A few things.
At 06:23 PM 3/31/2006, you wrote:
>On 1/4/06 3:36 AM, "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > At the world reconfigures the entry of women
> > into the traditional bastions of male power, it has not dealt with the
> > issues of how to reconfigure the role of men - in ways that are considerate
> > and empowering and, simultaneously, respectful of the rise of women.
> > Some may laugh to think this is an issue, but I see it, no only
> with my son,
> > but many other guys who are wandering lost and feeling without place.
>
>I don't think there's any doubt that this has links to the high suicide rate
>among (particularly middle aged) men.
Whenever anyone says "I don't think there's any doubt" it's a pretty
good sign that there's a lot of doubt. Personally, I think this is
nonsense, but I could be persuaded by evidence rather than theorizing
and pronouncement. There are simply a lot of variables here. For
instance, in the US women attempt suicide three times as often as men
but succeed far less. Women tend to use less violent means--the odds
of surviving an overdose are a lot greater than surviving a shotgun
blast in the mouth, and men own almost all the guns. It's their
preferred way to do themselves in.
I'm not sure why all of this mythologizing is necessary. It rather
reminds me of Freud, who leaps from children and men competing for
mom's limited time to a struggle of cosmic proportions that explains
everything.
>The empty configurations of
>masculinity, which heavily depend on a sense of male entitlement that in
>turn depends on the denigration of femininity, including what's seen as
>female in themselves, are a huge part of this problem. Hence the links
>between misogyny and homophobia. I think it's very difficult for young men
>and boys; in my own observation, gender conditioning starts much earlier for
>boys and is much more insistent for boys than for girls (girls can get away
>with slipping between genders until adolescence, but then the pressures
>really kick in).
There have been endless studies of this, based on lengthy observation
of children at play in preschool and kindergarten. Gender roles
appear to be pretty strongly defined for most members of all genders
by age 5. There are areas of flexibility, sure, but also for both genders.
>On the other hand, I do see lots of young men these days who are also very
>comfortable with the power of women, and who have no problem relating to
>girls as mates. It doesn't occur to them not to, and it doesn't threaten
>their own sense of themselves as male. They are boys who have been raised
>with the assumption that women are human beings too and of as much
>consequence as girls, so the idea isn't a shock. So it goes both ways.
>Though I begin to wonder if that's just an Australian thing. US society
>seems in general much more macho and certainly much more militaristic.
I don't know (I mean, I really don't) about "more," but I'd caution
that US society is far too diverse to generalize about in this way.
Please don't take this as mysogynist or heaven forbid homophobic. I'm
just asking for a bit more thoughtfulness. This is barely a step
above the way men theorize about women in barrooms.
Of course, most guys have learned not to do so when there are women
around. It's among other things bad manners. Is this a gender difference?
>All best
>
>A
>
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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