Seeing as it is International Women's Day, I figured I should clarify my idea of gender equality. It goes a little something like this: If males get it, females get it, and if females get it, males get it. For everything that exists, for every statement that can be made that includes any connection to males or females, of any age, the syntax should not be any different with the word "male," "men," or "boys," than it would be with the words "female," "women," or "girls." That is all there is to gender equality. If there is an International Women's Day, and it has widespread publicity, the same should apply to International Men's Day. If there is a "Girl Effect," there should be a "Boy Effect." If there is a "Women's History Month," there should be a "Men's History Month." There should be no "women and children first" policies any more than there should be "men and children first" policies. This is what the feminists envisioned--total 1:1 equality across the board, not just "rough equivalence." But is that what we have?
Gender equality should be like writing a novel full of stereotypical characters, changing the sex of every single one of them, and coming out with a story no different than before. Gender equality means that all human beings are people regardless of their sex, that sex is a biological assignment and gender is a cultural construction. There could be infinite genders, even if there are only two biological sexes, and none of those genders should be expected to correspond to any particular sex. Gender equality is not about erasing gender, just about erasing the barriers that hold individuals back from participating in the varieties of human expression, and having their needs responded to. It means that alimony, child support, and full custody, ought to be rewarded to stable men in a divorce once in a while. It means that men ought to be able to mentor girls just as women can mentor boys, because one's biological sex shouldn't determine what child can benefit from what adult.
Gender equality is about being able to say: "X's are typically strong, nurturing, aggressive, and emotional," and seeing that any sex, any gender, could substitute for X without causing you confusion. You should have no idea of what gender is being implied by the words "strong," and "aggressive," any more than "nurturing," and "emotional." If you truly believe in gender equality, these are qualities that any human being can possess. Gender equality does not mean biological sexes are the same, it just means that as far as culture is concerned, they should matter no more than eye color. A blue eye is different than a brown eye, surely, but does it matter what color it is so long as it sees? What is true for eye color should be what is true for gender. The sexes are different, but they should not be valued any differently. I support this extreme equality because it can be used as a thinking tool to disassemble all destructive social evaluations of males and females.
And valued differently they are, as the fetishization of the emasculation of men and boys carries on in popular culture, and the sexual objectification of women and girls continues to persist as well. If true gender equality is what we are striving for, then I will not rest until the fetishization of the devaluation of women and girls is carried out, and the sexual objectification of men and boys begins in full too. Since the existence of feminism does nothing to devalue the importance of men and boys, the same should be true in the reverse, and there should be no "feminism" without also a "masculism." There should be no double standards for men and women, at all--women should earn what men earn for the same positions and the same productivity (whatever the criterion is), and at the same time, women should not be permitted to abuse men, and there should be "Men's" shelters just as there are "Women's" shelters. What one gets, the other should get equally as much, across the board.
We could also just treat people with dignity, uphold that they are valuable, and deserve respect, based on who they are, and not what they are, but that has so far been outside our grasp as a culture. Seriously, if we can't say "International Human's Day" because to do so would be to strip away the significance of the day with a vague "human" label, then "feminism" has a long way to go before it can be considered truly pro-equality. Either we surrender to the total equality formula, stripping everything down to a vague and therefore meaningless "human" level, or we allow only equal distribution of resources and values to both sexes. Because I believe that males and females are equal, but different, I prefer the later.
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gender. Show all posts
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Men and Children Can Coexist
I reject traditional masculinity and promote child guidance instead, and does it make me virtuous? Does that make me the ideal man? One brimming with patience, sensitivity, kindness, compassion, and love? Not in the eyes of a society where it would be more acceptable and profitable that I should be the man they can best sell to, and though I've done nothing, be kept from even sitting next to children on airplanes based on my sex alone. The sensitive man is not any more profitable than the man who complains about such sexist discrimination, for both are cast with the same suspicion of deviance just for being what they are--men who question social prejudice in one way or another rather than just accept it as men are expected to, and as many do. Where do we fit in as men when it comes to children?
The sensitive men are feared at best, ridiculed, emasculated, and then outright hated at worst. Those who can't understand our lifestyle look at us with a light-hearted condescension at first, jokingly making us surrender to judgment for the crime of heterosexual, and homosexual, male non-conformity. When I refuse to let it get to me, and carry on anyway because the world needs more compassion in it from our side towards children (which the world itself also says is lacking), the fearful among them unleash their ignorance completely--as if offended by their own inability to get under my skin--and amp up their assault not with more "efem" jokes, but with real threats. I could be kicked off an airplane simply because I'm a male sitting next to an unattended child and I refuse to move. Now I want to know what impression it is having on children where, wherever they go, they are to see men scatter, or be beaten back with sticks. That's child abuse in my book.
It seems all those who reject the commercially manufactured beer-swigging, sex-crazed lifestyle of the modern man are subject to termination by not only its benefactors but its hive-minded heterosexual adherents, raised to hate children instead, as if that was preferable to loving them. In the eyes of the world, child guidance is not a suitable interest for the modern man, no matter how necessary it is. Men and children however, can coexist in the same world without someone pressing a panic button, because we have existed in the same world for millions of years, even long before people decided to start putting paranoid sexist discrimination before human dignity. When certain people decided to start separating every man from every child, they separated their humanity from themselves. It's time we separated them from their perches.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Gendered Corruption
If indeed we believe that culture corrupts our kids, why does the biggest, most evil influence always lay at the feet of what we find unacceptable? Would not acceptable things, such as free market consumerism, also be corrupting them? Is corruption only tolerable when a child is corrupted by something we like, or does a child truly cease being corrupted by certain things, and where is that line drawn?
We wonder why the path to manhood is fraught with so much difficulty and lack of assurance. Parents fret about the outcomes for their sons. Surely it wouldn't have anything to do with how men and women, as a society, have let a commercially-driven media culture set the standard for manhood, would it? We've left boys of the world at the hands of a commercial culture that would sooner take him by the hand, cut a fart in his face, physically abuse him and verbally demean him and tell him to "tough it," sell him beer and breasts to weaken his resistance and thoroughly derail his ambitions by calling him "simple-minded," teach him to value his life by the number of sperm he can eventually squeeze out of himself, and be there for him to provide an array of products intended only to help him achieve that most carnal goal before he's to slip into domestic "uselessness" to have all his manufactured desires catered to on call. "Men are stupid" indeed.
We wonder why girls are so depressed or sell themselves short despite our best efforts to lift them up. Parents fret about the outcomes for their daughters. Surely it's not because men and women, as a society, have let a commercially-driven media culture set the new standard for womanhood, is it? We've all left girls in the hands of a so-called "empowering" commercial culture that would sooner take a girl by the hand, tell her she's smarter and better, inflate her self worth to unattainable heights, starve her of encountering any real adversity to her confidence or resistance, spoil her into submission so that she may become reliant on an array of beauty and "self-care" products to maintain that weakened state, and then tell her a superficial relationship in the service of a carnally-minded "useless man-child" with children in tow is all she needs to be happy. "Am I right fellas?" indeed.
"Why?" is not a good question to ask. "Isn't it obvious?" is a better one. If you wouldn't leave your child in the hands of someone you don't trust, who is only going to preach distortion and trickery, why would you leave your child in the hands of western culture? In twenty years the children we fret about today will be what we consider normal, well adjusted adults, most of them at least--adjusted in the sense that they've just spent their last twenty years being adjusted, by passing through the corruptible influence of culture in all its forms, positive and negative, and normal because they are still breathing at the other end of it.
We wonder why the path to manhood is fraught with so much difficulty and lack of assurance. Parents fret about the outcomes for their sons. Surely it wouldn't have anything to do with how men and women, as a society, have let a commercially-driven media culture set the standard for manhood, would it? We've left boys of the world at the hands of a commercial culture that would sooner take him by the hand, cut a fart in his face, physically abuse him and verbally demean him and tell him to "tough it," sell him beer and breasts to weaken his resistance and thoroughly derail his ambitions by calling him "simple-minded," teach him to value his life by the number of sperm he can eventually squeeze out of himself, and be there for him to provide an array of products intended only to help him achieve that most carnal goal before he's to slip into domestic "uselessness" to have all his manufactured desires catered to on call. "Men are stupid" indeed.
We wonder why girls are so depressed or sell themselves short despite our best efforts to lift them up. Parents fret about the outcomes for their daughters. Surely it's not because men and women, as a society, have let a commercially-driven media culture set the new standard for womanhood, is it? We've all left girls in the hands of a so-called "empowering" commercial culture that would sooner take a girl by the hand, tell her she's smarter and better, inflate her self worth to unattainable heights, starve her of encountering any real adversity to her confidence or resistance, spoil her into submission so that she may become reliant on an array of beauty and "self-care" products to maintain that weakened state, and then tell her a superficial relationship in the service of a carnally-minded "useless man-child" with children in tow is all she needs to be happy. "Am I right fellas?" indeed.
"Why?" is not a good question to ask. "Isn't it obvious?" is a better one. If you wouldn't leave your child in the hands of someone you don't trust, who is only going to preach distortion and trickery, why would you leave your child in the hands of western culture? In twenty years the children we fret about today will be what we consider normal, well adjusted adults, most of them at least--adjusted in the sense that they've just spent their last twenty years being adjusted, by passing through the corruptible influence of culture in all its forms, positive and negative, and normal because they are still breathing at the other end of it.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Affectionate Men
This is a culture that honors work over family, so it is no surprise that the struggle to gain women equal standing with men in the workplace and therefore in society in general, has been generally promoted. It is also no surprise that the struggle to gain men equal standing with woman over the family, the children, has never taken root. This work based culture seems to want nothing to do with raising its own children. The majority of men are pushed away from the care of children, and just as many seem more preoccupied with the workforce, with careers. With the arrival of feminism, it was finally declared that women sought the same. For both, having and raising children has become just a side project on a path toward personal fulfillment within the work place--something you have to do just to stay in keeping with social expectations.
These expectations have done nothing to raise us out of the sexist, 1940's culture that permeates family law in the United States. It has even been conveniently overlooked by the feminist movement itself--once again, because it doesn't concern the workplace. Family law arises from the belief that men are breadwinners and women are housewives and child caretakers. This is how a man and woman can divorce, and along with fifty percent of the marriage effects, the woman is typically granted the children, child support, and alimony. Many fathers who have weathered divorce have been brought into extreme poverty and even bankrupcy and homelessness as they've watched the mothers of their children reap the rewards of 1940's sexism in a modern equal opportunity culture. This is especially true if the man was not indeed the true breadwinner.
Regardless, all this stems from a pervasive and destructive cultural belief that men can not and should not be affectionate with children, and certainly are not equipped to be sole caretakers of them. As the old adage goes, we're fast becoming a culture that fears it may never cross a bridge designed by a woman, but couldn't care less if its children are raised by a man. Stereotypes, comedic tropes, and sexist cliches reinforce prejudice and embolden standards. Men who express any affection in public toward children, even fathers toward their own children, are often mistaken to be pedophiles, to be deviants. They are often ridiculed openly and harassed rather than celebrated.
The problem is not feminists, who have conveniently overlooked matters of family law and long ago demeaned and diminished the importance of raising children. The problem is not with men, who have been belittled from birth against showing affection toward anyone, and certainly not toward children, until they accepted this without complaint. The problem is with the underlying culture that does not allow men to complain about their diminished importance within the family, within childcare, as the feminists did about their status in the general workforce. Society looks up to work, it looks down on child raising. If a group of men come out and declare that they want to be taken seriously as child caretakers, it becomes a comedic trope at best rather than a genuine statement of desire. Why should a group of men who are not being discriminated against in the glorious and glamorous workforce want to do something as demeaning in the eyes of the culture as raise and nurture children? Society can not grapple with this concept.
Most men aren't like me. Most men don't place a high value on parenting either, as culture has dictated, so it's only the disaffected men (those who have been spit through family court) that complain. Many men will be reluctant to demand equal rights under family law because doing so makes them appear effeminate. What was a strength among the women's movement--the calculating, un-feeling, career-minded, self-fulfilled, self-dependent ideal woman of the future--becomes the unraveling of the men's movement--the nurturing, loving, reliable, educational, invested, selfless ideal male child caretaker of the future. It's seen as a sign of weakness to devote oneself to the ones society generally demeans anyways. The women's movement goes with the flow of western civilization (self-fulfillment, making money, children as a means to an ends...etc.) while the men's movement resists it (self-fulfillment in the fulfillment of a child's needs, children as a ends in and of themselves). There's no money in staying home and taking care of the kids, so western culture has no use for this new breed of man, and roots for his demise.
Feminists may have overlooked the affectionate man, male chauvinism may have tried to keep them down, culture may be trying to do away with them like shedding a malignancy, but the one group that needs the affection of a man is the only group we care about--the children, the boys and girls. In the end, raising them up is its own vindication where all else has failed them. If society wants nothing to do with the demeaning aspects of raising a child, then it's high time someone steps up to do the most important job of them all. Automation will erode the glorious western workforce, but children are always going to need affection.
These expectations have done nothing to raise us out of the sexist, 1940's culture that permeates family law in the United States. It has even been conveniently overlooked by the feminist movement itself--once again, because it doesn't concern the workplace. Family law arises from the belief that men are breadwinners and women are housewives and child caretakers. This is how a man and woman can divorce, and along with fifty percent of the marriage effects, the woman is typically granted the children, child support, and alimony. Many fathers who have weathered divorce have been brought into extreme poverty and even bankrupcy and homelessness as they've watched the mothers of their children reap the rewards of 1940's sexism in a modern equal opportunity culture. This is especially true if the man was not indeed the true breadwinner.
Regardless, all this stems from a pervasive and destructive cultural belief that men can not and should not be affectionate with children, and certainly are not equipped to be sole caretakers of them. As the old adage goes, we're fast becoming a culture that fears it may never cross a bridge designed by a woman, but couldn't care less if its children are raised by a man. Stereotypes, comedic tropes, and sexist cliches reinforce prejudice and embolden standards. Men who express any affection in public toward children, even fathers toward their own children, are often mistaken to be pedophiles, to be deviants. They are often ridiculed openly and harassed rather than celebrated.
The problem is not feminists, who have conveniently overlooked matters of family law and long ago demeaned and diminished the importance of raising children. The problem is not with men, who have been belittled from birth against showing affection toward anyone, and certainly not toward children, until they accepted this without complaint. The problem is with the underlying culture that does not allow men to complain about their diminished importance within the family, within childcare, as the feminists did about their status in the general workforce. Society looks up to work, it looks down on child raising. If a group of men come out and declare that they want to be taken seriously as child caretakers, it becomes a comedic trope at best rather than a genuine statement of desire. Why should a group of men who are not being discriminated against in the glorious and glamorous workforce want to do something as demeaning in the eyes of the culture as raise and nurture children? Society can not grapple with this concept.
Most men aren't like me. Most men don't place a high value on parenting either, as culture has dictated, so it's only the disaffected men (those who have been spit through family court) that complain. Many men will be reluctant to demand equal rights under family law because doing so makes them appear effeminate. What was a strength among the women's movement--the calculating, un-feeling, career-minded, self-fulfilled, self-dependent ideal woman of the future--becomes the unraveling of the men's movement--the nurturing, loving, reliable, educational, invested, selfless ideal male child caretaker of the future. It's seen as a sign of weakness to devote oneself to the ones society generally demeans anyways. The women's movement goes with the flow of western civilization (self-fulfillment, making money, children as a means to an ends...etc.) while the men's movement resists it (self-fulfillment in the fulfillment of a child's needs, children as a ends in and of themselves). There's no money in staying home and taking care of the kids, so western culture has no use for this new breed of man, and roots for his demise.
Feminists may have overlooked the affectionate man, male chauvinism may have tried to keep them down, culture may be trying to do away with them like shedding a malignancy, but the one group that needs the affection of a man is the only group we care about--the children, the boys and girls. In the end, raising them up is its own vindication where all else has failed them. If society wants nothing to do with the demeaning aspects of raising a child, then it's high time someone steps up to do the most important job of them all. Automation will erode the glorious western workforce, but children are always going to need affection.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Sexuality Supermarket
Loosening sexual mores allow for tolerance, but also provide impetus for individuals in governments or corporations to create in their future customers or constituents any sexual appetite most fitting with whatever social message or piece of merchandise they wish to peddle. Fetishism is a natural evolutionary function of sexuality that social engineers would love to exploit, and with increasing tolerance for alternative sexual appetites comes unprecedented ability to construct markets out of them. Advertisers know how to play this game, and the motto is as it always was: "get 'em while they're young."
Beyond their consent, like it or not, children are raised and sexualized by the increasingly accessible media. This is not so much a bad thing in and of itself, but at the same time their sexuality is being shaped by the media and other companies, they are not given the sexual nurturing they need because people don't want to be "seen" as en-culturing a child into functional sexuality. It should be no doubt then, where sexual dis-functionality stems. The panic over whether a company is exposing children to a sexual lifestyles before they can comprehend such things is another distraction, because it should be no news that a corporation is not in it for Junior to begin with.
If there should be concern, it rests squarely with the culture that hasn't allowed the people in Junior's life (who are, or should be, the ones "in it" for him) to be the ones to nurture his developing sexuality as they would his ability to read. Time and time again though, that responsibility is taken away from the adults in his life, and given over to the television and the internet by a culture made too squeamish or paranoid about appearing to be "too involved" with kids.
More disturbing is the mechanism where future generations can be made to love the egotism and material servitude it takes to power our economic engine, by influencing their sexual development to correspond to what best suits the interests of those who have a hand in shaping that culture. How many little boys will grow up with a sexually driven inferiority complex to females after spending their formative years sexualized by a media that obviously finds greater value in its female customers? The idea behind this social engineering is to designate what populations buy and what populations don't, take the ones that do and create in them this belief of superiority as instinctive and unstoppable as a biological necessity (like their sexuality). Then take the ones that don't and create the opposite with theirs--an inferiority complex--so they accept their place or at least don't take issue with their depictions and social devaluation in the media for being what it cultured them to be, because they will be so busy getting off on it.
Abominations as such that would never be allowed by a stranger passing a child on the street are permitted and perpetuated on a daily basis by strangers who just so happen to be further away from the kids in question, but wield the same influence. Given the choice between a person who loves your child and a person who wants to make money off your child, the parent will side with the profiteer. So the marketing exec goes to work every day, makes his pay and feeds his family on the idea of stealing children away from their parents. The stranger on the street just wants to model the daily "how do you do?" for your kid, and yet he is made the villain--no doubt by who.
Any media-backed morality is innately immoral, especially if it's presented as "counter-culture." There is no such thing. That which is truly counter-culture, is that which can not be marketed.
Beyond their consent, like it or not, children are raised and sexualized by the increasingly accessible media. This is not so much a bad thing in and of itself, but at the same time their sexuality is being shaped by the media and other companies, they are not given the sexual nurturing they need because people don't want to be "seen" as en-culturing a child into functional sexuality. It should be no doubt then, where sexual dis-functionality stems. The panic over whether a company is exposing children to a sexual lifestyles before they can comprehend such things is another distraction, because it should be no news that a corporation is not in it for Junior to begin with.
If there should be concern, it rests squarely with the culture that hasn't allowed the people in Junior's life (who are, or should be, the ones "in it" for him) to be the ones to nurture his developing sexuality as they would his ability to read. Time and time again though, that responsibility is taken away from the adults in his life, and given over to the television and the internet by a culture made too squeamish or paranoid about appearing to be "too involved" with kids.
More disturbing is the mechanism where future generations can be made to love the egotism and material servitude it takes to power our economic engine, by influencing their sexual development to correspond to what best suits the interests of those who have a hand in shaping that culture. How many little boys will grow up with a sexually driven inferiority complex to females after spending their formative years sexualized by a media that obviously finds greater value in its female customers? The idea behind this social engineering is to designate what populations buy and what populations don't, take the ones that do and create in them this belief of superiority as instinctive and unstoppable as a biological necessity (like their sexuality). Then take the ones that don't and create the opposite with theirs--an inferiority complex--so they accept their place or at least don't take issue with their depictions and social devaluation in the media for being what it cultured them to be, because they will be so busy getting off on it.
Abominations as such that would never be allowed by a stranger passing a child on the street are permitted and perpetuated on a daily basis by strangers who just so happen to be further away from the kids in question, but wield the same influence. Given the choice between a person who loves your child and a person who wants to make money off your child, the parent will side with the profiteer. So the marketing exec goes to work every day, makes his pay and feeds his family on the idea of stealing children away from their parents. The stranger on the street just wants to model the daily "how do you do?" for your kid, and yet he is made the villain--no doubt by who.
Any media-backed morality is innately immoral, especially if it's presented as "counter-culture." There is no such thing. That which is truly counter-culture, is that which can not be marketed.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Men in Care
Despite what is said, despite what is advertised, men are not wanted in care fields, working in care capacities, where there are children involved. He can apply, he can try to volunteer, he can do all these things to put himself in for the line of work, but staff to child ratios, gender ratios, age ranges, and other bureaucratic paper and tape block his ability to put himself into that line of work. Males can't work in care with girls. If there are more girls in the room, a female staff is preferred. Males can't work in care with young children. If there are more toddlers in the room, a female staff is preferred. In most situations, a female staff, applicant, body, or candidate is preferred.
This is true as much for Big Brothers Big Sisters as it is for the Scouts--gender barriers across the board. It seems the only place for males who desire work with children is in their detention and rehabilitation centers, where the population is normally older male youth anyways. Where confrontation abounds, males are expected to line up. Where there are colorful rooms with small tables, males are to keep at a distance.
In the 21st century, an era where bridges are being built by females, society has all but prevented males from working with its children. It won't be surprising that at least some part of the rest of the 21st century will be spent unraveling the negative effects of this cultural predator panic that has done nothing but separate children from positive male role models for the last couple decades. Perhaps our children will stem this tide, perhaps they will continue it.
This is true as much for Big Brothers Big Sisters as it is for the Scouts--gender barriers across the board. It seems the only place for males who desire work with children is in their detention and rehabilitation centers, where the population is normally older male youth anyways. Where confrontation abounds, males are expected to line up. Where there are colorful rooms with small tables, males are to keep at a distance.
In the 21st century, an era where bridges are being built by females, society has all but prevented males from working with its children. It won't be surprising that at least some part of the rest of the 21st century will be spent unraveling the negative effects of this cultural predator panic that has done nothing but separate children from positive male role models for the last couple decades. Perhaps our children will stem this tide, perhaps they will continue it.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Girls are the Future?
The economic superstructure has a dwindling need for boys. They are a shrinking market, and therefore an economically undervalued group. Besides video games and certain toys, there are increasingly fewer things that are marketed explicitly "for boys," since to do so would be to displace girls who might be interested in those markets. But have the markets reached this conclusion out of shifting attitudes about "girl power," or have they done so for economical reasons? That is to say, in girls marketers have a base that includes what continues to be the traditional girl media (the color pink), but also other varieties of "girl expression," and girls are therefore expected to be more active "buyers" across these multiple markets as a result. Boys have been shown to be a limited, almost niche market, so companies often don't see the reason to put up the money to cater to them specifically. Anything they do market with boys in mind must also consider possible girl buying power.
This is because girls are also both more likely and more encouraged to branch outside the narrow range of media designed for traditional girlhood. Products and companies originally steeped in selling to the traditional boyhood interests are finding that their limited target is vestigial, as they could just as well survive off the varied interests of their counterparts (who they value more due to the socially perceived penchant for materialism). Thus, if girls could be said to be the future, we know what gave them such a distinction -- the free hand of the market has thrown them into the social limelight, despite that cumbersome "stuffy-old" equality standard.
On the contrary to the egalitarian pleas, we routinely observe that it's far more edgy, fun, and (as we shall observe) sexy, to be girl-centric (at least, that's how the market would have it). Girl empowerment these days is a reflection of a newly spawned cultural standard born from an economic landscape that the stewards of culture (advertisers and products) are betting fortunes on. It doesn't really matter whether girls are indeed the future so long as they believe the line enough to dip their hands into whatever market is trying to pep them up for their purchase power. Likewise, if today's boys are to play second-fiddle in the future, such will have been accomplished because pockets were lined from their systematic devaluation today across all media. Why else would children's media extol the benefits of being a "good, clean, fashionable, trendy, diverse, intelligent, sporty, and empowered" girl, over being one of those "lazy, stupid, smelly, disgusting, hyper, non-fashionable, old-fashioned, slimy snip and snail" boys? That is, unless they weren't trying to cater to that sex's ego.
These so-called new gender expectations are not so new after all though. In fact, they represent the same mechanism of thought that has always existed -- that being, coddle the girls, make sure they are greeted with nothing but positivity and encouragement because they can't handle real criticism, and belittle the boys, because doing so makes them strong, and they can just weather any storm. Despite this, the feminist reaction to this social phenomenon has been mixed, with the extremes under the belief that society has finally "arrived" on the route to economically induced "payback" that the new generation should be forced to foot the bill for, and the wide majority taking a more moderate approach -- stressing individual need over coddling anyone, but generally being unconcerned. It is no question where their bias lies, along with their credibility, as whenever girls are being devalued in this culture, we certainly do hear about it and all of its injustice. Then again, there should be no question what side a feminist will take -- it is in their name.
Regardless, research has been on a crusade lately to confirm these new social expectations created by the stewards of culture, and so in the past 30 years, we've learned nothing else except how much more capable our daughters are -- to the point where it can hardly be called noteworthy anymore. Girls are smarter than boys, they get better grades at everything, have faster skill development, mature faster, have better sensory ability, have better life outcomes, go to college at greater frequencies, make for happier parents, work harder, make better friends, and almost any other trait you can imagine. All has been carefully researched, and so there are simply less and less reasons to conclude anything other than the fact that female children are superior creatures to male children. Indeed, parents, teachers, professionals, and ultimately, the market itself, have begun towing this conclusion, encouraging girls to be all they can be knowing of course that they really can be anything. Boys on the other hand can only be "boys." In the war between being anything and being a boy, girls rule.
It has become new, exciting, and sexy to assert girl superlatives as the norm, and relegate boys to the has-been pile. Now society roots for the girl to triumph, yes, but gives her the most praise and accolade when her triumph is seen as an usurpation, the overtaking of the male establishment, which is unfortunate for the "run-of-the-mill" triumphing girl that gets ignored. Society wants to prove to itself, even if it knows it to be wrong, that girls deserve not only to be triumphant, but more "importantly," to lay waste to their increasingly de-humanized and "unnecessary" alternatives. We get off on the spectacle of strong girl, insist she become that spectacle to our own enjoyment, using a boy as little more than a catalyst, a punching bag to pair off her achievements, but then fail to actually support her once she outgrows the bracket. It no longer feels all that sexy once those "meek little kiddies" who might have been swayed by "girl power" have grown up and have minds of their own, so we move on to the next group of offspring. The one thing nobody is willing to admit in all of this, is that everybody is getting off on the same sexual kink. That's all it is.
In the pursuit of this pleasure, we have piped up the girl's self-assurance in childhood to the point of anxiety and burnout by adolescence (they can not remain the perfect, all-important child forever), and sidelined the boy's enthusiasm to be the embarrassing joke it is until we are sure he has internalized it forever. The less important child has an ego to save against the onslaught. But the grand social experiment to degrade boys (and promote girl power on the side) has only succeeded as far as it has been paid for. The science about the sheer multiplicity of girl superlatives remains convincing, but if the goal is having girls on top of the perennial pyramid and truly ruling the world, more work has yet to be done. It feels good so far, but the climax is still coming.
This is because girls are also both more likely and more encouraged to branch outside the narrow range of media designed for traditional girlhood. Products and companies originally steeped in selling to the traditional boyhood interests are finding that their limited target is vestigial, as they could just as well survive off the varied interests of their counterparts (who they value more due to the socially perceived penchant for materialism). Thus, if girls could be said to be the future, we know what gave them such a distinction -- the free hand of the market has thrown them into the social limelight, despite that cumbersome "stuffy-old" equality standard.
On the contrary to the egalitarian pleas, we routinely observe that it's far more edgy, fun, and (as we shall observe) sexy, to be girl-centric (at least, that's how the market would have it). Girl empowerment these days is a reflection of a newly spawned cultural standard born from an economic landscape that the stewards of culture (advertisers and products) are betting fortunes on. It doesn't really matter whether girls are indeed the future so long as they believe the line enough to dip their hands into whatever market is trying to pep them up for their purchase power. Likewise, if today's boys are to play second-fiddle in the future, such will have been accomplished because pockets were lined from their systematic devaluation today across all media. Why else would children's media extol the benefits of being a "good, clean, fashionable, trendy, diverse, intelligent, sporty, and empowered" girl, over being one of those "lazy, stupid, smelly, disgusting, hyper, non-fashionable, old-fashioned, slimy snip and snail" boys? That is, unless they weren't trying to cater to that sex's ego.
These so-called new gender expectations are not so new after all though. In fact, they represent the same mechanism of thought that has always existed -- that being, coddle the girls, make sure they are greeted with nothing but positivity and encouragement because they can't handle real criticism, and belittle the boys, because doing so makes them strong, and they can just weather any storm. Despite this, the feminist reaction to this social phenomenon has been mixed, with the extremes under the belief that society has finally "arrived" on the route to economically induced "payback" that the new generation should be forced to foot the bill for, and the wide majority taking a more moderate approach -- stressing individual need over coddling anyone, but generally being unconcerned. It is no question where their bias lies, along with their credibility, as whenever girls are being devalued in this culture, we certainly do hear about it and all of its injustice. Then again, there should be no question what side a feminist will take -- it is in their name.
Regardless, research has been on a crusade lately to confirm these new social expectations created by the stewards of culture, and so in the past 30 years, we've learned nothing else except how much more capable our daughters are -- to the point where it can hardly be called noteworthy anymore. Girls are smarter than boys, they get better grades at everything, have faster skill development, mature faster, have better sensory ability, have better life outcomes, go to college at greater frequencies, make for happier parents, work harder, make better friends, and almost any other trait you can imagine. All has been carefully researched, and so there are simply less and less reasons to conclude anything other than the fact that female children are superior creatures to male children. Indeed, parents, teachers, professionals, and ultimately, the market itself, have begun towing this conclusion, encouraging girls to be all they can be knowing of course that they really can be anything. Boys on the other hand can only be "boys." In the war between being anything and being a boy, girls rule.
It has become new, exciting, and sexy to assert girl superlatives as the norm, and relegate boys to the has-been pile. Now society roots for the girl to triumph, yes, but gives her the most praise and accolade when her triumph is seen as an usurpation, the overtaking of the male establishment, which is unfortunate for the "run-of-the-mill" triumphing girl that gets ignored. Society wants to prove to itself, even if it knows it to be wrong, that girls deserve not only to be triumphant, but more "importantly," to lay waste to their increasingly de-humanized and "unnecessary" alternatives. We get off on the spectacle of strong girl, insist she become that spectacle to our own enjoyment, using a boy as little more than a catalyst, a punching bag to pair off her achievements, but then fail to actually support her once she outgrows the bracket. It no longer feels all that sexy once those "meek little kiddies" who might have been swayed by "girl power" have grown up and have minds of their own, so we move on to the next group of offspring. The one thing nobody is willing to admit in all of this, is that everybody is getting off on the same sexual kink. That's all it is.
In the pursuit of this pleasure, we have piped up the girl's self-assurance in childhood to the point of anxiety and burnout by adolescence (they can not remain the perfect, all-important child forever), and sidelined the boy's enthusiasm to be the embarrassing joke it is until we are sure he has internalized it forever. The less important child has an ego to save against the onslaught. But the grand social experiment to degrade boys (and promote girl power on the side) has only succeeded as far as it has been paid for. The science about the sheer multiplicity of girl superlatives remains convincing, but if the goal is having girls on top of the perennial pyramid and truly ruling the world, more work has yet to be done. It feels good so far, but the climax is still coming.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Girls are Spirit, Boys are Flesh
Just as children are subject to age-based projections and constructs, they are also subject to gender-based ones. Even in this age of gender equality, post-feminism, and ever-shifting ping-pong of eduction focus between boys and girls over the years, girls are still flowers and boys are still slugs. These gender representations don't mirror any biological fact or necessity for either gender, particularly at the pre-developed childhood stage of life. And yet they persist.
Physically, pre-pubertal boys and girls are similar in their bodily structure. Secondary sex characteristics develop later along predetermined hormonal pathways, but in any case, these facts alone do not automatically dictate that girls and boys be ascribed the social characteristics they absorb. Sex-typing a child is not a bad thing, the masculine and feminine traits are expressed along a continuum for either male and female children, in their natural temperaments, so long as the actual sex of the child has little baring on the role they assume. Male and female are biological assignments, "boyishness" and "girlishness" are not. Here's a little overview of some general constructs normally ascribed to kids of either sex:
Girls and boys inhabit the free spirit lifestyle, it's just that adults have posited the girl to the heavens and the boy to the earth. The girl inhabits air and water, her mental focus is inward (on the body such as it's exterior) but her physical focus is outward (on the play world such as it's interior mechanisms and friendships). A creature of great intelligence and willpower, but full of inhibitions, she's expected to be more male than male. On the other hand, the boy inhabits fire and dirt, his mental focus is outward (on the play world such as it's exterior spaces and opportunities), but his physical focus is inward (on the body such as it's internal functions). A creature of great willpower and boldness, but lacking intelligence, he's expected to be more male than female.
Surely, adults have fashioned a pretty fanciful set of ideas surrounding the archetype of the modern child. Unfortunately, it's no different than the old ones. In the modern world, female is the new male, and male the old male. We teach our children that new male is the standard because we believe the old male is tough enough to withstand what the new male can't (supposedly). So in effect, the old sexism has replaced itself under the guise of "girl power" without its male equivalent, the pedestal has changed and girls are still sitting on it. By saying "boys are stupid," we coddle girls and demean boys.
But regardless of what complicated cosmology is in place at a specific time to support the ever-changing positions of boys and girls relative to each other, male and female will always be nothing more than biological alternatives. Adults only view gender equality truly applicable to themselves, and at least are provided escape. The truth of the matter is, even if they work to manually enforce equality among the younger set, the kids will always be held captive to the adult's internal sex prejudices.
Physically, pre-pubertal boys and girls are similar in their bodily structure. Secondary sex characteristics develop later along predetermined hormonal pathways, but in any case, these facts alone do not automatically dictate that girls and boys be ascribed the social characteristics they absorb. Sex-typing a child is not a bad thing, the masculine and feminine traits are expressed along a continuum for either male and female children, in their natural temperaments, so long as the actual sex of the child has little baring on the role they assume. Male and female are biological assignments, "boyishness" and "girlishness" are not. Here's a little overview of some general constructs normally ascribed to kids of either sex:
Girls and boys inhabit the free spirit lifestyle, it's just that adults have posited the girl to the heavens and the boy to the earth. The girl inhabits air and water, her mental focus is inward (on the body such as it's exterior) but her physical focus is outward (on the play world such as it's interior mechanisms and friendships). A creature of great intelligence and willpower, but full of inhibitions, she's expected to be more male than male. On the other hand, the boy inhabits fire and dirt, his mental focus is outward (on the play world such as it's exterior spaces and opportunities), but his physical focus is inward (on the body such as it's internal functions). A creature of great willpower and boldness, but lacking intelligence, he's expected to be more male than female.
Surely, adults have fashioned a pretty fanciful set of ideas surrounding the archetype of the modern child. Unfortunately, it's no different than the old ones. In the modern world, female is the new male, and male the old male. We teach our children that new male is the standard because we believe the old male is tough enough to withstand what the new male can't (supposedly). So in effect, the old sexism has replaced itself under the guise of "girl power" without its male equivalent, the pedestal has changed and girls are still sitting on it. By saying "boys are stupid," we coddle girls and demean boys.
But regardless of what complicated cosmology is in place at a specific time to support the ever-changing positions of boys and girls relative to each other, male and female will always be nothing more than biological alternatives. Adults only view gender equality truly applicable to themselves, and at least are provided escape. The truth of the matter is, even if they work to manually enforce equality among the younger set, the kids will always be held captive to the adult's internal sex prejudices.
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