Are you man too much?
Is a desire for toughness natural in men, or is it, as
this writer argues, promoted and exploited?
Do you agree with his analysis, or do you think he portrays the desire
for toughness in too negative a light?
What do you think about the solutions he proposes?
At first, the article seemed a bit biased to me as it only focused on men. I am convinced that, based on findings of numerous psychological studies that support the view, men and women are not essentially much different. I certainly don’t think the desire for toughness is ever natural.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, since the author is a professor of sociology with presumably professional experience, he might well know what he was talking about. I agree with the main claim of the article; that manhood is overestimated and abused via promotion.
Advertisements and political propaganda of heroism and nationalistic pride are surely aimed at men. But I think that also many women are affected by senseless hunt for profit and social status. Therefore I think that frequent cardiovascular problems, exhaustion and diseases related to high stress levels are common for both genders.
I think the author’s suggestions to create a working democracy are quite plausible. The capitalistic ideology of profit-making has detrimental effects on the society and the environment. As stated in the article, exploitation of the working class and the natural resources of developing countries is a direct consequence of how politics of the developed countries work these days.
Only a few days ago I watched a documentary film about palm plantations in Indonesia. Vast tropical rainforests are cleared, often by being set on fire, in order to produce cheap oil. Moreover, the native inhabitants, whose only subsistence is agriculture, have simply been pushed out of the land by machinery. I think only human hyenas can behave like this.
In addition, I agree that such behaviour is to a large extent the result of the western culture’s feeling of superiority. I hold the belief that only implementing a fair treatment of others can help the world end the endless conflicts and suffering. Only when the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace, as stated by Jimi Hendrix.
Now women, kids, the weak;
ReplyDeletetake them, use them,
abuse them.
That’s what real men do.
What else are testicles for?
I find interesting and also funny this part of a poem under the article. It somehow sums up the points which the author of the article pointed out. Men are here to be dominant, to be powerful, to be great heroes. It really sounds good to me. Hercules was always better than Xena, I would say. Each man should be a prototype of strong and leading person. These all are the attitudes described in the text, and so let’s have a brief look at them, since I do not agree with them so much.
In the past, it was man who was fighting against enemy, who was the most physically powerful creature in the world. Men controlled the society and women were kept home doing dinners. It is quite natural that it was like this because of man’s physique. Men proved that they are real men when they were good fighters or hunters. And yes, they were inspired by other older men and so said to themselves: “I am as a man as he is. I will do it even better.” However, I think that there were few who just said: “He did it great, so will I.” By this I mean that there didn’t have to be focused only on the fact they are men but on the act itself. I believe that this should also apply in present society. Men shouldn’t do things like staying long at work, suppressing emotions and so on just because they want to prove they are men. We, men, should focus on the acts and their impacts. If I see somebody did a good think, I will support him and join him. However, this does not apply only on men. Also women do the same. In the marketplace, as stated in the article, men and women should do their best just to show their interest to improve something, to develop something.
I think that men, at least in my surroundings, do not do some extra things just to prove they are good men. I think it is more about the acts than about sex what motivates to do such acts. However, I do not see anything bad about the fact, when man is going to do something and he boosts his confidence by phrase: “I am the man. I will do it!” I think also women do it. They also can boost their confidence saying how skillful they are since they are women. Men and women have some characteristic features which can help them to handle some situation. Men should be proud to be men and so women should be proud to be women. Men should behave like a representative man behaves and so should be a pillar for women and women should also use their natural skills to help men, such as to be creative and handy.
I agree with Matus completely that “Men shouldn’t do things like staying long at work, suppressing emotions and so on just because they want to prove they are men.” In my opinion both sexes are equal, and it is just the fact that society has created general characteristics of an ideal man. This presses men to be tougher.
DeleteI highly support the idea that women and men should be accepted as equal beings. However, it is really fascinating to me that men are considered by the society to be generally more powerful and stronger. I really do not know why men are considered like this, since it is absolutely sexist. The society somehow created an idea that men are more powerful and therefore we should all obey them. This is the reason why most of the leading and powerful people were men. You could rarely see a woman who ruled men, even though there always are some exceptions like Cleopatra.
There still are many countries which think that men are much stronger beings than women and they treat them like that. For example the Arabic countries consider women to be weak and vulnerable. Even in the holy book of Muslims it is written that women should obey men. It is generally believed that man should provide money for the family and woman should cook and take care of the family. Even though it may not seem hard, women have a very important task to do. I personally do not think that we should concentrate more on the personality of the person, rather than on the gender. Many prejudices have been created about men and women (for example women can drive worse than men, etc.) but I personally think that this is all just made up and we should not judge someone according to the gender he/she has.
Barbora, you said that you believe the two sexes are equal. That is not true. From a simple biological perspective you can see that they are not equal. I am not saying one is better than the other, I am just saying they are different. Males ARE more competitive, but we cannot blame that only on the picture of an ideal man the society created.
DeleteThere is a concept called Bateman’s principle, which says that whenever there are two different sexes in a species, it is inevitable that evolution will lead them into a state where one sex will always have to invest more resources into the production of offspring. In humans, this would be the women. There is a limited amount of children a woman can have during her lifetime, yet the amount of offspring a man can have is virtually unlimited. Which means women have a harder time ensuring the propagation of their genetic material and must hence be ”choosy” when it comes to choosing the partner. On the other hand, the second sex will always develop a large-scale competitiveness among the members (in the case of humans - the males). They have to show the females that they are the right choice for being the father of the offspring of the female.
So biologically speaking, men were designed to be competitive by evolution. In the current age this might not be so visible, yet the whole idea is hard-wired into the minds of all males. There is no way around it. The little picture of an “ideal man” might just be a creation of today’s society, but it stimulates this hard-wired instinct-like behavior.
It is very hard for me to briefly comment on this article, as I disagree with majority of the content, and even when I could find a common word with the author, our ways of achieving the goals would be rather different. Therefore I will look only at the two suggestions stated in the conclusion, and add my two bits.
ReplyDeleteI believe that nurturing new generations to not seek satisfaction in status, power and domination of others is already happening. The basic premise author is operating with in the whole article, is that it was the capitalist society that made men to look upon power, toughness and competitiveness as the only ways of achieving socially significant position. Firstly, I do not agree that all working-class men know nothing better but to be socially significant. Nor do I agree that it is the same for middle-class and upper-middle-class men. Once again, author’s premise is that all these man are dumb enough to be led by the system, and in fact, do not really have own personalities which would be free of this pressure. I know many who do not care about power or toughness, nor about bringing a smile to boss’s face or promotion. Actually, all of these ones are driven by the help to others. Selfish-less devotion to a creation of better world. The other part of men I know do have efforts to attain power and toughness, but I see this as something fairly deeply encoded in our genes. It was not with a rise of capitalism that men started to be hierarchical. Every single society, ever since Homo Habilis, has had a feature known as hierarchy. In fact, it is present even in animal societies. The purpose was not to exploit the individuals at lower levels, but to determine the individual which was the most able among the others. Therefore I would say that it is very natural for men to compete with others, to either prove to themselves that they are worthy members of society, capable of protecting and raising children, or to prove others their abilities. As to remind ourselves with the original problem, I believe that schools, in general, have long shed off negative consequences, which may have arisen during the promotion of gender differences and socially acceptable gender roles. What was left, are the natural basics, and have the full right to stay there, as I see nothing wrong with healthy competitiveness and toughness, together with education about gender differences, which there are whether we like it, or not.
Abilities are exactly what my second paragraph should be about. Author equals hierarchical working of enterprises with exploitation of expendable men. We should take off pink glasses, and stop pretending that all men are equal, because we are not. As I have said before, hierarchy is an establishment of a natural order going from the most able to the least ones. The purpose is not exploitation, but efficiency. Leading a company with 50 employees is not a simple task. There are people who work on PR, there are those who do the “hard stuff,” and there are those who look for possible contracts. They all need to work effectively if they want to be successful. What does it mean? That communication between them is ensured, and that their partial works are joined together at some point. This assumes a need for a person, who would organize this whole thing, a so called mastermind, who knows what needs to be done, when it needs be done and puts the pieces together. As a common saying goes, a war requires dictatorship, and business surely is a type of a never-ending battle. Democracy is built upon the vote of majority, but it is known that majority is easily manipulated, mostly by strong individuals. Sad fact, but look at Nazi Germany. A strong leader (to be honest, a few strong people) conquered one nation and consequently a half of Europe. A person with vision and abilities, a great company leader, is one of the main components of success. Having cooperative enterprises with democratic control would harm the company as a whole. And it is not like the leader is a dictator, refusing to cooperate. A leader not only gives orders, but also bear responsibility for his decisions and act as a lightning rod. When half of the company (a half without one person) would disagree with some radical decisions (as it is common with radical decisions, to divide people in two equal groups) but which would be adopted nevertheless, would probably show strong dissatisfaction, thickening the atmosphere in the company. Invariably resulting in worse effectiveness of the company as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIn those two paragraphs above I have expressed my opinion on which I believe, were the most significant points. I will not conclude as I think I have done so sufficiently already, but I will express one last hope, and that is that I have been clear enough for the reader to understand. Nevertheless, I will be happy to discuss this issue furthermore.
Michal, I am stunned at your confidence in what you are saying. I habe to agree with most of your points and I admit that those are wise ones. However, I have the confidence to oppose in one thing. You concluded your first post by reference to gender differences and socially acceptable roles. And I think that our society has not (and probably never will) overcome the different expectations from men and women. Many men feel oblidged to take care of their family (mainly the finances) and they often make great sacrifices in orde to achieve their goals. But I don't think this is because of their sole competitiveness and need to prove their masculinity. I think that there is a problem nowadays (which might be directly or indirectly caused by the rise of capitalism) in that majority of people have little choice in choosing their job and social status. I think the problem lies in overestimation and too high ambitions of people who than take no regard on their health. Moreover, I think the tendency to succumb to workaholism is more prevalent in men, which might be some of the effects of the natural differences between the sexes, I guess. And thus the way society works today is for many harmful.
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