Hahahahahaha, this is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time. Like women in this day and age don’t have to do all of that too. This was an Einstein express post from the 50’s right?
Well, OK, of course they have to, but if they fail, they fail only as people—they don’t lsoe their gender identity. Men who fail do so both as people and as men.
Maybe if you read it like this:
No, wait, that doesn’t work, either.
Talked to any infertile women lately? Lesbians? Women with short hair?
I don’t really want to be too personal, since I think the real issue is “why couldn’t a woman keep her son from being left to his own devices and joining a gang?” I mean, in theory, shouldn’t learning about competition and dominance actually lead a young man into a youth gang? I think those ideas are pretty important to membership in a gang. In fact, I would argue that thing that keeps young men out of gangs, besides prospects for the future, is being raised to understand they’re dangerous criminal enterprises. Surely women can find a way to teach boys not to be criminals?
But since you asked, I was largely left to my own devices as a child. I’ve always assumed being left to fend for myself led to my success, rather than being successful in spite of it. I don`t really know.
You reminded though of a conversation over the dinner table where my dad and step-mom were trying to convince my younger brother that he might as well not misbehave because parents always find out. Their example was the time I had “taken my car without permission” and had engine problem and been ‘caught’ when I needed help.
Now, for one I had permission. My custody agreement included 1 weekend per month at my mom’s. It was her weekend, so I asked her permission. I called dad when I had car trouble because I had a better relationship with him.
But more importantly, I had literally been driving from hardware store to hardware store collecting donations so I could paint a local playground. Congratulations! You caught your son helping the community. I realize it’s a very unique anecdote and I’m sharing it for amusement at how boring and upstanding I was as much as to make a point. But for what it’s worth, you are correct - my dad was mediocre in many ways. Somehow I managed to stay out of gangs in spite of it, and I’m really not convinced his gender really made any impact on my life.
Shit, I fail at things all the time, and I never felt I failed “as a man”. But then, I’m not living in the 1950s, either.
And you haven’t seen the many posts on this board about women angsting about trying to be everything to everybody? Perfect wives, perfect moms, perfect daughters to aging parents and perfect professionals. My husband is doing the exact same thing just sub the genders. I judge people by their actions and intentions not their genders. You might try it out yourself.
Your stupid is showing.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, people, I never said I believed in this crap.
But it, or something close, is the underlying assumption a lot of the time in our culture. (Yes, still. It’s deep enough down we don’t even like admitting it’s there.)
There are plenty of ways to be a “failure as a woman”. Try not being suitably decorative. Not getting married. Not being a mother. Being a *bad *mother. Oh, we have plenty to “do”, even if we cave to the nasty gender assumptions that apparently still lurk in our monkey brains.
But still people don’t generally seem to worry that a girl without a mother just won’t be able to fulfill her gender role without a proper role model. People will of course, cluck over the unfortunateness of her not having a mother, but they don’t assume that she *needs *one to become a woman. Even women who DO “fail” in these ways are generally assumed to be inherently defective or aberrant, not usually “improperly trained”.
I guess the real question is, if becomng a woman is “natural”, then why isn’t becoming a man “natural”? Why is “a man” not a *natural *thing to be?
Womaen who don’t have children are not “real” women?
Why didn’t someone tell me this before I entered menopause.
I think what I said in my exchange with Fuzzy Dunlop about what boys do when left to their own devices is germane here. Personally, I think it’s obvious that a well-rounded, stable upbringing benefits BOTH genders. If cultural roles are still considered relevant and valuable (and they still are by many) there will have to be some gender-specific teaching going on.
I think the issue, DianaG is not that becoming a woman is “natural” whereas becoming a man is not, but that the consequences of leaving men on their are considered to be more severe. Fact: there are far more men in prison than there are women, by a factor of more than 10:1. Fact: Many more men are required to pay child support than women.
I am not an expert social scientist, but it stands to reason that if you have a subset of the population more likely to be arrested/convicted of a crime, more likely to have to have to support children, or anything else of the kind, then society as a whole has an interest in trying to mold this group in a way that minimizes these problems.
This really isn’t that big of a psychological leap to understand. If we put it in race or socioeconomic terms, everyone would know what we are talking about. Why does the government dispense Food Stamps? So poor people won’t starve. Why are their special scholarships for minorities? So they have a fighting chance. Why do some people think men need to be taught to produce/provide/compete? So they are less likely to steal, more likely to provide for their offspring, and more likely to be good at the latter. That women don’t get this kind of attention is a clear double-standard.
It’s arguable how well these ways of thinking work, but you can’t say they’re illogical or serve no purpose. in most other places in the world, if you suggested men and women were interchangeable, they’d look at you like you were crazy.
I think there IS a lot of effort put into shaping girls into women, but it feels a lot more positive and less punitive than the efforts put into shaping men. Fact: There are significantly more women in college than there are men.
Yes, or so most of my family believs. (Me=voluntarily childfree.)
But I can’t help but feel there is something to having two genders as parents. I had a dad around, but he wasn’t a strong dad, and was pretty much overshadowed by all of the women in my life, and I know this changed me.
Still, I don’t see that it is something two loving, determined gay parents can’t overcome. And I would much rather have a child in a loving gay household than a loveless straight household, just to fulfill the criteria of opposite sex parents.
What would a father tell him about it? My father didn’t, and so far as I can tell neither did any of my fellows’ fathers. We’re all just thrown in to sink or swim.