should be enjoying having it all, it doesn't quite work. It can't be that the whole system is rotten, corroded and based more out of economic exploitation than anything else, so the problem has to be men.
Quote:Quote:
Behind the big stall lies a new fact of life. In our increasingly complex economy, education is ever more tightly tied to work and family. Not only are the three domains together the pillars of the American Dream of mobility and success, but with rising gains in the payoff from formal and informal education, it’s no longer possible to advance in one sphere without taking steps to improve the others, contends a new report on poverty and the American Dream jointly issued by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution. Increasingly, education determines economic prospects, and education and earnings prescribe relationship prospects. And family functioning, thanks as much to social-emotional advantages as to the cognitive ones that stable adult relationships confer on the young, is now a significant determinant of educational attainment.
Go ahead and try to summarize her point here. I dare you.
Regardless of the author's convoluted language she undoubtedly learned getting educated, her point here is clear: this isn't how it is supposed to work for women. The restrictive, dully unimaginative gender roles of the past have been dismantled and women have finally been taught to go out and "conquer the world," embracing it in all of its glorious complications. But men haven't gotten the message. Or have they?
Quote:Quote:
It may be that while many males openly welcome the progress of women, deep down, beyond even their own awareness, they can’t help interpreting it as their own failure. And a dented sense of self-efficacy is highly subversive, derailing achievement motivation and destroying resilience, among many effects.
Apparently we haven't. Men just can't handle a strong, successful woman. While women bask in the glow of their partner's accomplishments (meaning it adds to their identity), men don't do the same.
The study cited is dubious, most clearly because it sounds jerry-rigged (the study's author expected men and women to rejoice in each other's accomplishments and she just magically found out that men behaved in a sexist manner? Please.). Further, and most importantly, it sounds like the men and women in the relationship weren't on the same page -- they do not share similar values or outlooks in life. When women aren't fully connected and happy with a relationship, the man is the problem. When men aren't fully connected and happy with a relationship, the man is the problem. Point taken, Hillary.
Quote:Quote:
When asked what bothers them most these days, many said, in the words of one 34-year-old, “the fear that they will not be enough for the women they love.” “We’re scared that we won’t have the ability to keep up,” said a 29-year-old.
I blame TV, action movies and relentless attacks on male and female usefulness in the home, but the author and the study seem fine with blaming ingrained gender roles and sexism. Gotcha.
The rest of the article is a predictable hodgepodge of selections from radical feminist theory and pseudo-psychology whisked together with a few dashes of evolutionary theory and Warrell Farrell-esq appeals. It is fine in the terrible and banal way most mainstream articles read about the crisis facing men, but the article wraps up with a bracing, fleeting bit of insight:
Quote:Quote:
Caught in a no man’s land between identities, many young males feel “pressure to be ‘masculine’ while not being antisocial,” says Grant Turner, 33, a human-performance coach in Victoria, British Columbia. “We’re really like pioneers. Each man is left to define dating and fatherhood in a way that is different from previous generations. As we move toward a more open society, those living the change will be the ones who experience the most growing pains.”
His conclusion is wrong, but the feelings of homelessness and abandonment are what is salient here. He isn't saying that his is free to define himself however he wants, he is saying what is important is to define oneself as a man as opposed to what came before. The article takes for granted that this isn't the '50's, we have had decades of gendered social upheaval, these men can't define themselves against their "sexist, macho" dads because they don't exist. That worked for their own fathers.
For these wayward young men of today, to define themselves against the wretched masculinity of the past is to cling to ill-formed and confusing stereotypes they have read about in school and watched on TV. Don Draper is nobody's role model, but Mad Men was wildly popular with the liberal demographic precisely because it afforded them peace of mind -- a batch of easy stereotypes to define themselves against. When you have such "clear" examples of who not to be, it is easy which path to chose. These men's fathers rebelled against the lazy, macho masculinity of the past and embraced a world full of meaning, life and decency, right? Isn't that what Kramer v. Kramer is about?
No. If these men are going to rebel against their fathers, it would be to chose apathy, self-neglect and stagnation. To piss on their father's world of unbridled consumerism, pansexuality and stale, idle preachments. These men aren't sundering under the yoke of sexism, they are struggling to identify in a world demands they achieve but saddles them with obscene amounts of student loan debt for an education. Then this world expects them to yield to women in the workplace, to fight for some vague, undefined future with women, but woo the dollies tenderly -- but not in a sexist way! -- on dates after work. Madness! Sheer madness!
The author of this piece -- The Big Stall -- merely hopes that the problem is sexism. With more feminism, more socialism (but all the brands of capitalism) and more androgynous males, the author thinks the storm of these "growing pains" will break and the healing sunlight of equality will brighten the land. That isn't what will happen because between the glib observations of male stagnation and increasingly fragile identities, the article manages to wrest up the belly of the beast -- that modern men are rootless, directionless and don't even have an sexist, macho father to define themselves against. But -- hope against hope! -- for something borrowed, something blue with a woman:
Quote:Quote:
Young males understand that they potentially have a lot to gain from women’s advancement. Which may be why so many, asked what they expect out of a relationship, responded: “Reciprocation.” “To be understood.” “Someone who will add a new dimension to my life.” As a 28-year-old says, “More and better-quality shared experiences.” And, at some point, perhaps when young men and women have found a new rapprochement, “more dancing.”
It is true that both men and women will have to learn to live with sexual tensions more gracefully if we are to have a future worth fighting for, but I'm not holding my breath on that happening any time soon.