Dorothy Dimitre thinks that much of what troubles men comes from how we think about boys.
This article originally appeared at The Boys Initiative.
“Boys, our new myths tell us, are inherently flawed creatures.” – Michael Gurian, Ph.D., The Wonder of Boys.
Shortly after he turned three, older grandson, playing on the floor, looked up at me with his brown eyes sparkling and proclaimed: “I’m going to be a MAN when I grow up and I’ll go to WORK!” That got me to thinking about what he would have to deal with along the road to maturity. Now he’s 23, just graduated from college, and now I think of his eight-year-old cousin and the even greater plight of today’s boys in our culture with much more fear and trepidation than I did his cousin. I also lament the many detrimental changes in our culture since those boys’ parents were young.
Yes, there are boys who seem to have it all together and make it through school and on through adulthood relatively intact and unscathed psychologically or physically. But there are many young men who aren’t really sure how they fit into the scheme of things in today’s culture and there are many more who struggle and fall by the wayside because no one has appreciated their needs and helped them find their productive purpose in our schizophrenic society. And now even their physical maleness is threatened, as I’ll explain later.
Kathleen Parker, syndicated columnist and author of the book, “Save the Males”, must have been thinking about this when she lamented in one of her columns that President Obama appointed a White House Council on Women and Girls but did not do the same for men and boys. And yet, as she wrote, …“boys in this country are in far graver danger than girls in nearly every measurable way…Boys won’t be equal to girls if we don’t focus our resources on their needs and stop advancing the notion that girls are a special class deserving special treatment.”
Consider that “male mystique” that most boys in our culture have always emulated and it’s easy to see how so many boys become troubled. Men and boys are expected to be strong, independent, competitive, aggressive, stoic and invulnerable. Despite some gains in awareness of the problem, this cultural expectation continues to prevail and, in one way or another, influences our boys every day. Their penchant for aggression and competition is regularly exploited by the media. Just by watching television, a boy will see men portrayed as bumbling idiots, crude Neanderthals, lecherous predators, rigid automatons obsessed with power and violence, narcissistic and arrogant athletes and entertainers, or maybe just mindless airheads who have no clue. For many boys, this is all they have to look to for role models.
So how does this all add up? Today’s boys need thoughtful nurturing and support more than ever, but a great many are lacking in this regard. Too many children are born to people who don’t have their own lives together enough to provide for them physically and/or psychologically. As a result, a deep-seated rage often develops. Such boys will be considered successful if its ramifications are generally considered socially acceptable – such as participation in violent sports, exploiting others for the compulsive accumulation of wealth and power, defiantly blocking the progress of legislation in Congress or producing gory and sadistic movies. But when the rage breaks through in street shootings and murderous rampages, we are horrified.
We must face the fact that, in general, young boys do not mature as rapidly as young girls, do not develop speech as early, are not as ready to sit still, pay attention and tackle academics in school. As Michael Gurian wrote in The Minds of Boys, “…many are not cut out for the educational establishment’s idea of the school experience.” Boys suffer more from lack of bonding and family dysfunction, are much more likely to drop out of school, abuse drugs, commit suicide and become involved in criminal activity.
For instance, the football coach who pays his players to inflict concussions on the opposing team, gang members who gun down their adversaries, and men who abuse their wives and kids – all stem from boys whose purpose was distorted by seriously inadequate caretakers and an exploitative culture. As Gurian wrote in his new book, The Purpose of Boys: “Whether isolated or becoming physically dangerous, even the most hardened young man began his adolescence as a young boy who yearned, because of his own internal nature, for his family, community and society to provide him with safe risks, important challenges and deeply felt rites of passage to purposeful manhood.”
We must appreciate boys for their own unique characteristics as we help them grow into well-functioning men by providing good role models at home, in the community and in the media. Boys who are not academically inclined should not be allowed to fall by the wayside. They must be provided education related to their interests and abilities – like vocational schools. We must face up to the fact that in many ways our culture demeans and exploits boys. Boys must feel appreciated, must have someone to help them develop a positive purpose so that they can grow up to become well-functioning people, productive citizens and successful parents. “We desperately need new heroes for our boys – heroes whose sense of adventure, courage and strength, are linked with caring, empathy and altruism.” – Miriam Miedzian, Boys Will Be Boys
We haven’t been paying enough attention to the plight of boys in more ways than one. Those of us who have seen how males’ qualities have so often been denigrated and demeaned by our culture which has been heeding the pleas of female equality but in many ways failing to take seriously the cries (some obvious, some not) for respect and appreciation that emanate from boys, might realize the seriousness of the situation when they are reminded of an article that appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal on Aug. 7, 2010.
In part: “A fascinating yet shocking development has been transpiring over the past few decades. The world is slowly started to lose its boys though declining male births. This recent phenomena has a lot to do with the steady infiltration of hormone-disrupting chemicals in our daily lives – chemicals such as bisphenol-A and phthalates…Not only are we seeing fewer boys being born around the world but we’re also seeing an increase in physical feminization of boys whose mothers were exposed to high levels of these chemicals.”
The health and well-being of its children is the barometer of any culture’s viability. How long are we going to look the other way when repeated significant indicators point to the despair, loneliness and alienation of so many of our boys? When are more of us going to face the fact that we all have a stake in this and do something about it?
Photo—Young boy from Shutterstock
About Dorothy Dimitre
“When are more of us going to face the fact that we all have a stake in this and do something about it?”
Sadly, men are considered disposable in much of society. Many men view other men as rivals for resources and women so aren’t necessarily predisposed to assisting the stranger. The women’s movement to large extent has taught that men are the oppressors. Why would women have sympathy for someone who has oppressed the? If men are the oppressors and controlled everything, why would they even need help?
I would say that it will change as more problems “hit home”. When sons and brothers start falling to the wayside, you’ll see change except that doesn’t seem to be the case. Another article on GMP the End of Boys seems to sum up the feminist position on the plight of boys.
“I know she is worried about her son, but, as I have seen so many times when parents talk about the problems their sons are having, she sees it as an individual problem, not as a social one. I am sure it is hard for her to accept the possibility that the feminism she so strongly believes in might have, by ignoring boys, allowed a progressively more unbalanced situation to develop, one in which her son is caught up.”
http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/the-end-of-boys/
Although women believe that they don’t control the legislative agenda because most legislators are men, they do. Look at all the articles concerning the gender gap as it relates to voters. Women are the majority of voters, even more so since more men are disenfranchised because of a disproportionate number of felonies. Women have been considered the most important voting bloc by politicians for awhile. Why would that not sway legislation? Like it or not feminist organizations have been seen as the spokespeople for women’s issues. If change is going to happen, it will need to come from within the group least likely to recognize and support it.
Many of the social expectations associated with masculinity are ones that I have found empowering and liberating. Competition, independence, assertiveness, and the mastery of one’s own feelings in most social contexts are incredibly important to some of us, and where these things cease to be valued we feel stifled. This is something that I have particularly valued in certain forms of male socialization. There are few things more freeing than throwing oneself fully into intense competition with friends, testing your strengths against each other and holding nothing back. Contexts where you can presume upon your peers having really thick skins and enjoy no holds barred debate are exhilarating, and returning to contexts where you are constantly tiptoeing around people’s sensitivities after this is difficult. Being pushed to stand up for yourself and what you believe and not being allowed to hide behind others or social protections can also be a very positive thing in its place.
Unfortunately, so many of our education systems seem to be calculated to stifle traits that are particularly widespread among boys and men. They are all too often striving to be non-competitive, egalitarian, conformist, inclusive, highly sensitive, communal, non-physical, quiet and sedentary, non-confrontational, affirming, and are test and grade-oriented. It was not always this way. Many of us come alive academically in contexts of intense (but not bitter) competition: I certainly did. The ruthless levelling out of groups promoted by egalitarianism undermines the appreciation that many boys and men have for hierarchical relationship, the elevation of excellence, and the sense of honour that can be enjoyed within them.
Conformist education focuses on teaching children to meet set expectations, measured by tests and grades. In the past, however, education often sought more to develop independence of mind and agentic traits through disputation and confrontation. However, the non-confrontational form of the essay has become the dominant form and displaced training in rhetorical skills by which one learned to fight one’s corner in confrontational settings. Unsurprisingly, we produce a lot of high-functioning conformist thinkers, but little in the way of great independence of mind. The interesting thing to observe is that, in contexts where independence of mind, confidence in standing for and fighting for one’s opinion are highly valued, males often start significantly outperforming the females who outperformed them in the conformist forms of education. For instance, 50% more males than females get firsts in Cambridge and Oxford, contexts where these traits of independence and confidence of mind are very important. Independence of mind and confidence in putting forward one’s opinion also come into their own in wider society and the highest levels of academia. Many boys have natural gifts in these areas that we should be valuing and developing, rather than just adhering to education systems built around conformity to set academic expectations.
Environments that focus on being inclusive can deny boys the right to have contexts where they can earn the right to respect. Many boys feel cheated when they are just given acceptance and affirmation as a matter of course: they want to feel that they have fought for and earned it. This acceptance means little to them and so they will look to secure a sense of self-worth elsewhere. Highly sensitive contexts deny many boys their delight in rougher (but not vicious) interactions. When one’s emotions are always wrapped in cotton wool, one loses the ability to prove oneself through challenge. Communal contexts also deny boys the right to celebrate and develop agentic and independent traits.
If we started to change the form of our education systems to allow for different styles of personality and learning, I suspect that boys wouldn’t be so disaffected, and some common male traits would receive more positive expression.
I agree with the insights in this article, but do not think it is necessary to imply that girls are not a special class of children to make that case. Girls and boys both constitute special classes if you will. Both groups continue to face unique challenges which, as a society, we must take responsibility for.
“Kathleen Parker … lamented in one of her columns that President Obama appointed a White House Council on Women and Girls but did not do the same for men and boys. And yet, as she wrote, …’boys in this country are in far graver danger than girls in nearly every measurable way…’
“Consider that ‘male mystique’ that most boys in our culture have always emulated and it’s easy to see how so many boys become troubled.”
Kathleen Parker wanted a White House council not to support men or boys, but to support the male mystique and keep them on track to live it. Healthy competition is good for everybody, but conservative women are as social-darwinist as any man. They don’t want anything left of the losers.
Regardless of Parker’s motives, Warren Farrell et al produced a proposal for a white house for boys to men, including a list of significant issues that needed to be addressed, and Obama blew it off. Obama did not need to conform to Parkers motives in how he established such a council, but instead of creating one that was needed, he did nothing at all.
I think a vast part of this problem is that men have a tiny little societal box they must fit into. Women/girls have managed to enlarge theirs a bit, but men are still very stifled. I wish there were a way to quit all the gender-policing so many of us (maybe most of us?) tend to fall into.
Boys who don’t fit the gender box tend to be bullied at school and/or learn to repress what they really feel/what they really are. This isn’t good for anyone.
That’s why it’s so amazing, and troubling, to hear men (and women like Ms. Parker) arguing that the box is so vitally important and must be accepted as natural law, and also enforced – which is an odd thing to have to do with a natural law.
Actually. Men’s box has not remained the same, it has actually gotten smaller through the villainization of traditionally masculine traits without any real replacement
Oh snap! I always forget that being a man is a zero-sum game.
Do you deny that the maintenance, even increased enforcement, of male role models, while simultaneously villainizing male behaviors, creates even greater limits on men? At any point did I make the claim that factor made things better for women? A zero sum game would imply that what is being taken from men is going somewhere, in order to maintain that zero sum Balance. I made no such assertion.
“Too many children are born to people who do not have their own lives together enough to provide for them physically and/or psychologically…”
How true! I am watching my sensei go through the crisis of his life…part of it is the stress related to impending fatherhood….I can see him coming apart at the seams but I cannot help him the way he is asking me to…for now, I have to keep a certain distance from him….and ask other men to help him out…
I also wonder how he got to be at this point…how he is the way he is: irascible, impatient, vinegary, and simmering almost to a boil….and it must be the way he was brought up…his own parents must have been the same way…I have never met his dad (or mom) but I imagine he must contain some of their temper and personality traits….
Great essay! Thank you for writing this!
He might be like me and many of the men that I know. Ironically, most of us are current or former martial artists or weight lifters. I guess you could consider us alphas at least as far as society sees us. The thing that’s funny is that we are also omegas within our own households. We defer to our wives, girlfriends, sisters, children, and mothers. We also tend to not fear personal harm, but I’ve seen guys break down when their kids have been hurt. I remember when I was asked to carry a 5 day old infant. I was petrified. I fought 8 guys once and had a calm resignation. It may be uncertainty, a feeling of inadequacy, or vulnerability that he’s feeling. It’s not something he can physically fight and that’s scary. I know for me physical pain is a lot easier to deal with than emotional pain.
Do the women in these relationships also collaborate share and defer? What would being an alpha in the home mean?
Julie: “Do the women in these relationships also collaborate share and defer? What would being an alpha in the home mean?”
I think John meant to say men were Betas in their home. There’s the alpha male and the beta male. Isn’t that what you were eluding to, John?
It’s almost the opposite of the feminist idea of privilege. The wives tend to control the institutions (household). They handle much of the finances (pay bills, sign up for credit cards, tec.). Many even handle the investment end. The men work and turn over their checks, but many benefits fall to the men in lower work load and more free time. From time to time a guy’s tried to reassert control. It may work for a second, but tears trump yelling.
What control does he want that he can’t get?
One guy’s wife was convinced tap water was bad for you so she would only drink bottled water. She only lets him drink bottled also. He got her to relent on the cooking water/coffee/tea by installing a water filter on the faucet. The filter and the boil convinced her it was safe. Another guy complained that his wife spends three times as much for food because she shops at Whole Foods. Another uses low sodium soy sauce and limits his pop intake to a can a day because his wife is convinced he’ll die. One guy’s wife made him quit his part time job. One member of our group died of diabetes. He used to work over 60 hours a week. I think that’s where part of it comes from. There is one couple who buys the children’s food at Whole Foods and her husband has no problem with it.
One guy bought 30 pairs of the same socks when he was single, but his wife was tired of seeing him in the same socks so he had to diversify. He buys the same shoes all the time too, but refuses to budge because they’re comfortable. He used to buy them on-line, but she insists that he actually try them on at a store. One guy has a pink dress shirt because his wife likes the color. Another guy’s wife bought him boxers. He complained. She buys him briefs now, but the fancy kind in different colors.
One guy had to clear his stuff off the top of entertainment center because his wife put her doll collection up there. One guy cut down his workouts because his wife thought he was overdoing it. One guy’s wife limits his on-line gaming. He does have high blood pressure and she’s convinced that it will make him ill. One family has a storage space in the basement. My friend isn’t happy because the space isn’t optimally used. His wife insisted that they buy storage containers of different shapes, sizes and colors. He wanted clear storage bins of a uniform size and shape so they would stack more efficiently and so he could see what was inside. He didn’t get his way.
It’s nothing to kill or die over. The wives do care about their husbands.
Ok, that’s more clear. Those women sound really controlling. I couldn’t live like that.
I don’t mean to imply malevolence especially when it involves mother/son. A woman may decide to dress her man, but if she were to purchase sports apparel, she’ll buy clothes from a team that he supports. The men generally don’t interfere in the running of the household, the selection of soap, brand of mustard, etc. The women tend to be very particular about whether the utensils point up or down in the dishwasher or the toilet paper hangs in front of the roll or in back. The men generally will comply. She manages the household finances, controls and defines most of the space like decorating/organizing, and establishes the bulk of the rules.
On the other hand the women “take care” of their men. They do the majority of the cooking and cleaning, child care, laundry, etc. Every once in a while you’ll hear a wife tell/ask her husband to change the garbage bag or throw it out. He has his assigned chores also, but there not as much as their wives. I guess because she does most of the work, it’s only right that he does some when asked. It’s a tradeoff of decision and responsibility. The person with the power to decide takes the most responsibility.
So if he is a working man alpha and she stays at home and takescare of his needs how does that make him a beta when he gets home? Is a CEO beta to his executive assistant whose run much of his schedule etc? What is she works too? Is there no room for a shared collaborative decision making egalitarian style of marriage or does someone always have to be one up or one down? Over time in a marriage don’t both parties take turns deferring? I don’t get it I guess. Sounds like a depressing Way to live to me.
” Is a CEO beta to his executive assistant whose run much of his schedule etc?”
No change of environment in your analogy. She may run much of his schedule, but it’s still the CEO that is in charge. He decides what does and doesn’t go on the schedule, even if it is the assistant that determines where and keeps him following it. He never actually relinquishes control, he simply delegates scheduling (and can change it as he pleases).
The scenario John was describing was a complete change of environments, where full control was relinquished. Once he entered the home, he was no longer CEO with assistant, he was now employee and wife is CEO.
“What is she works too?”
Then you are changing the scenario away from the example john used and so any other assertions John made no longer apply. A new arrangement would be made.
But why? Why is the home a CEO type envioronment instead of a place where people are just sharing tasks and collaborating on a home? Why does there have to be a one up or one down relationship?
Because that is the arrangement they agreed upon to ensure the home runs smoothly and things get done. Is it an unacceptable arrangement?
Does it surprise you a person used to being in charge, of having a clear hierarchy of command would want the same thing at home, even if he’s/she isn’t the one in command, in order to assure things ran smoothly? In a CEO/SAHM household, is it really practical to have a full on, 50/50 democracy when one party is always there and another isn’t? Is it really a surprise that these CEO types would defer to those with greater experience and exposure, so long as they likewise get to deferred responsibility?
Hey Mark, I’m not arguing! I don’t understand why then the CEO would be an alpha at work but a beta at home, like why even think of it in those terms is all I’m asking. Because, and maybe I”m wrong, but isn’t being a beta like a bad thing?
@ Julie
It seems to work well though. The divorce rate is about 50%, but in my group there were only two divorces about one every ten marriages or so in my age range, fewer the generation before (There have been some out of wedlock births). Most of the women do work outside the home, but almost everyone is a professional with a college degree. They’re all high earners relative to the state average. One major exception was the wife of the guy who worked over 60 hours. Unfortunately, with his passing she is now forced to work. Her parents help her out. They’re fairly well off.
I don’t think it’s the only model out there and in fact maybe very rare especially with the wife the effective head of household (The man is still the nominal head of household. It’s a fairly traditional group in that sense. No hyphenated last names, etc.), but like I said the husbands do get much more free time. Boys night out is a bit more frequent than girls night out. The women suck it up and support Turkey Bowl, the day after Thanksgiving football game, regardless of how much they fret. We’ll give it up in two years when the first guy turns 50. Most guys get to spend a little quality time with their xbox or to watch sports. The moms usually end up disciplining the kids so the dads don’t need to feel guilty. They can be the “good” parent and play with the kids.
Huh, if it works for them, and they are all happy, good. But I don’t believe it would work for me. Mostly my relationship and the ones my friends have are more collaborative with roles switching over time, sharing of work load etc.
Eh, whatever works, I think.
The crux of our society’s confusion with masculinity lies right here in the author’s statement, “Boys who are not academically inclined should not be allowed to fall by the wayside. They must be provided education related to their interests and abilities – like vocational schools.” The author’s use of “vocational schools” with no clarification leaves the reader to interpret the meaning. Vocational schools conventionally conjure images of car mechanics, wood shop, and metals. This risks reinforcement of every subconscious stereotype about our culture’s version of maleness. The author could have expanded on vocations such as domestic engineering and culinary arts; art & music; and cosmology, which are all viable career choices for boys.
Although not every male may feel comfortable with cultural stereotypes of maleness on certain fronts (I suspect no one is satisfied with these all of the time and in all respects), within the scope that such stereotypes provide for individual improvisation (more than commonly assumed), the significant majority of men that I know and have spoken to on the matter feel quite at home on most counts.
The author is not saying that vocational schools are for every male, but that they might be just the thing for many. While we should provide a broader range of options for the expression of maleness, we should also recognize that stereotypes generally tend to exist as exaggerations of characteristics, traits, or preferences that really are more pronounced among a particular group. Such common traits can also provide means of group cohesion, as the things that we have in common are focused upon.
In the attempt to allow for more possibilities, let’s recognize that the preponderance of chosen lifestyles for men will probably still fall well within the bounds of models of traditional masculinity. And that this is quite OK. The notion that most of us feel trapped by our gender roles is quite simply nonsense, although it is an impression that one can get in contexts of discourse such as we have here, populated as it is by those of us who are generally highly conscious about gender, usually precisely because we have experienced some degree of dissonance in our personal performance of gendered roles on some level. Frankly, many men will find contexts that continually seek to downplay traditionally masculine traits in favour of a greater and less weighted scope of gender expressions far more stifling.
On the vocational schools front, I think that another positive move would be a ‘vocationalization’ of more professions. I suspect that it would make many professions more accessible to those more practically oriented, and would probably produce some more gifted practitioners too: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/what-airline-pilots-can-teach-us-about-reforming-the-meritocracy/258668/.
I remember last year there was a company in central Illinois that was having a hard time finding people to fill their openings for tool and die makers. An article was written which indicated that jobs like tool and die making lacked candidates because that industry was looked down upon. people are not being educated in these area. It sure isn’t the pay, the average tool and die makers pay scale was 50 to 60k per year in an area where the average 4 bedroom house was priced around 100K.
Go to a careers day ay a high school, you won’t find manufacturer booths.