The masculine role in society

Post Reply New Topic

I'm not. The point I hoped to make is that if we divided tasks according to our abilities instead of traditional roles, things WOULD have been better - no speculation, pure certainty. She already had a great job and connections in the paralegal workforce - she would easily be earning 50-100% more than me. That extra money alone would've made things better for us.

Yes!

Just switch the genders from my perspective.

I'll elaborate more later; I have to go offline now as apparently I don't get paid if I don't show up to work.

^^^

So I guess the question should be... why didn't you two do that instead if it is the obvious and logical thing to do? Was it because she did not want to?

Exactly. She became hostile at the mere mention that our strengths and resources were not being used... she was a LOUSY homemaker and I'm a pretty good one. She had the connections and edjumcashun to make a lot more money - it just made sense to use those skills... flat-out refusal. She's the mom - she's staying home and that's that. End of discussion.

I wouldn't have objected if she performed her chosen role reasonably well... instead, I had to come home from a miserable, abusive job then clean the house, cook dinner and do the entire day's dishes. I also did significant childcare so she could sleep 10-12 hours, often making me late for work because I couldn't very well leave our young child unattended while she slept!

Not to mention the implied insult that if I were a "real man" I'd fill my role of "provider" better by earning more money AND doing more housework, and not let people bully me at work. A grown man being bullied is the ultimate sign of a LOO-ZERR!!)

i hate, despise, loathe gender roles with a huge ragining, burning passion!

BlueMax, get your sweet butt over here now, I go to work and you stay at home...Wow thats sexy.

Did she ever express the reasons behind her refusal to consider your proposition? Or did she just give you excuses rather than her real answer?

No real discussion, just a flat NO. The best I ever managed to get out of her was, "That's your responsibility - now go do it"... so I'd work 50-60h weeks just so she could take the kids to the zoo and other fun things almost daily.



I actually have to wonder if you're serious or not... so many people would point and laugh at what'd be considered a severe lack of masculinity.

I second that

Are you suggesting a matriarchy, where men still do the physical labor and fight the wars, but women make the decisions regarding it?

My role is to provide to the needs of the relationship, whatever they end up being, as dictated by that which I am capable of and that which my partner is capable of. Is there anything else that could possibly be more logical?

I generally find myself the sort to want to go out and do and accomplish things, so I suspect that I could fill a "provider" role reasonably well. I would absolutely never let myself be in a submissive position in any relationship, and I would prefer to not have a submissive partner either.

Ok, A few quick things.

1. The male female dynamic in this (especially the less value + property + objectification = violence against women) thing doesn't apply one bit for those raised later on, after the sexual revolution. In fact, we were raised the OPPOSITE, to respect them at every bloody end, no matter how we were disrespected, and to put them on a pedestal. So, you can't make that apply to all, or even most men, beyond a certain generation

2. For Aspies/Autistic men, we have an even greater deal of respect than the norm I just listed, so it's sort of like not only preaching to the choir, but reading the entire bible. We've been told about this since our first memories We got it when we were in diapers. You're talking to the wrong crowd.

3. Finally, the rest is important, but he's missing things. You see, other than the male-female respect factor, the norms DO remain and there are consequences if you're raised to either not be aware of them or to not follow them. Often DIRE consequences.

So, I'll go over them all, and explain the problems with them.

My experience. I was raised like this (Yes means I was, no means I wasn't):

Don't cry or openly express emotions - YES and NO (conflicting)
with the exception of anger - YES and NO (conflicting)
Do no show weakness or fear - NO
Demonstrate power and control - NO
especially over women - NO
Agression-Dominance - NO
Protector - NO
Do not be "like a woman" - YES
Heterosexual - YES
Do not be "like a gay man" - YES
Tough-Athletic-Strength-Courage - NO
Makes decision-Does not need help - YES
Views women as properties/objects - NO

The point I'm making is that we don't live in a bubble, and if these norms are present and we don't account for that, there are serious consequences to not being raised to follow them. The consequence depends on the person you're working with. So, I'm going to have to break it down by career (work environment), partners and friends.

Consequences to career of being raised without being aware of everything I've listed above has been pretty much to my determent. I know it's not supposed to be that way, but it's a dog-eat-dog world, for the most part. And, I had to learn how to fight after being beaten down first.

Consequences to partners/dating? It sort of baffles me when women say that men should be freed of these ties but then get turned off, when they don't have us as their "rock." They get turned off if we're not dominant. They get turned off if we don't act like a protector. They get turned off if we don't decide where to go for dinner. They get turned off if we don't exercise power and control (respectfully, mind you). It blows my mind when women don't look in the mirror about this. Be honest about your feelings and desires to yourself. Seriously. It's horrible to a man's dating life to fall outside of the box, period.

Consequences to friends?

Well, this is where bullying comes about. By being raised not to be dominant, I was a target! This is what happens when you have a passive boy on the playground and the norm is otherwise, meaning other kids will behave that way and the teachers will let it slide. Luckily, I have an extraordinarily powerful defensive instinct, so I raised complete hell and stopped it, but not after taking sh*t for maybe even a year. And, this can go on to many more things.

Bottom line - while this is a fine gesture, especially those raised this way, many people have not, and while respect to women is highly important and can easily be done (and should), if we don't follow the rest of society's norms, we're in for a world of hurt.

My role is to be totally gangsta and for my girlfriend to attend to all my needs and be in awe of my badassery.

I'm just kidding. I want my partner to be my equal and my friend. I'm not very picky about the particulars. I think I don't care whether I have the provider role , but I do enjoy what I'm learning at university and I want to put it to use. I'm going to be an engineer/physicist, so if my girlfriend thinks that I'm going to give up my job to be house-taker, then she had better be Nobel-prize material. I want children, and ideally I think once the kids were old enough not to need constant attention, that both my partner and I should work. I think both people in a relationship should maintain their individual identity, and I think it's kind of unfortunate that many women have to stay home to take care of kids out of a mixture of biological necessity and societal pressure.

When I had my German girlfriend and I was considering marrying her when I got done with college, I imagined that I would do most of the housework (while still working) because she is a workaholic doctor, and it would not be fair to expect her to put in so many more hours than me in work (I will never work as hard as she does) as well as taking care of house. I was imagining though that she'd have to make me a to-do list, because I'm not as sensitive to dirtiness as she is, and I would not know what I had to do to make her comfortable.

I think it's kind of silly how upset everyone got about the question. I never interpreted it as being in favor of some sort of conformity; obviously you perform some sort of role in a relationship, pretty much by definition.

This is definitely an interesting topic, and it's about time I participated. The best way for me, as usual, will be to ramble and see what I end up with.

I didn't watch that video from the point of view of gender differences and perceived female inferiority, but from the point of view of what does it mean to be a man. Personal experience; I've not had important issues with the former, but I definitely have with the latter. That list from the man box, I can ser where they come from; some of those points were taught to me by main father, mainly, don't cry "he always gave me a very hard time when I did" and others I learned from society sooner or later, some of them definitely a bit too late for my own good. And someone else has already mentioned this, but I will do it again; to thrive in this society among the other men, it is necessary to know these things, and follow them in their presence. Bullying has been mentioned; not being a man will make you a target. Or it won't let you be taken seriously, there have been times I've had to purposefully overreact, lest I will just be ignored because I was too soft-spoken and conciliatory for a man (although now that I think of it, that would make people to intrinsically not take women seriously, like the talk was saying. Interesting)

But simply following the rules without doing anything about it is not acceptable either, otherwise, how will things ever change? Awareness like the TED talk is a good first step. Then, applying some things yourself , seeing how much you can get away with, and not being apologetic about it. I've pulled off dancing with a guy in a gay nightclub to the point everyone thought I was going to kiss him . Then I told them "no I'm not gay but I liked dancing with him" and they stopped talking about it. Setting an example is important.

On my role in a LTR, I still feel like it's pretty much what it would be expected to. Not that I think it should be like that, but I still have the nagging feeling that the average woman would expect that from me. Be a provider, take care of things, act like the man, be the dominant one, also, now much of this is cultural conditioning, and how much of it goes deeper?

I've been somewhat busy these last couple of days, final exams and such, and I'd really like to finish this semester as properly as I can But now I posted, and I'll be around~

I posted it simply because gender roles - both the old and the new - were not and are still not working.

In my mind it is simply easier to do one of two things - either redefine them both - or throw them away altogether.

Getting rid of them altogether and simply viewing everyone as people as individuals who get to decide in their own relationships and social role will be seems more preferable to me. It opens us the door enormously not just for gender roles, stereotypes, discrimination and differences to be set aside - but also for the same issues with the differently abled (including us), class, race and ethnicity, and the LGBT movement too - essientally exactly what we need for equality in the true sense of the word.

I wanted to see if the other here also came to the same conclusion about getting rid of them entirely of their own accord (without me leading them to it) - and it seems like many have.

That however - does not make the asnwers to those personal questions about relationships any less interesting. If anything, it makes them more interesting - especially since most here are essentially already doing that within their own relationships or would prefer to in their future ones.

I've just started reading a great article from the Globe & Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/celebrate-boys-boyness-and-work-with-it/article5370557/

It scratches the surface on how men and masculinity is basically disappearing... how young men are no longer getting what they need or finding a place.

* I just finished reading it. Fantastic article but far too short - daddy needs more!! OMnomnom!