As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a shrink, and (as I’m sure that regular visitors to this blog have noticed) I’m not a deep thinker. The following post is only my personal observations over an issue that’s come up recently. Take it with a grain of salt.
In yesterday’s post I said
I’ve felt for a long time that women have easier lives than men. Being a man in today’s world strikes me as a most difficult position
A friend wrote asking for clarification of both points.
The main reason I believe that women have easier lives than men is that I’ve had an easier life as a woman than my brother has had as a man. I can not, and will not, go into details, so you’ll just have to take my word on this. However, I have a hypothesis on why men’s lives are more difficult nowadays
There are three main trends why being a man in today’s world strikes me as a most difficult position:
1. The Church of Oprah
2. Sex and the City
3. Teen girl media
The Church of Oprah
One of the central tenets of the Church of Oprah is that women are inherently better than men. A corollary of that is that women are more nurturing than men.
This point of view has been erroneously based on the fact that men are not women.
While the women’s movement might want to believe that men are hirsute women with different plumbing, they are mistaken. No matter how they cut it, one fact remains
Men are not women, and women are not men.
That doesn’t mean they have nothing in common, either. A former Oprah protege has made piles of money – has actually created an industry – out of the premise “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” (if you want to look it up, knock yourself out, I’m not linking to it). Nonsense. Women and men are made of the same clay. Just because men are not women doesn’t mean they come from another planet.
Jeff Foxworthy has said “Men are simple creatures. They want a beer, and they want to see something naked” which, if you ask the average Joe, is true. Let’s divide Jeff’s statement in two parts and see what this means, in Oprahspeak:
a. “they want a beer“: men don’t like to talk about their feelings. In fact, the more you insist that a man discuss his feelings at length, the more he will resent you. Since the Church of Oprah is based on confessional feelings, this invariably leads to problems among its adherents. Rather than fill six verbal pages of conversation about his feelings, a man will rather sit down, have a beer and enjoy a moment of emotional peace and quiet. That’s what Jeff means by “they want a beer”.
b. “they want to see something naked“: they do because it’s in their wiring. As Ron White put it, “once you’ve seen a naked woman, you want to see them all.”
Men and women have been having sex with each other without love for as long as there’ve been men and women. However, while I have known two severely emotionally damaged women who truly loved men and not desire them, I’ve never even heard of a man who did not desire the woman he loved. A man may not love a woman he desires, but a man can not not desire a woman he loves. That’s just the way it works.
(see also this gentleman’s comment)
Let’s look at ‘women are inherently better than men’. If you believe that, you are WRONG. Virtue and character are inherent on each person, and gonads do not determine either; never have, never will.
Similarly, women are not more nurturing than men. Men don’t want to talk about being supportive and loving but they are.
For every manipulative and abusive man, there is an equally manipulative and abusive woman. The form of the manipulation and abuse may vary between the genders, but neither gender has the exclusive on that. Having attended an all-girls’ school for eleven years, I’ll dare say that women can be much more worse (pardon the grammar) at both manipulation and emotional abuse, and many indeed are.
Additionally, many many women believe that men can’t feel as deeply as women, since men generally don’t verbalize hurt, grief, and despair (and I’d even say that the more deeply they feel those, the less they can verbalize them). Again, that is incorrect. Gonads do not determine the quality of a soul. Compounding the impression that many women have about men’s feelings is the fact that many men can only express the depth of their despair through violent means (and I’m most certainly not justifying the violence, which is wrong no matter what), which in turn becomes more fodder for the daily installment of the Church of Oprah.
So we have a whole industry (network and cable TV, magazine, books, seminars) propagating the idea that women are inherently better than men. That’s factor #1.
Sex and the City
Factor #2 is what I call the Sex and the City syndrome: the assumption that the only reason for men’s existence is to pleasure women. The 4 women in S&TC certainly spend most of their air time using men (I did a related post a while ago) for that purpose and that purpose only. And in real life, too, there are many such women, probably a lot more now than there were a generation or two ago.
The end result is that many women nowadays won’t want to find intimacy. No matter how great a guy is, if he comes across a woman who will not want intimacy – no matter how great the sex – that relationship can not progress beyond that. A man who wants commitment and yearns for a reciprocal relationship will be setting himself up for hurt and disappointment if he thinks he can survive in a relationship with a woman who will not surrender herself to his love, or, equally as damaging, if he can not recognize that she is incapable. That’s factor #2.
Teen girl media
Factor #3 I just noticed recently, and is related to factor #2.
The salon where I get my manicure used to carry the usual women’s magazines, such as Vogue and Good Housekeeping, but in the past few months they’ve had a large number of teen girls’ magazines, among them Seventeen, and magazines supposedly marketed to young adult women, such as Glamour, Jane and Cosmopolitan. Since I’m well past their demographic and there are no teen girls in my home, I hadn’t read any of those for literally decades.
I was in for a huge surprise.
Seventeen gives a lot of sex advice, not just on birth control, but on how. Glamour, Jane, and Cosmo might be marketed to women in their early twenties but I assure you that when I was 12 years old (way before Jane was concieved) I was reading my neighbor’s older sisters’ Cosmos at their house. In a recent issue of Jane, for instance, there was clear and explicit advise on how to perform oral sex, and how and where to have sex in public. The subject of the articles is not much different from what Gerard Van der Leun was editing back when he worked for Penthouse.
If you believe I exaggerate, read what (according to the NYT article The Taming of the Slur) Atoosa Rubenstein, editor of Seventeen magazine, has to say:
“Today, ‘slut,’ even ‘ho’ – girls use it in a fun way, a positive way,” said Atoosa Rubenstein, the editor in chief of Seventeen magazine, adding that a phrase such as “you little slut” has become a way for girlfriends to bust each other’s chops.
As Betsy Newmark asked,
Does this strike anyone else as really a sick sign of where we are in our society?
The net result, as The Anchoress points out, is that many young men are finding
that intimacy has been defined downward, especially for our young girls, to mean little more than a “hook-up.” This is something Buster talks to me about. Children, but especially girls, are being sexualized at ever-earlier ages. The sexual messages begin very young in television commercials and on the clothes-store racks, and most of Buster’s generation grew up watching Friends and Sex in the City and thinking that this was what life was: a series of sexual encounters with no emotional attachments, no repercussions, no pain, no loss of oneself.
Sexualized early, many girls are either overly jaded or mistrustful and remote. Buster says a troubling number of girls his age are sexually hyper-active, but unhappy and lonely – they cannot make good, healthy connections with respectable young men, because they don’t “get” the guys who open car doors for them and who look for a relationship to be about more than a “hook-up” or perfunctory oral sex. (A romance recently busted up because Buster wanted a real relationship, and the girl, a nice-enough kid, simply did not know what that meant!)
In conclusion, if these three factors don’t make men’s lives more complicated than they already are, I don’t know what would.
I’m opening comments on this post, for the first time in several months.
Postscript: A note to V.:
If you are reading this, here’s what I have to say:
Anyone that calls you at work to break up with you not only doesn’t deserve you, but is a bad person. Character is everything and that person has proved to be bad.
The pain that you postpone by getting back together will only be a down payment on the pain you’ll be feeling years down the line. As your dad said, you’re setting yourself up for an encore.
Update Maxed-Out Mama:
by banishing the word “virtue” from our publicly acceptable vocabulary we women have rendered ourselves incapable of recognizing virtue in a man
Read every word.
Related post: My brother and The Anchoress
(technorati tags women, men, Oprah, Sex, relationships, Sex and the City, Ron White, Jeff Foxworthy)
I agree about pop culture….MTV, VHI, etc. are the WORST role models I can think of. Where do they find these trashy people???!! I have two guy ousins who are 19 and 22 and I hope they don’t base their expectations of themselves or of women off those shows.
I do think some of the comments have been somewhat misogynistic — all women are not manhating sluts who want to take all your money and the children, which was the tone of some comments. I do agree our culture has become dismissive and contemptuous of men — I did not realize it at all until my husband caught me up short a few times on my expectations and dismissal of his feelings.
As for the court system, ask youself who is making the laws and enforcing them? Overwhelmingly judges and legislators are male. The law’s bias towards the mother certainly is unfair, but states are trying to change those old attitudes and laws. I believe the uniform child custody law does not give favor towards the mother and most states have done away with alimony unless either spouse can show real financial need. Like anythign, change in the family law system takes time.
As usual you forget the role of demographics in all this.
Girls don’t become “sluts” due to bad culture.
It is caused by not enough men.
Demographics
Demographics caused the roaring 20s, and the swinging 60s.
Simon, thank you for linking to that article. It’s a fascinating read.
In India and China, conversely, there’s the opposite problem: millions of girls are aborted or killed early in infancy, so there aren’t enough women. It’ll be interesting to see how that develops.
Girls don’t become “sluts” due to bad culture.
I must disagree with you up to a point. Insecure unpopular girls who see that all sorts of sluttish behavior is countenanced by society will try to be in demand and popular by adopting sluttish behavior.
AFSister and I had a discussion about this at my blog when I linked here.
But she’s a friend of mine, and I have to come to her defense. While I know some of her disagreement with this is definitely intellectual, a significant portion of her reaction is also colored by personal experiences.
: Girls don’t become “sluts” due to bad culture.
I must disagree with you up to a point. Insecure unpopular girls who see that all sorts of sluttish behavior is countenanced by society will try to be in demand and popular by adopting sluttish behavior.
There is protection to a certain extent from culture. It’s called mom and dad. Mom and dad teach children. And using daughters as an example (because that’s who the term “sluttishness” is aimed at) moms and dads teach their daughters best how to be women. Moms teach them by being an example of virtuous womanhood. Dads teach them how they can expect to be treated by good men.
Girls who have the rock of involved parents who love each other and model man-woman relationships will help them go a long way toward making good choices on their own. And isn’t that what we are building up to? 🙂
It is, indeed, Tony!
I’ve been blogging at Man-o-pause.com — dedicated to the good guys out there — for over a year and have yet to generate the kind of enthusiastic response this blog post has. Keep it up!
I wrote a review of Jim Belushi’s book, Real Men Don’t Apologize… and he really nails the guy’s guy point of view about dating, sex and relationships. See http://www.man-o-pause.com/manopause/2006/06/jim_belushi_tal.html
I think the world is a better place when we can stimulate intelligent dialogue that embraces the difference between men and women.
I followed the link to this post from Manolo’s Shoe Blog, and just wanted to say that I thought it was great. Your breakdown of Jeff Foxworthy’s quote is spot-on, I think, and very well put.
I am a fan of Sex and the City and do admit to reading the occasional Cosmo, but I am old enough to know that not everything is meant to be taken seriously. The young girls who read magazines like that (speaking of which, that part about Seventeen shocked me. Back in my day, which was less than 10 years ago, they hadn’t gone that far!) or watch shows like SATC don’t have the filters of experience and maturity. It’s very disappointing that this is the result.
I also wanted to mention that this post reminded me of an article in Maclean’s (a Canadian news/current events magazine) a while ago in which the person being interviewed suggested that people like Oprah are responsible for the death of conversation, particularly in terms of the way men and women relate to each other. I think there is more than a little truth to it. If you’re interested, the article is here:
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20060612_128422_128422
I’ll be honest, Fausta; I have problems with the premise that men’s lives are somehow more difficult.
I agree that popular culture portrays men as dolts, and that’s stupid. BUT…that ignores the way women are portrayed, and more importantly, treated. Women are still portrayed and treated as sexual objects, or at best, decoration.
Re: Sex and the City–I guess that depends on where you live. I think that’s more a way of life in places like NYC, LA, etc., but there’s no epidemic of Carries and Samanthas in flyover country. Out here in ‘Murrica, adults aren’t as likely to parrot the pop culture icons of the day. Teenagers, yes–teenagers everywhere do that, both male and female (pimps and hos!)
About the “unfair” divorce courts–I think the few men who have been treated unfairly have a much greater voice than those who got their just deserts. You don’t hear from men who lost their family and a chunk of change because they decided they’d rather screw around than be a husband and father–and believe me, they’re out there. Unseenmale said,
“The court system also makes us think twice,three times or more before we walk down the aisle.”
It should make men think twice, three times or more before they give up on their marriages, too, but it all too often DOESN’T. Divorce is too easy, too painless for the ones who don’t care to work through difficult times and remain faithful and committed to their spouses.
I know you said you’ve had it easier than your brother, but I don’t think that’s any more indicative of society as a whole than my situation is; my life as a woman (professionally, socially, and in marriage and parenting) has been infinitely more “difficult” than my ex’s or any of the men I’ve known (including my father and brothers). I’m not weak, though; unlike the men who want to blame women for their “plight,” I accept life for what it is and make the best of it. I think men who blame women for their problems (and vice versa) are pathetic, immature, and weak.
Finally, I think the point about “teen girl media” sort of defies the hypothesis that life is more difficult for males. I think it’s made life incredibly difficult for girls, and for their lives as women. If anything, the amoral culture has made girls/women even less valued as human beings and more as sex toys. Who do you think benefits from that? Men, of course. I seriously doubt these hoochie mama teenagers are getting the same thing out of the cheap & easy sex that the “pimp” boys are, if you get my drift. And worse, these girls are still female, meaning they usually have more invested emotionally (or expect more emotionally) than they get in return. That’s never a plus.
Rocket girl, I posted On conversation this morning after reading the article.
If anything, the amoral culture has made girls/women even less valued as human beings and more as sex toys. Who do you think benefits from that? Men, of course.
I don’t think either benefits.
1) You (and others) may find a book by Warren Farrel, “The Myth of Male Power” very interesting. Ferrell was at one point (before becoming an apostate) a president of a local NOW chapter, among other things. I believe it was published in the mid-90s.
2) “Men don’t want to talk about being supportive and loving but they are”
Actually, I just LOVE to poke the hole in this one. If “men” are the only ones who don’t talk about their feelings, then why is the following scenario such a cliche:
Her: “Hmmmph!”
Him: (nothing, watching TV)
Her: “HMMPH!”
Him (noticing) “Is, um, something wrong?”
Her: “No!”
Him: “Oh, OK” (goes back to watching TV)
Her: “HHHHHMMMPHHH!”
Him: (muting sound, setting down remote) “OK, clearly there’s something wrong. What?”
Her: “WELL!! If YOU don’t KNOW, Why Should I Tell You!?!?“
Right — BOTH sides have weaknesses in this arena. Men don’t talk as much about “feelings” because we don’t obsess over them to the same degree women do.
3) “Additionally, many many women believe that men can’t feel as deeply as women”
Right again. Actually, I think men feel MORE deeply than women — when a man falls in love, he does it like a ton of bricks. It’s why men can get really, really idiotic about love — There are probably more John Hinkleys than there are ‘Alex Forrest’s. So we hold back, and keep a tight rein on it. Women, on the other hand, I suspect (from observation, I grant) seem to strongly follow Lord Byron:
“In her first passion, woman loves her lover. In all others, all she loves is love.”
> However, by changing the “rules” retroactively, the message many women give is that they can’t be pleased.
Many can’t, Madame. This, I might suggest, allows them to remain distant (i.e., not risk being hurt) without taking the blame for it. Actually, if you look at many of these behaviors, they all act in one way or another to resist any form of actual committment, which saves one from the risks involved.
In its most extreme form, this is referred to (I believe, acking that I am not a professional) as being “histrionic”. In the old days, the name they had for it was “nymphomania” — because women used these traits to drive men away before they could get hurt. It actually had little to do with the sex, despite appearances.
> Women are still portrayed and treated as sexual objects, or at best, decoration.
Where as men are NEVER portrayed as anything other than “power objects”, or, at best, “ATM machines”…?
Sorry, Beth, Warren Farrell pointed this out years ago:
“Today, when the successful single woman meets the successful single man, they appear to be equals. But should they marry and contemplate having children, she almost invariably considers three career options:
1) work full time
2) mother full time
3) some combination of 1 and 2
He, too, considers three options:
1) work full time
2) work full time
3) work full time
Enter the era of the multi-option woman and the no-option man.”
– Warren Farrell –
and
“Sexism, we have been told, made men powerful and women powerless. The reality is somewhat different. For centuries, neither sex had power. Both sexes had roles: She raised the children, He raised the crops/money. Neither sex had options, both sexes had obligations. If both sexes had traditional obligations, it is more accurate to call it sex roles than sexism.
Men’s roles didn’t serve their interests any more than women’s roles served women’s interests. Instead, both roles served the interests of survival.”
– Warren Farrell –
and:
“[Feminism has] focused on the fact that women as a group earned less —
without focusing on any of the reasons why women earned less, [such as:] full-time working men work an average of 9 hours per week more than full-time working women; men are more willing to relocate to undesirable locations, to work the less desirable hours, and to work the more hazardous jobs.”
– Warren Farrell –
and
“[The question men need to ask, is:] ‘Is earning money that someone else
spends really power?'”
– Warren Farrell –
😉
I appreciate your point of view.
I hear an interesting story behind this post about your brother. Are you willing to write about him on http://womenonmen.blogspot.com. first-person, real-time?
Best,
Tonia McConnell
Very well said.
-Dick
MenAreBetterThanWomen.com