For Men
Sharon January 26th, 2010
One of the things we’re talking about right now in our “Finding Your Place” class are issues specific to men and women. The women’s issues often seem to focus on material and physical discussions – what can I do about menopause, how do I handle birth control, menstruation and other bodily issues, or about sex and love. When we have these threads about men, they invariably end up focusing on the psychological results that seem particularly acute for many, if not all, men. While all of us have anxieties and many women struggle with these issues, somehow when we get to gender-specific consideration, what comes up for many of the men in the discussion in how difficult it is to deal with shifting roles, and the prevalence of anxiety, depression and over-reliance on drugs and alchohol. Statistics from cultures undergoing major crises seem to bear out the assumption that often, women adapt better than men to many difficult situations. The decrease in lifespans in the former Soviet Union that accompanied the collapse was in part due to loss of health care, but a lot of it had to do with rises in suicide rates, stress and alcohol abuse. At one point, the division between lifespans for women in Russia and for men was more than a decade. In Studs Terkel’s _Hard Times_ and Jeane Westin’s _Making Do: How Women Survived the 30s, we hear story after story of men who simply couldn’t handle the strain of unemployment and dependent family, the destruction of his role, and left, or subsided into alcoholism. This does not mean that every man facing a transition into a poorer, less energy rich world is doomed to crisis. But I think it is important to talk about – because just as I’ve written many times about the changes that peak oil and climate change and their economic consequences are likely to bring about for women, the ones that come for men are important and real. All men, and all of us who love husbands, fathers, brothers, friends, sons need to be aware of these issues – to be aware of the degree to which watching your world unravel seems to engender different responses. Women who turn to each other, who talk, whose identities may be more complexly built on a mix of personal and professional identities may not grasp how hard this is for the men in our lives to face unemployment and shifts in everything they’ve known. I think this is an important thing to be able to be open about, for both men and women, and also and important thing to be conscious of. Have you had this experience, either personally or for someone you cared about? None of us want to see the rates of suicide rising. None of us want to watch the guys in our life struggling. None of us want them to turn to drugs and drink to dull a sense of loss. Of course many men won’t. In many cases it is the women who struggle with these issues. But overwhelmingly history suggests that the psychological trauma of watching your world transformed often strikes men, particularly men of middle age and above, harder than it does women. How do we soften the blow? Sharon- Uncategorized , men
- Comments(49)
In one of my psychology classes I read something that has always stuck with me.
Where men usually have a fight or flight response to difficult times, women may have a tend and befriend response. Women will often come together, even strangers or women who wouldn’t otherwise get along, to pool resources, help each other, make sure everyone is fed and warm. This tend and befriend response helps women get through tough times in a way that men often don’t or can’t rely on.
It’s a societal thing. Women in our society are allowed to ask for help, where many times men don’t feel that they are. Women are allowed to be supported by someone else. Women are expected to be nuturing and helpful. Men are expected (or expect themselves) to be able to do it all on their own.
It may also be a hardwiring thing. Women’s bodies and minds are designed to care for and nuture children. It makes sense that our response to difficulties would reflect that.
First, Sharon, thank you very much for reaching out with your concern for men. You certainly are of a new generation of young women.
My take is that a schizophregenic environment drives men to drink, depression, and early death. Following R. D. Laing, the rule is that men are judged, especially by many women, on how good a provider or protector they are. The metarule is that men are not allowed to talk about the rule, but must simply perform, and must agree with women’s metarule talk about how important mutual bonding and support is. This drives men crazy, especially those who experience a sudden drop in status and look for support when they are in distress. (Presumably, they are not good at bonding, which is nonsense. At that point, many of them are ready to check out.)
Joshua-
Thanks for bringing your insights to this topic. Could you please elaborate on what “look for support” means from the male perspective? What would a man hope to find in terms of support, and how would one recognize his seeking it?
Short answer: Women want comfort. Men want to do.
A conversation with a man about how he now feels powerless (a *very* bad thing for most men) after the loss of a job, and what he can *do* about it, will probably comfort better than any comforting. In those situations, men don’t want connection and listening. They want to do go *do* something. They want to solve the problem, whether solvable or not. This is less the case with women and sometimes not with men either, but as a rule of thumb, I’d start there.
I’m not sure how to change this without changing neurophysiology. A certain amount of this (not all, certainly) is pure programming. Women want men to be providers, protectors … DOers. Men, are obligingly programmed to *want* to do this. It’s been adaptive for the last few hundred thousand years. It’s not going away in the face of anybody’s ideas of political correctness.
Thanks Sharon for bringing this up. Yes, men’s response to crisis is a big problem. My father died ahead of his time because he was caught in a trap like this.
For about 10 years, I was under-employed and drifting. What got me through was:
1. Strong extended family, which was supportive no matter what.
2. Exposure to working class culture, in which high performance and earning power was already a lost cause. So men were more relaxed and matey.
3. A sense of self built on things other than my job and earning power.
4. For most of the time, not having the responsibilities of a wife and children.
5. Eventually a wife who was supportive and understanding. It makes all the difference in the world!
Bart
EB
I’ve read in many places that men (stereotypically) regard their jobs as a source of identity, which I’ve always thought interesting as I (not a man!) always regard my jobs as necessary evils that take me away from real work. I agree with Bart above that that’s part of the solution; if your job is your life, you’re screwed sooner or later–ever know somebody who wasted away as soon as he retired?
I also think there’s also a huge generation gap here– I know several unemployed and, um, creatively employed men my age who don’t seem to mind watching the kids while the wife/girlfriend works. My father’s generation wouldn’t have done that and my grandfather’s generation would have gone ballistic at the very suggestion. As to how those generations are supposed to cope with these changes… I like Ian’s comment that “Men want to do.” A lot of men would rather undergo a root canal than talk about feeeeeelings, and that’s fine since doing something is the solution anyway. If a man can elevate his non-job stuff–fathering, gardening, building stuff, whatever it is he does–then the loss of the job isn’t The End of the World. If “bonding” is part of the solution, then it’ll have to be a bond based on doing– clearing a field or going hunting or whatever. Look at Amish communities–none of those guys have “jobs” in the modern sense, and they don’t lack identity or purpose. And I doubt that they have to sit around in group therapy sessions.
(Of course there’s always that problem of money after the layoff, but this is a discussion of emotional and not economic survival…)
From my perspective, a large part of it is that we males tend to tie our sense of self-worth to what we see as being the role of the provider; many end up tying this idea to their role in society, which, these days, means identifying themselves by the job they hold. Lose that job, and suddenly you lose your sense of identity and self-confidence. It only gets worse in a civilization that doesn’t offer any useful alternative roles; a middle manager who gets laid off has no idea of alternatives to trying to find another job similar to the one they just lost, although as they continue to be turned down the range of an acceptable job grows, until you have former executives applying for fast-food jobs. Few can make the notional leap to other forms of employment, in the informal/domestic/truly-primary economy; we’re trained not to think of that kind of labor as being anything useful or beneficial, and that combined with the effects of what we see as peer pressure – even when it doesn’t exist – keep us confined in a self-destructive mindset.
The above comments on ‘Doing’ are a large part of this – at some level, we are defined by that deep-seated cultural and genetic imperative. The trick is to find ways to redefine that drive into something that can survive and endure – a thing that our society is not presently capable of doing, given that society itself can be proven to be mentally ill, cursed with a monomania about consumption and what constitutes acceptable forms of Doing Things and Providing.
Um, Sharon – is it a coincidence that this particular post addressed to men came onto my screen in a particularly large heavy font? Just asking… ; ).
Seriously, great questions, and ones I think about a lot.
I agree that men need to have an identity outside of work. This could start now (in terms of AIP) with a hobby that will stand you in good stead later on. Food gardening, brewing beer, playing a musical instrument come to mind as things that can go on regardless of what is happening in the ‘outside world’. These types of things can also cushion the blow of hard times by helping a man provide his family with food (maybe medicine too), stress release (what’s better than a beer on the back porch after a physical day in the garden?) and entertainment.
The font is bigger because men need more help to get it.
I feel like I should somehow have special insights–and don’t–as a man who received a female upbringing. I tend to feel equally incompetent at asking for help and doing things for myself, I think. My partner is a man who was raised male and has special training in psychology, and he has difficulty acknowledging dependence on others–the difference is that he knows that’s a difficulty he has because of his upbringing and the coping strategies he developed in response, and he’s working on it. My mother, a heterosexual woman who was raised female, has trouble acknowledging emotions of any kind, let alone a need for help. But the same background in a working-class family that probably made her so stubbornly independent also gave her certain skills and resources that will also be helpful, like the sense that repairing something that’s broken is twice as good as getting it new. I think a lot of her self-confidence comes from being useful, but also she will always find a way to be useful, so that will be okay.
I agree that people handle these things differently, but disagree as to how much of it is gender-based. I know you said in your post that some women may well experience these same things, so you acknowledge that the genders aren’t all THAT different, but I see them as rather more similar than you do. I’d say “some folks are likely to fall into x category, and men are probably more likely to than women” instead. Maybe it’s because I’m under 40 and have a very liberal feminist social circle, but I imagine just as many women as men having the troubles you’re describing. And think it’s counterproductive to discuss it along gender lines.
A year ago when I tried to bring my husband on board by reading a couple chapters of Depletion and Abundance aloud in the car, he had an anxiety attack. He said he didn’t want to talk about it, but I could do anything I needed to do to change our lives. He enjoys the hardware–built some great raised beds out of salvaged pallets, built platforms for water tanks, built storage shelves, planted berry bushes in the yard. He needs problems that can be solved with tools–when his Mom was dying he could barely stay in the room except to hang pictures, bird feeder, etc. Lately I’ve been tickled to hear him having conversations about the financial/environmental slide, telling friends that his wife is a farmer/forager and that weeds are much tastier than you would think.
He knows a lot about his grand and great-grand parents–grew up in their house. We’ve talked about how they lived and whether he thought they had good lives. He’s near enough retirement that the loss of work will probably happen at the usual time.
In Walden, Thoreau said “Measure wealth not by what you have, but rather, by what you have for which you would not take money.” And as many manage their “wealth”, so a man should manage his aforementioned “gold”. Your returns come in abundance;they just might not be monetary. But according to my 100-year old grandmother…”they don’t put pockets in coffins.”
BTW, just found the blog after reading “Nation of Farmers” — enjoying the thoughts of all…
just few responses to responses… from a sufficiently male perspective (as in root canal is a lot worse than talking about feelings)
- the gender differences are there for sure, and some of them are not the result of “nature” but the fact that the man is still the one _held responsible_ for providing, so of course if a woman is the main bread winner she would be just as depressed about loosing income
- @Bart – the whole distress/crisis/suicide thing occurs because a man has family to provide for – most men I know would be so NOT worried about loosing a job if there were no children, and most of them would not _stay alive_ 10 years watching their children suffer, so while all those things must have been important – having kids turns ones world inside out.
- as for what “support” is to a man – after being unemployed for a while – the support/understaning that I appreciated most was the cessation of needless spending, the reduced “needy-ness”,
there was of course whole pre-history of my “do we need all this crap” monologue… I guess YMMV
just my 2c
7K
What a great article, and how important it is to define a place on this planet! I suffered my heart stopping for 10 minutes following a car accident in Kenya, Africa in 1980, just as I was emigrating to a new country in Europe that subsequently had a terrible recession, as did most of the world! No longer able to walk, speak, or remember on my arrival, the doctor gave me “6 – 8 years before I could expect to regain a normal life”.
Sometimes we are lucky, and I simply couldn’t accept that, getting a simple job after 7 months, and staggering, walking and jogging the 3.6 miles home from that job 92 times to regain the ability to walk. That activity is boring, so my mind went to the cars passing me on the road, with the question, what would we do when there was no more petroleum?
I kept a diary to improve my memory, and sketched into the diary a number of designs that had occurred to me while jogging, for cities that generate their own energy, cars that are safer and burn a multitude of fuels…
The point is that if we can identify something higher than ourselves, then we can get onto that train and ride it for the rest of our lives, in the belief that we can be useful to ourselves and to others. Please have a look on my website for some of the ideas.
These years are the first that the world has been intimately connected. They are the first when more and more speak and understand English. They are among the first to begin to break open the solar technologies that will ultimately power this planet.
Reach out and offer your ideas, humor, plans and delights to the world. We may just become a global village after all, even when it is very difficult!
My motto was “keep trying” as I regained my abilities, repeated well over 10,000 times. We can all do better for the generations that will follow ours!
Thank you all!!!
Kim Gyr
We have a problem of context. We know that and define many of our issues from that perspective. That missing context affects this issue too. Men define what it means to be a man but so do women. And the reverse is true of course.
When we say that men are this or that (or women) it amounts to reflecting on the artifacts of the past. We know very well that the context that our past, and present mostly, is written on is flawed and artificial. Many of my generation grew up proclaiming profound liberation from convention but the reality has been less impressive.
The very notion of the difference between having the leisure to get together to share feelings and the reality of feeling buried in the stress of worry over losing the means to protect and provide the basics for ones family exposes the quagmire of being stuck in the middle of transition for both sexes. It is certainly true that the division of responsibility has blurred more than the emotions that go with it but perhaps not as much as we would like to think. There are some basic physical difference that we cannot will away.
I would like to propose that to achieve what we must will require a deep examination of the entire underlying context including our gender roles but also much more.
As we consider the future possibilities we have to acknowledge how thin the veneer of our civilization is. I suspect that much of the innate stress that erupts from the male psyche comes down to some primal concern about what a man would face when the worst that we can imagine shows up at the front door. I have honed survival skills to provide for myself and my loved ones preferable from my garden, pantry and woodshed as a cooperative venture. I also have my camping gear organized and an escape path in mind as we all should. That step would only come after some very hard choices after being forced to protect my family from awful things that we all know happen daily elsewhere. The worst of that, I am afraid, would be on men’s shoulders by default. That is a lot to bear. Not knowing if one is up to the ultimate challenges, conscious or not, can make one ill.
Inability to talk about the unspeakable might be excused.
I hope that your readers will NOT see my comment below as a diatribe against feminism, but some facts are in order here:
The damaging effects to men by economic dislocation or ‘peak oil’ pale in comparison to a quarter century of ascendant feminism. Economic setbacks are really inconsequential for a man who is embedded in a solid marriage and strong family support networks.
If a woman keeps the home fires burning, and behaves as a dutiful wife–then a man can weather anything the world throws at him:
* Suicide rates for divorced men are much higher than married men (and women file about 90% of the court actions to end relationships…WHY? Because they always get the goods–The KIDs, the $$$, etc )
* Men whose children have been taken from them by state actions have much lower participation in economic activities.
* Our current legal policies in the USA allow women to walk out with the kids ( or throw a man out).
When men try that, it’s called kidnapping, and arrest warrants get issued.
I don’t need to cite stats on these—just look around at your own families and Communities. You KNOW they are true.
One thing to keep in mind–if the State ever begins to unravel—young men raised in fatherless households are often alienated in a big way from their own dads, their communities, and from the State. And middle aged men who can’t have a role in raising their own children feel NO Loyalty to the State which helped to destroy their precious bond to their own kin.
Sharon, I have to laugh when I read your article, because a simple change in careers, skills, or economic roles don’t harm men.
Changes to an economic role are really inconsequential—as long as a man’s role as husband and father are TRULY respected and valued.
one last thought—
If a man feels like everyday is ‘Father’s Day’, then all that other stuff is just fluff. You just shrug it off and keep on goin’.
Slings & arrows of outrageous fortune? Whatever!
OTOH, If you’re a woman and you decide to destroy your family and the kids’ relationship to their father….that’s a thousand times more devastating than any pink slip could ever be to a man.
If you really care about a man, then show it by preserving whole families, because that’s the basis for strong communities.
The DeadBeat Dad,
I think you go too far, your argumentation is onesided. Don’t you think that after divorce everything is easier, in fact? If you already don’t rely on person which isn’t worth of it? To be on one’s own is always better for man than this.
It’s not fully so that unemployment doesn’t matter, of course. In my opinion Sharon is right here and generally it’s good for women to discuss this topic to understand specific gender differences. Don’t you think that if only women understand, it can result in some reduction of divorce rates, for example?
It also seems to me that you take it too personal. After my divorce I decided to stand outside any relation for rest of my life, but it absolutely doesn’t mean that my life should be paradigm here, no source of ressentiment, anyway…
Can’t comment for other women but I felt I had no choice in getting a divorce – 11 years, no kids and no relationship. Turns out he was a closeted gay guy and I was only there as a beard. I didn’t get most of the $$ either but I now have a wonderful 62 year-old man who is much younger mentally than my ex ever was and has already been thru much in his life. It all comes down to individual attitude. I have every confidence that no matter what happens, my man will prevail where my ex never has.
I also agree that too much splitting along gender lines is counter productive – I fit most of the ‘male’ stereotypes and don’t fit in groups of women much at all.
A couple of responses – sorry about the weird fonts – wordpress is giving me fits. There’s no implied assumptions about men.
Sarah, I have a liberal feminist circle of friends too, and I suspect that men who have taken less gender traditional roles will be more adaptable. But that doesn’t change the fact that not every man on the planet is a. liberal feminist b. under 40, and c. can fully escape all cultural gender programming, even if they try.
The reality is that suicide rates between men and women are already dramatically different, as are rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and rates at which men get treated for depression. As statistics show, those differences got magnified in the Soviet Union. Yes, there are many common things between men and women and many men, particularly younger men, are less traditional than they were. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t do better to acknowledge real extant difference between the sexes than to pretend everything is exactly the same. I’ve seen that argument about rape as well “well, men get raped too.” Well, yes, but at such dramatically different levels that yes, it is important to talk about rape as a women’s issue.
Sharon
Deadbeat Dad – I have some real sympathy for men who get mistreated in custody arrangements by the courts, so I’m inclined to cut you a bit of slack, but I also think you are wrong – and demonstrably so. In the great Depression, divorce rates rose, but not nearly as much as suicide and abandonment rates. The same is true in the Soviet Union – suicide rates rose dramatically for both married and unmarried men. Moreover, women get hurt more economically by divorce than men do – they never regain their former economic status. That’s not to say that divorce is good for men – maybe necessary sometimes, but your claims are at least partly untrue.
Sharon
What excatly is a dutifully wife?
Is there ANY reason why a women is justified in ending a marriage?
The reason why men tend to fare worse than women when they are unemployed is that men like it or loath are still burdened with the traditional role model of being the breadwinner. Despite the advances of feminism this has not changed other than to become less realistic as women are likely to be the major breadwinners whilst still avoiding the jobless or low earning male like the plague. Feminism has achieved a choice for women where it is socially acceptable to either be a homemaker or have a career, whereas men who stay at home are still regarded by society, both male and female, as spongers, layabouts or worse. In otherwords job or no job womens roles are respected, the jobless male however, ever heard the term a kept man! Its a term that I have heard women use in a derogatory sense on many occassions, although i very rarely hear it in reverse. I guess on the otherside women still feel an untidy house is a poor reflection on them just as a family struggling financially is more keenly felt by men. Like it or loath we are still to some extent trapped (in our own minds)by outdated traditional gender stereotypes.
That is all
Sharon, thank you for raising this consideration of men. I see a good deal of generosity and fairness in your words.
I spent 15 years working on gender issues (as editor and publisher of the Canadian gender magazine “Everyman”), and ended up by concluding that we simply aren’t ready yet to transcend gender, or even understand it.
The basic reason, as I see it, is simple. Men and women have traditionally been codependently enmeshed. Women have been dependent on men for their physical health (physical protection, economic provision, political representation), and men have been dependent on women for their psychological/emotional health (moral validation, emotional nurturing, sexual acceptance). The codependent part is that we had a cover story: men are independent, and women are dependent. And so today, although things have changed in the outside world somewhat, the inner world of both genders still reflects that heritage.
And feminism, unfortunately, overlooks (more accurately, denies) most of men’s dependencies on women, and actually uses them to shame men. This is not deliberate, of course: the great difficulty of codependence is that it FEELS right. Addiction can be defined as that condition in which your thoughts and feelings lie to you about what is true. As far as gender is concerned, we are pretty well all still very codependent, and still under the sway of the cover story, which has been modified by feminism but not essentially changed.
What can one do, then? If I knew, I would probably still be publishing. Goodwill, and a willingness to hear things that challenge our worldview (which is never easy) are a start. I see a fair degree of goodwill toward men in your post, Sharon, and I appreciate it. But I have to say, liberal feminism isn’t the answer, it looks more like part of the problem.
David
Sharon,
I want to thank you for posting this piece “For Men”….I don’t want to monopolize or intrude on your blog, but it seemed like an invitation for men to weigh in here.
I’ll just re-state my point again more clearly, so there’s no confusion. I could write a chapter on this, so I’ll keep it very brief:
An economic dislocation or depression is a MINOR factor in harm to men’s wellbeing.
In all these examples–Great D. U.S., the Soviet decline–these bad social outcomes of homelessness, suicide, alcohol, drugs disproportionately affect men with no family.
If a man has strong family ties horizontally with his siblings, and vertically with his parents and his own children, then things WILL work out.
A mere job loss, having to learn a new skill, make other economic arrangements is not the MAIN cause of these social catastrophes. Broken families IS !
I’m glad you wrote that piece and started this discussion, but the notion that job loss can account for these social ills does not even scratch the surface. It’s like it ignores the 800 lb. gorilla.
You cited “…story of men who simply couldn’t handle the strain of unemployment and dependent family, the destruction of his role, and left, or subsided into alcoholism.”
Simply losing a job doesn’t destroy a man’s role as father, protector, and provider. The actions of Government policies, and of other family members cause that destruction.
Look no further than the Islamic world…they have staggering unemployment by standard measures. Before 2001, did they have an epidemic of suicides, drug/alcohol abuse? NO.
Just thought I would give you the non-feminist perspective.
I rest my case
My own hubby and I have non-traditional roles, in that I work full-time and he is home full-time with the kids. He isn’t fully removed from income-producing elements of our family, though, because we both understand that I couldn’t do what I do if he weren’t supporting the family at home. However, his esteem isn’t likely to take a hit if our economic fortunate changes (though mine might). But it would be a huge blow to him if his ability to physically protect the children were impacted by illness or disability. Whether he really could or could not protect the children if something really bad were to happen is beside the point.
Look no further than the Islamic world…they have staggering unemployment by standard measures. Before 2001, did they have an epidemic of suicides, drug/alcohol abuse? NO.
Can you give some citations for these statistics? It’s a really interesting observation if it’s true. (Also, what, all Muslims everywhere? Or do you just mean those in the Middle East?)
Interesting post and comments.
On a lighter note…..Has no-one mentioned team sports? My husband, sons and a lot of male friends play sports. A lot of these sports don’t need a lot of equipment or could still be played without stadiums, rinks, etc and it seems that this is a powerful support group for them. They sit around after getting some endorphins going in the change room drinking beer and airing the most intimate stuff! I’d have to say that my husband has dealt with all kinds of issues that might otherwise be cause for depression, drinking or drug use by playing hockey!
My teenage son plays with people of all ages providing diverse role models from outside the family.
I’ve seen people, in what we consider the third world, playing soccer with a ball of rags and cricket with sticks. They looked like they were having a great time. Definitely not worrying about where the next meal was coming from for a least a few minutes.
Something to consider when things start to go squirelly.
where precisely do trans men and women and others come into the picture when discussing this? Do we?
Hi Romham – That’s a good question, but a hard one to ask and answer here, I think. Are we talking about M-F or F-M – and to what extent are lingering past roles central and to what extent are new perceived ones central? I tend to think that merits a second post. One of my worries about transfolk is what happens if they can’t get the medical treatments they need. Folks in transition have such high suicide rates and other issues just because of the sheer trauma of their sense of wrongness, as I understand it, that I would worry that interruptions in treatment would be deeply traumatic. As for identity – I don’t know. I have a trans M-F friend who would strongly deny she had ever accepted male attitudes and identities, while others would say differently.
Sharon
Deadbeat Dad – The problem is that the stats don’t bear you out – it is possible that people who were outwardly in decent marriages and family structures also had other problems, but at least on a statistical level, it seems like men did die faster even when they were married and enmeshed in extended family structures. Maybe the were bad ones, that’s not something you can tell from stats, but it at least requires us to consider the alternative.
It is true that the Islamic World has lower rates of suicide than we do – but I don’t think it would be accurate to suggest that they respond to high unemployment well – there are high rates of violence. Maybe that’s an outlet, but throwing rocks at someone with an uzi is another way of committing suicide, IMHO.
I’m not a liberal feminist myself (I’m a leftist and a feminist, but these are not the same things) and I don’t think highly of the corporatized feminism that we did achieve in many respects. But I think it is also in many ways too easy a target – moreover, to be absolutely blunt, if you could reduce male rates of anxiety and depression but you had to do it by rechaining women into marriages that were abusive or destructive, making them economically dependent, repermitting marital rape and most of the other things that went along with the traditional model, I’m not sure there would be a justification for doing it.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think there are things that should be done to reduce the costs of our present situation. But I just don’t see the burkha as a good solution.
Sharon
My husband and I are 41 and 38, respectively. We both have 9 to 5 day jobs. He has begun a side business and I manage our homestead and livestock that supports us by providing a decent portion of our food and a bit of walking around money. He is rather modern-minded with regard to gender roles but still clearly feels obligated to be the default “provider”. I’ve never required this of him, but he feels it is his responsibility. We had a discussion the other night at dinner about how we could do a lot more and produce a lot more on our homestead if one of us could quit the day job. I made this point, and then immediately declared that it should be him. I already work from home most days which allows me great flexibility and I have a very forgiving boss. His job is much more rigid, his boss far less accommodating (as in, not at all). He makes more than me, but our salaries aren’t so vastly different that they would impact the decision. I stated that it would make more sense for him to quit his day job and I keep mine, then he could still run his side business (which requires far fewer work hours) and have more time to work on projects at home.
He appeared rather surprised by the suggestion, but also quite agreeable (which surprised me) and I think I even detected a bit of relief. I sort of think the arrangement would “let him off the hook” somewhat, while still ensuring that he had Important Things To Do for the household, and would thus still feel valued (not that I EVER don’t value him!).
romham and Sharon–speaking as a trans man… it varies. I offered my personal perspective here, above.
Changes in access to medical transition are certainly something I worry about, but I worry more about whether I will have community where people are able to respect me and treat me as the person I am. I’m investigating the use of herbs to support my gender expression (carefully and with the help of an herbal practitioner), but I doubt they will ever make the difference that exogenous hormones do.
I’m queer enough that I’ve had to question and discard a lot of the assumptions about what makes a person a man or a woman already, so while I expect to be unsettled and destabilized, well, I already feel unsettled and destabilized. A radical change in men’s ability to provide for their families just feels sort of irrelevant to me.
This is such a great topic. I’m watching my father in the US–and have watched him in other economic downturns bear the burden you describe. I think at least in his case, it’s because his identity/role in the family is absolutely breadwinner–a lot of responsibility rests on his shoulders. Because of that, if he were to say, confide in a family member about how worried he is about the economy or his business, it would scare the crap out of that ‘dependent’ family member. So, he can’t really confide in anyone without causing massive stress. He has a few male friends to confide in that he does business with, which means that if he were to be forced out of business, he would see them much less. That’s a very hard position to be in.
I think we need to be careful not to ‘blame the victim’ here: there is still tremendous pressure on men to play the breadwinner role and to live up to certain ‘manly’ standards in our society. There is also pressure not to show emotion or confide in others. So when men struggle to ‘cope’ I think it’s important to remember that they’re responding to the threat of no longer being accepted by a society that has pushed them to be a certain way–not because they have some innate weakness.
Perhaps as a society, we need to be more careful about what we tell our men and boys in general, so that they will know that they will still be accepted in the event that a situation beyond their control knocks them from the breadwinner role. My two cents: as a woman.
Men were programmed to be the providers. Women were programmed to be provided for. Interesting topic. Men will survive just fine in my opinion overall. Some just cant cope without a paycheck and some can get the idea to farm for food without relying on others or society. There is no doom crisis on the horizon.
“How do we soften the blow?”
You don’t. You can’t hold our hand and protect us. It just makes things worse. We’ll either find our way or we won’t.
Good post , Sharon.
Deadbeat, Sharon has already mentioned that statistics don’t bear out your contentions about women & divorce.
I’d like to make two points from my experience: my Dad was an alcoholic woman abuser, he beat and emotionally degraded my mother & sister, had a “wife” in another town. Divorce didn’t keep him from the kids – it was HIS option. Keeping the family together would have been even more of a disaster.
I escaped Dad’s role model via radical feminism – found a different take on family, women’s & men’s roles, power relationships and so on. My wife & I have been married for 35 years and are still going strong. No kids – we decided not to have children.
Which brings up the 2nd point: much of the strain of marriage and support of family comes with children. I’ve not seen Sharon comment on the benefits of having NO children.
Since much of the strain men experience in traditional men’s roles is family support related, dramatically less strain comes with no children. No children is good for the environment, too.
edde
Mark, do you really think that’s true that women or other men have no role in helping men navigate this? That seems a strange position. I know my husband certainly doesn’t want to be left alone to figure it out himself, but perhaps he’s unusual.
Edde, I feel like it would be a little hypocritical of me to try and make the case for no kids, since I have no experience. I certainly can see the case, and I think that the potential for doing good in your community is also radically increased in many cases by not having kids – my observation is that people who don’t have kids often leave the world a lot in part because they had time to do so.
That said, I also recall seeing studies that men who had children were more satisfied with their marriages, but I can’t pull one up right this second, so maybe I’m misrecalling. What I do see, however, is often that older single people express ambivalence about their choice later in life, knowing that they have no kids as they get older. Obviously, if you’ve been married 35 years, that hasn’t happened to you. It will make a good discussion, though, and I’ll do a post on the subject soon, promise!
Sharon
I understand what Deadbeat is saying about fathers. And I can totally understand that having your children taken away from you would be a *far* greater factor in thoughts of suicide than anything economic could ever be.
However this: “Look no further than the Islamic world…they have staggering unemployment by standard measures. Before 2001, did they have an epidemic of suicides, drug/alcohol abuse? NO.” Is incorrect. The answer is YES. I can’t give you any suicide stats, but the Middle East does have drug problems and (underground) drinking problems. Not to mention far more issues with messed up families, mostly due to attitudes. The family may be artificially staying together on the surface, but many I know so many where the husband was sleeping in another room (as he was gay) or the wife was packed off to another country (if she was being too troublesome).
The answer to Deadbeats problem is not to insure that women stick by the man and be a good home maker whether she wants to or not in order to stop him committing suicide. The answer is to have better laws for child custody.
Been married for 40 some years (to the same woman!). When I was growing up, my lessons were always to ‘tough it out’, be like the hero in the old Zane Grey westerns … the ’strong, silent’ type who kept everything buried deep inside. To this day I have a difficult time expressing emotion. I was not able to shed a tear when my father died. I’ve never cried in a movie. I suspect a great deal of mens problems today stems from the way we were raised. I recall as a youngster (7 or 8?) that I had a pet dog that I loved dearly. When it was struck by a car and killed, I cried a lot. Eventually, I made a promise to myself that I would NEVER again love anything that much so as not to undergo all that pain. I have kept that promise.
“Mark, do you really think that’s true that women or other men have no role in helping men navigate this? ”
If you notice, the question I responded to was your “How do we soften the blow?”
Sharon, if you try to soften the blow for a man you are telling him that he is not strong. Do you really want to do that?
As for navigation, a person is wise to take counsel from those (men and women) he respects and trusts, agreed…and then in the end “you pays your money and you takes your chances”.
Sharon, if you try to soften the blow for a man you are telling him that he is not strong. Do you really want to do that?
Um. Or maybe we men can learn to be a little more flexible and a little less invested in proving how strong we are–especially if being able to bend a little helps us be more actually resilient, thus surviving and protecting our families better. Rather than pretending we can weather a blow that obviously we can’t, as shown by the high rates of suicides and depression when we experience that blow.
But you’re probably right, being delusional is probably better. More fun at least. We can have caveman cookoffs.
I don’t see any difference between men, women, and intersex people, other than the obvious physical differences. It’s hard for me to relate to this article. The portrayal of both reactions I’ve seen in all sexes, and not just one or the other, but a mix. I, personally, think the article is quite sexist.
At least in the 1930s many men had the solidarity of union halls, bowling leagues, etc. — not so much today. Perhaps the first step is building community.
I barely know where to start with this. The descriptions of men that turn up here are of very dysfunctional people. As far as I can tell, not being able to handle emotions goes hand in hand with high suicide rates and dedication to a career/job – And the need to always be doing something is because we are on the run from all those emotional problems we have never dealt with in our lives.
My experience of working as a professional taught me that I was never going to be very good at it until I killed off the part of me that deals with relationships. In the end my attachment to wanting to develop as a person as opposed to just wanting to develop as a professional meant that I had to leave my job and try something else.
The definition of a professional man (and all good working men really) is a man who ‘gets the job done’. Irrespective of whether there are any moral issues with what he is doing, or if he may be sick, or his family may need him or simply that he would rather be doing something else, the proffessional can be relied upon to do what the boss wants. Essentially he can be relied upon to be dysfunctional – to his bosses advantage.
And I say this also, because I am currently watching my own father struggling with retirement. He’s spent a lifetime as the consumate professional, devoted to someone else’s cause and with many career landmarks. However now in his late sixties he has no real friends, is not close to his children and can’t relate to his grandchildren at all. He is just kind of tolerated by the family, although even though he believes he is it’s head.
The solution for us is to change. We should never have been like this anyway but now it is even more important that we find a way to develop new identities. We can be more to our families than mere money earner’s. We can care for our families in person, we can be there for our boys to show them how to be men instead of just telling them how when we get home from work.
I’m not saying it will be easy or that someone doesn’t need to get money for the family to survive but a widening of the definition of what it means to be a man might help us cope better – anyway, the only person that ever benefited from us identifying so exclusively with our jobs was the boss.
srovnání jak se muži a ženy různě vyrovnávají se změnou směrem k energeticky a metariálně chudšímu světu
As per usual, just another feminist coming up with another excuse for more male bashing, man-hating, and the usual litany of how terrible men are, and how so much better women are. It’s so familiar: men don’t show their feelings, men don’t talk, men’s identities are tied to their jobs, men won’t admit to being weak, men won’t ask for help, etc, etc,. Just more of the same. Men are pretty terrible, women are nearly perfect. What exactly is the point of this? You mean we haven’t trashed men and deified women enough already? How does it benefit anyone to be endlessly told how terrible your group is? Is anti-semitism beneficial to Jews? Is constantly telling Jews what terrible people they are, compared to gentiles, of benefit to them? Is homophobia beneficial to gays? Is constantly telling gay people how terrible they are, compared to straights, considered helping them, considered beneficial? Is racism of benefit to people of color? Is it considered helping African-Americans to tell them how inferior they are to whites? No, no, and no. Only with men is it considered helpful to constantly iterate how terrible they are, how worthless they are, how hopeless they are, how mentally deficient they are. Insult men, berate men, degrade men, belittle men, constantly tell men how superior women are in every way. Why is such treatment considered helpful to men, but not to any other group?
So men without jobs suffer feelings of depression, helplessness, frustration, lack of fulfillment? And that’s because they were brought up to believe that a man is not a man without a job? Well, that’s funny because those feelings were exactly the same that feminists (Betty Friedan, et al) found among WOMEN who did not have jobs outside the home! But I’m sure that won’t put a crimp in your anti-male diatribes, will it?
Would you need to possess a good B in the social sciences to operate a weblog in this way?