Jessica Lahitou on what a modern man is, and the difference between angry men and angry women.
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Talk about a conversation starter. Any time my mom – not on Facebook, not on Twitter, barely on email – beats me to a cultural trend, you know a real nerve has been needled.
She called me up last week to ask if I’d seen this article in the New York Times about the modern man. “No,” I said, “but go on.” I love any piece that muses on the way of today’s men, especially if it means I can bother my husband about it later.
So my mom tells me she read this list of 27 qualities modern men have, and couldn’t believe No. 1. Which claims that the modern man would not only know his wife’s shoe size, but could tell you which brands run big and small.
“Can you believe that?” she asked.
Not really, I almost said. But then… I realized my husband probably does know how big my feet are, and without question knows shoe brands better than I do.
But he’s foreign, so I’m not sure that counts.
At any rate, I took a look at the list, and don’t know if I’m meant to take it even a little bit seriously. The article seems indubitably tongue-in-cheek. For example, No. 12: “The modern man checks the status of his Irish Spring bar before jumping in for a wash. Too small, it gets swapped out.”
Irish Spring? What about all the guys who use Dove? And are we really to believe metrosexuals have gone completely extinct as a species? I know they’re a rare creature these days, but surely some bros out there still loofa it up with an anti-aging man-wash gel.
Number 21 is even more ridiculous: “The modern man doesn’t scold his daughter when she sneezes while eating an apple doughnut, even if the pieces fly everywhere.”
The immediate question is what man ever scolded his daughter for sneezing, even if it were while eating? But then I thought: who eats an apple doughnut? And then I thought even more: I don’t even know what an apple doughnut is.
Obviously, I felt the need to jest at times, reading this piece. Too, maybe there was a time when men tsk-tsked their offspring after opportunities for “proper” etiquette were squandered.
But there are certain entries that stood out for the mostly true ways they contrasted with that vintage, Marlboro man standby, while some others reinforce those older notions.
“The modern man is considerate. At the movie theater, he won’t munch down a mouthful of popcorn during a quiet moment. He waits for some ruckus.”
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In the former category are stereotype busters like No. 3: “The modern man is considerate. At the movie theater, he won’t munch down a mouthful of popcorn during a quiet moment. He waits for some ruckus.” To this, I say: Thank you, Modern Man! And will you please try and pass that advice along to your dad and his older cohort? Cuz many of them still seem to be all about it. And No 25: “The modern man has no use for a gun. He doesn’t own one, and he never will.” Well…
In the latter category are No 2: “ The modern man never lets other people know when his confidence has sunk. He acts as if everything is going swimmingly until it is.” Seems about right. And No 11: “The modern man has never “pinned” a tweet, and he never will.”
By the close of the article, I suspected Brian Lombardi may have written simply a mission statement by way of describing his own, personal lifestyle and life choices. Does Lombardi know his wife’s favorite power heel? My guess is yes. Is Lombardi somewhat hostile to Pinterest? Likely.
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That last Pinterest example is a nice segway, from the ways our ideas about masculinity are changing, to the ways our ideas about women are… not.
Time ran a recent piece with some depressing news for my fellow ladies. Entitled “Why Angry Men Are More Influential Than Angry Women,” the piece reacts to a recent study by Jessica Salerno at the University of Arizona. Salerno had 210 college undergraduates respond to simulated typed messages from someone purporting to be a fellow juror in a trial case. This person became angry, and started typing in all caps, and fuming about how unfair things were, etc.
The typed answers were identical; the only difference was changing the name.
When students were confronted with angry responses from someone named Alicia, they were 13% more confident in their original guilty or innocent verdict. Reading the exact same angry message from someone named Jason? That made participants 19% less sure of their initial conclusions.
In short: angry woman makes people more oppositional; angry man makes people more willing to listen and reconsider.
Well, to buck the conventional wisdom from that article, let me say how I really feel: YIKES.
This is especially troubling since we (and I do include myself here) tend to sweep away such bias with explanations that it has more to do with how women convey anger. High-octave, shrill voices, pointing fingers, etc.
Salerno’s study neatly debunks that myth.
What now?
Well, I think we can start by recognizing the implicit rudeness in Lombardi’s dismissal of Pinterest. Look, I’m not on Pinterest myself (weirdly – the only social media site where my mom is hooked up). But there’s nothing wrong with liking lovely pictures of fashion, home décor, refurbished furniture, and inspirational (even if they revel in platitudes) quotes.
You wanna pin a tweet? Rock on, my friend.
And I think we might flip this Salerno study. Maybe anger is disagreeable in women because we expect women to be even more logical and even-handed than men. Maybe women have so thoroughly proven themselves the antithesis of the “hysterical,” hormonal basket cases that men long dismissed them as, that now we look up to women as the ones who will keep their cool, rationally analyze facts, and refrain from spewing emotional screeds all over fellow juror screens.
If I sound like I’m spinning the results, it may be because I just watched the CNBC Republican debate, and have seen that we can make things just about whatever we want them to be.
So here’s my magic spin act: those 210 college students are not telling us that anger in women is a sign of sexism. Maybe they are telling us that we esteem the intellectual coolness of women more than that of men.
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Photo credit: Getty Images