Dating is one of those interesting areas of interpersonal dynamics that’s easy to get advice for, but hard to determine whether the advice has merit. The plethora of information available for people to utilize shows that there is need, desire, and plenty of confusion about the best way to proceed when it comes to finding another person to connect with in an intimate way. Dating advice is a place where gender assumptions and stereotypes are still rampant. I see this as a sign of confusion about current standards of gender expectations rather than a more sinister desire to keep traditional roles stable. Traditional roles represent stability and the known and in times of change and turmoil, Michael Kimmel says, “society tends to search for the timeless and eternal during moments of crisis, those points of transition when old definitions no longer work and new definitions are yet to be firmly established.” Female roles in our society, homes and workplace have changed dramatically in the last 30 years, and it makes sense the confusion about the current state of affairs would show up dramatically in one of our most elementary points of human connection, dating relationships.
In order to get a grasp on what I consider to be the basics of relationship dating advice being presented to the public, I consulted three main sources: David De Angelo author of the e-book Double your Dating, Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider authors of The Rules II, and Dr. Joy Browne author of Dating for Dummies. De Angelo advises men in a primarily traditional shame based manner, calling to the man’s ego, his desire for power and his aversion to being thought of as less than a man. Fein and Schneider advise women in a primarily traditional manipulative female wiles approach that calls to a womans’ insecurity about her physical appearance, her desire to abdicate power/responsibility for action to the man, and the understanding of sexuality as power. Dr. Browne takes a more middle road stance and attempts to write a book appealing to everyone with special notes about tendencies of one gender or another. The content of the advice isn’t all that different between these three sources, the form it comes in, however, is. If you wanted to break these authors down to stereotypes, it would be: traditional masculine, traditional feminine, and progressive egalitarian. These are three socially different groups of people, yet the content remains somewhat constant: try to look good, be confident, develop your own interests and don’t put too much pressure on any individual relationship working out.
I looked for commonalities as well as differences in these references. De Angelo and Fein/Schneider are both opposite ends of the gender spectrum. They advocate fairly traditional gender roles in the interaction between men and women. They agree on a few main points: Men must pursue, women must be pursued. Men have to make the moves, women respond to advances. Neediness is not attractive in either gender. Keep your distance, don’t give away too much information too early. Develop your independence, learn to be happy with yourself. Some of these points aren’t objectionable at all. In fact, the middle road author, Dr. Browne agrees with at least the last few in the list. Dr. Browne does not, however, agree with the game playing mentality that goes with the other authors advice. Fein/Schneider advocate rules like: only call a man back once for every 4 times he calls you. De Angelo advocates rules about not answering a womans’ questions directly, to crack jokes or lie outright in a funny way.
Playing hard to get is considered attractive. Not returning phone calls, being busy, and being mysterious about what is truly going on in your head are advocated as ways to build desire, interest and sexual tension in a person you’re interested in. These games establish power in the relationship, they cultivate a belief in the person you’re trying to attract that you are better than they are, or at least an equal, thus desirable. Utilizing basic human desire to climb the social hierarchy through their associations, this advice can be devastatingly effective as long as everyone buys into the stereotypical behavior and gender codes being iconized.
The study of psychology began to be seriously developed in the late 1800’s with Freud. Psychology began the idea of defining normalcy and deviance in humans. Gender roles and the interactions of people in romantic relationships was something that was observed, noted and attempted to be explained rather than challenged. Some of those initial assumptions about the core nature of how gender is done are still with us today in the forms of gender stereotypes and statements that start with things like, “men always…” or “women should. . .”
As a culture, we developed an investment in settling the issue once and for all. If we know what men and women do, then we know what they are, and we can know what to expect. Victorian era relationship styles became the standard to which all subsequent eras struggled to maintain. The first major crack came from Rosie the Riveter and got blown open by the flower child. Women were no longer willing to accept the gender roles they’d been assigned by Freud and had been pressured to maintain by a society seeking stability in a century of huge upsets. (world wars, the industrial revolution, the depression) Feminism became an offshoot from the anti-war movement and resulted from dissatisfaction for how women were treated within that movement and an increased understanding of how effective political cooperation can be when the group is united in its goals. (faludi ch. 6)
I was fascinated to consider that women were pushed into feminism by men who had inappropriately applied traditional gender roles in situations where the common ground was philosophical and political rather than specifically sexual or domestic. Without the combination of political awareness and the desire for the men to have women as staff to do the work for the movement, feminism may never have happened. The first programs in feminist/womens studies started in 1972. I was born in 1973. The bonding together of women who stood up and said "we will not be allow ourselves to be oppressed anymore" happened as my mother was blossoming into adulthood, deciding what kind of adult she wanted to be. She is so different from her own mother, that not just grandma being foreign (Latvian) and my mom being raised basically American explains it. I had always just thought it was a cultural difference. It is, of course, but I think it's much more than country of origin. My mom was a transitional generation between Victorian era women of Freud and a new breed of woman more like Rosie the Riveter.
I married a feminist, and he broke me of the remaining notions I held of getting my door opened and getting stuff bought for me just because I was a woman pretty quickly. You want equality? You got it, babe, open your own door. It ended up being a situation where we worked out what we wanted to do based on individual interests, not on gender. I mowed the lawn, he did the dishes, and we fought over who had to clean the toilet. Some jobs are no fun no matter what.
Somewhere along the line tho, he cracked. I can only speculate on what caused it, I never even identified the situation until it was well over. Was it the pressure from his own gender? Did his imbedded ideas of what a man is really like finally leak through the seal he'd put on them until there was a crack that broke the whole thing down? Was it subtle pressure from his dad, implications that he wasn't a real man? Was it his own insecurities about being ahead of the curve, a man unlike the men around him? And he was. He was unlike the men around him, he was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, unlike anything I had known was possible for a man to be. Those men are much more common now, they're just 20 years old and not 30something. He was a man ahead of his time, and maybe being on the frontier just got to be too much. He's retreated into traditional masculinity with an aplomb I find sort of fascinating, if grisly.
Defining traditional manhood would have been something I would have struggled with 6 months ago. I just knew it when I saw it. Kimmel on the other hand, did a pretty good job. He has four rules that seem to make it all so clear.
No sissy stuff, that's the first rule. You can never do anything that even remotely hints of femininity. The second rule is to be a big wheel. You know, we measure masculinity by the size of your paycheck, wealth, power, status, things like that. The third rule is to be sturdy oak. You show that you're a man by never showing your emotions. And the fourth rule is Give 'Em Hell. Always go forward, exude an aura of daring and aggression in everything that you do.
Traditional manhood isn’t nearly as much of our past as traditional womanhood is. The effect is that men are left without the proper responses from women and society to understand how they should be acting, since what they’ve been taught doesn’t seem to be as effective a model as it was for their fathers. The current way men want to interact with women in a dating scenario reflects a desire to establish power and dominance in at least one aspect of their lives in a society where men are floundering to understand what it means to be a man. In What Makes a Man: “The Gift”, Michael Datcher talks about “disenfranchised men who in place of commitment play the field, measure their manhood by booty call average. The home run fence replaced the picket one.” While he is specifically talking about black men, I think there are signs of this in a more generalized look at men’s behavior.
Young men have come to adulthood with some of the expectations of male entitlement that were the natural birthright of the penis bearer in our society as late at their own fathers time. That entitlement simply isn't as easy to come by anymore. Women who are bonded to the men my age were raised by the first generation of feminists, the first wave of women who came to adulthood with expectations of their own entitlement: entitlement to a job with a competitive to men wage, entitlement to their own sexual pleasure, entitlement to help around the house when they too work outside it, entitlement to pursue their own interests and to expect support from their mates to accomplish it. This stuff is all radically new, and it happened since I was born. Finding a place for the 4 rules of traditional manhood becomes problematic when faced with the reality of new womanhood. Dating has become an arena for proving manhood in a society with no proving grounds and the hunt allows men a traditional method to prove their manhood in ways socially recognized by both men and women.
Unfortunately, reinforcing these standards of manhood for dating comes into conflict with the new ways men are expected to perform in society, the workplace and the home. In long term relationships, jobs, parenting, and more, men are expected to be more able to operate in our increasingly service based society. That means they have to develop skills like being more sensitive, multi-tasking, and understanding body/meta language the way women have been doing for a lot longer.
I firmly believe men are perfectly capable of developing these new skill sets, but are still struggling to do it willingly. Men do a lot to keep each other in line, the very nature of male bonding is one of sadism on an emotional and physical level. They think nothing of humiliating a friend in order to make sure the friend upholds the standards of masculinity he feels are important. Female society isn't much kinder to their own members, of course, but womens liberation has done a lot to muddle the issue even among ourselves. We can't force someone to conform when we've been told from the moment we could understand that we could do anything, that we can stay at home or work, we can have kids or not, we can be more masculine or more feminine, wear make-up or not, and it's all ok. We have been given the freedom of variety that is still considered normal and acceptable. Men haven't been given that freedom yet, and they are trying to figure out what to do now.
The study of gender as a construction, a choice or a response to pressure was birthed by feminism. As it stands now, gender study typically indicates women and is based on the inequalities women face. The gender of men is still invisible. Men are ungendered. By being without gender, men are left without an understanding of masculinity as a construction that can be chosen. Masculinity is viewed as an inherent and unchanging quality of genetics. What this ends up meaning is that if femininity is a construct that can be chosen, and masculinity is genetic and is present without choice on the part of the man, then all heterosocial interactions pressure the woman changing herself (since she has the option of change and he doesn’t) in order to get along. Lack of exploration of masculinity as a construction encourages the belief that these assumed components of masculinity are true.
If this is the case, when sociologist Erving Goffman wrote:
[I]n an important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in America: a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual Protestant father of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight, and height, and a recent record in sports . . . . Any male who fails to qualify in any of these ways is likely to view himself -- during moments at least -- as unworthy, incomplete, and inferior . . . .
We are shown how limited our scope of manhood has become, and how very few actual men fit under the umbrella represented by an ideal no longer, if ever, suited to modern life.
I went to a lecture by Michael Kimmel, and he talked about how this change we're seeing is inevitable. Men simply are going to have to take on more traditionally feminine roles in society. Those roles still need to be filled, and women aren't going to go back to working in the house only. Kimmel pointed out the definite benefits to men if they take on these roles. If they're helping around the house, the woman they're with is going to be less tired, more happy, and more likely to have the energy and desire to have sex. Men who help around the house get laid more. Sociologists Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams actually did the research. Men who help around the house have better health stats, more connection with their children, the children are better adjusted and get in less trouble academically and socially. Everyone wins here.
No comments:
Post a Comment