General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Eve Ensler on the passivity of men [View all]marions ghost
(19,841 posts)scientists, medical people, researchers, artists, musicians but also some small farmers and plant people --men with understanding and a caring attitude are the ONLY men I want to know. I'm lucky, as this also is the type of guy my dad, brothers, and in-law men are/were. So when I am thrown with the overtly sexist types, it's jarring. I always know where they're coming from, not a good place.
HOWEVER--re. Rose Colored Glasses--as sympathetic as all the good guys are --and if it weren't for yall the world would be a really terrible place --there is still a societal abuse of women that is not well understood or accepted. Maybe it's just that the degree to which women have to overcome obstacles on a daily basis, and the stress of that, is not recognised. Maybe that blindness comes from guilt, as what man has NEVER thought he was better off as a man (ie. felt sorry for women)? --and what woman has never thought that it's better to be a man? We live with the subtle unspoken fact that being a man has perks and privileges that being a woman does not. Women still are second-class citizens in this world--even as many are scrambling to change this, and the future does looks brighter. (The future looks brighter for men being able to break out of traditional male expectations also). But the sense of entitlement that even good men grow up with is very hard to change. As long as the general public thinks that having a boy is better than having a girl this will be so. And as long as Rethuglicon and Teabagger thinking finds widespread support...we are in danger of going back to to the real Dark Ages re women. Women are feeling this and fearing this. The gains feel very fragile.
So imagine if you can, what it is like to grow up knowing that you are going to have to fight the female "situation" your whole life, that you are less important in some eyes. To me the bottom line is that women (no matter how successful) often wish they were men, whereas men do not envy women. Whatever can be said to be women's positive values or traits are ridiculed or unappreciated. It is still true that the most successful women are those who can "act like a man."
One day---when men and women can break free of traditional roles and be who they are really are...individual composites of yin/yang (however you define the dichotomies)...that day is quite a ways off. But I can imagine it.