Opening Men Up Emotionally

[SearchingforPeace]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/education/edlife/teaching-men-to-be-emotionally-honest.html.

Very interesting article here. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

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In a report based on the 2013 book “The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools,” the sociologists Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann observe: “Boys’ underperformance in school has more to do with society’s norms about masculinity than with anatomy, hormones or brain structure. In fact, boys involved in extracurricular cultural activities such as music, art, drama and foreign languages report higher levels of school engagement and get better grades than other boys. But these cultural activities are often denigrated as un-masculine by preadolescent and adolescent boys.”

....
Dr. Kimmel came to my campus, Towson University, in 2011 to discuss the “Bro Code” of collegiate male etiquette. In his talk, he deconstructed the survival kit of many middle-class, white male students: online pornography, binge drinking, a brotherhood in which respect is proportional to the disrespect heaped onto young women during hookups, and finally, the most ubiquitous affirmation of their tenuous power, video games.

.....

I wanted the course to explore this hallmark of the masculine psyche — the shame over feeling any sadness, despair or strong emotion other than anger, let alone expressing it and the resulting alienation. Many young men, just like this student, compose artful, convincing masks, but deep down they aren’t who they pretend to be.

Research shows what early childhood teachers have always known: that from infancy through age 4 or 5, boys are more emotive than girls. One study out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in 1999 found that 6-month-old boys were more likely to show “facial expressions of anger, to fuss, to gesture to be picked up” and “tended to cry more than girls.”

“Boys were also more socially oriented than girls,” the report said — more likely to look at their mother and “display facial expressions of joy.”

....

But we socialize this vulnerability out of them. Once they reach ages 15 or 16, “they begin to sound like gender stereotypes,”....

....

But wouldn’t encouraging men to embrace the full range of their humanity benefit women? Why do we continue to limit the emotional lives of males when it serves no one? This question is the rhetorical blueprint I pose to students before they begin what I call the “Real Man” experiment.

In this assignment, students engage strangers to explore, firsthand, the socialized norms of masculinity and to determine whether these norms encourage a healthy, sustainable identity.

... One of the most revealing projects was a PowerPoint by a student who had videotaped himself and then a female friend pretending to cry in the crowded foyer of the university library, gauging the starkly different reactions of passers-by.

“Why do you think a few young women stopped to see if your female friend was O.K.,” I asked him, “but no one did the same thing for you?”

He crossed his arms, his laser pointer pushing against his bicep like a syringe, and paused. Even at this point in the semester, the students, some of whom had studied gender issues before, seemed blind to their own ingrained assumptions. So his response raised many eyebrows. “It’s like we’re scared,” he said, “that the natural order of things will completely collapse.”

 

[Mustafa]

Take for example ... The military. Should it be shut down?

 

[GIjade]

I completely agree with what I've read of the article, men get the short end of the stick when it comes to showing their emotions. I feel bad about that and always encourage or allow the men in my life to cry if they need too. The reason, perhaps, that the young women in the experiment stopped and asked only the female who was crying if she was alright, but not the male, could be because they knew about the social "rules" and might feel that asking the male would make him feel less than strong, thus contributing to even more shame or negative feelings for him to have to deal with. They may have been hesitant because they didn't want to make things worse, or because they didn't know how he would react.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Male disposability.

 

[Mustafa]

Life is created in pairs, Truth/Justice (male) and Mercy (female). Females are smart and think far, men are strong and aim short and protect the females. This equality thing is messing up.

Females are getting aggressive and sexually agressive and men are becoming cowards.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

The problem is not men not sharing their emotions, it is the perception that men should necessarily sacrifice themselves for women.

 

[Mustafa]

But i suppose that's a llright.

 

[Mustafa]

The problem is not men not sharing their emotions, it is the perception that men should necessarily sacrifice themselves for women.

If that was not the rule fools would go wild and rape women whom are physically weaker.

 

[Evo]

I didn't know male babies were more expressive than female

 

[Mole]

Take for example ... The military. Should it be shut down?

Our Australian Army has a highly trained Terrorism Response Unit.

Our last Islamic terrorist took hostages in the centre of Sydney and started shooting them before the police could get to him. So when the next Islamic terrorists takes hostages and starts killing them, he will be faced with the Australian Army Terrorist Unit whose policy now is to shoot to kill as soon a possible.

I quite understand why some muslims don't like the police, and some suggest we shut down the military. As naturally they want to carry out jihad as part of their religious duty, and would like to see us disarmed.

 

[Mole]

If that was not the rule fools would go wild and rape women whom are physically weaker.

This is the misogynist narrative muslims tell themselves, and now tell us.

This is what Islamisation means. It means we are to accept the misogynist narrative about women, we are to accept the anti-semitic narrative against Jews, and we are to accept the religious narrative about violent jihad.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

If that was not the rule fools would go wild and rape women whom are physically weaker.

You are a protector and that is a good thing. That is often the way men show love for the things they care for. Yet it is still true that sometimes self-sacrifice is not the best option and that there are alternatives that help different interests to be happier, and not just happier, but in time to be more just, good, at peace. Women are not inherently good nor inherently evil and neither are men.

 

[Mole]

The problem is not men not sharing their emotions, it is the perception that men should necessarily sacrifice themselves for women.

It is a common thought of men of how would they behave in battle. Would they be brave or would they be cowards? And women took advantage of this by giving a white feather, symbolising cowardice, to men who were not fighting at the front.

And on a day to day basis, without thinking, women use men as unpaid bodyguards.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

There are places where women are competing for men and vice versa. There are modes of being where men exploit women and vice versa. There are ways of being where both men and women use one another without the other being harmed.

 

[AphroditeGoneAwry]

The problem is not men not sharing their emotions, it is the perception that men should necessarily sacrifice themselves for women.

But should not they? I would sacrifice myself for my loved ones. Why would not a man sacrifice himself for his woman?

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

But should not they? I would sacrifice myself for my loved ones. Why would not a man sacrifice himself for his woman?

There are instances where it would not do any good, such as drug addiction.

 

[Cellmold]

The problem with image is that it has very real consequences for a person based not on how they think but based on how others think and then act upon their image of the person.

I'm amused by people who claim not to be beholden to an image, not realising that the image of not being held to image IS an image in itself. That we should or shouldn't care what a person thinks of us is more to a deducing of our relationship with them at that moment in time and all the large number of factors that come into deciding how to act.

We do not want to be feckless sycophants (or appear to be) but at the same time no one can claim to escape influence, our brains don't allow for that.

But going against the grain is obviously always going to be harder. The mainstream is an affirming blanket that reinforces and it would be hard for most to find most of their situations a potential for conflict over minor, petty differences... right up to actual violence, all for giving a middle finger to the mainstream.

And most also wouldn't have the fortitude or be equipped to withstand that anyhow. But isn't there a reason why certain ideas catch on so well and become mainstream?

Is it a laziness of the human mind? A collective grasp of something simple enough to be understood that it requires little actual effort?
Or is there another reason beyond that one?

In this context: Why do the stereotypical traits of 'being a man' exist in the first place? It might not be what the makers of this article want to hear.

 

[geedoenfj]

I always thought that schools' environment is encouraging more stereotypical feminine manners, you have to sit in your seat the whole time, you have to study and be cautious about your grades, and study music and drama and language etc. which might be viewed by other kids as less masculine activities as the article mentioned, the less active and playful and boy like; the more you're appreciated by your teachers, I think the whole structure needs to change to be less boring and more exciting for boys..
However where I come from, in my days at least, music and dancing subjects used to be really appreciated and no feminine-masculine issues involved because they are designed to show more masculine or feminine side of the performer, but where I live right now I think there are more of religious concerns, they appreciate dancing so much because it's musculine and really appealing for boys, but they don't have a real music history, music is still new to them which makes it even harder for them to accept it..

As for men, I'm totally against looking down at emotional men, or "men shouldn't be crying".. Crying doesn't make someone less masculine, it makes him more human..

 

[Cellmold]

 

[SpankyMcFly]

Male disposability.

^ This.

We teach boys that they should become self contained in their ability to deal with emotions like; fear, helplessness, loneliness, sadness, pain, distress and to self succor. We teach them stoicism, to suck it up. We teach them that their fear and pain are things that are best ignored. We teach them that their emotional and physical well being are just not as important as other things. What we're teaching that baby boy is all the things a man needs to know and feel and believe about himself if he's going go stand with a gun in front of a home intruder while his wife and kids hide. We're preparing him for the day he may have to storm a beach or charge a hill under enemy fire and we're preparing him to make a rational decision to resign himself to a sure death so that the women and children can survive. What we're really teaching them is to internalize their own disposability.