Increasing gender role reversals create stressed men.
In the popular NBC drama “Parenthood,” character Joel Graham represents a growing number of American men: the stay-at-home dad whose go-getter wife brings home the bacon.
On the show, Joel is usually content building furniture in the backyard and hosting play dates for his young daughter. But, every now and then, his lawyer wife Julia makes a unilateral decision that leaves him angry and doubting himself.
It’s a natural reaction, says Jim Wysong, author of The Neutering of the American Male, a look at the psychology of confused gender roles.
“Most men are wired to be in charge; it’s part of their DNA,” Wysong says. “They come into the world with a tendency toward certain masculine characteristics, for instance, a preference for building blocks over building relationships.
“Over the past century, gender roles have blurred, leading to some women developing more masculine qualities by necessity – think World War II, when they had to take the men’s place in factories – and some men developing stronger feminine qualities, like sensitivity and compassion.
“The man’s feminine characteristics overdevelop so his psychological needs can be met by the masculine woman in his life, be it his mother or his wife.”
While everyone has both masculine and feminine qualities, problems occur when a person loses balance and is living opposite his or her core, Wysong says. The incongruence leads to stress, distress and dissatisfaction. And, increasingly, thanks to the economic tailspin, some very confused men and women.
In 2010, there were 154,000 “house dads,” a number that’s been climbing steadily since 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Experts say that what began as a small trend of choice, as wives outdistanced their husbands in earnings, has become one of economic necessity in many families. The construction industry, one dominated by men, has been one of the hardest hit in the economic downturn.
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How can these men tell if their emotional distress stems from psychological neutering? Wysong offers some telltale signs:
- If they have lots of friends who are girls, but no girlfriends. Feminine females will enjoy the company of a man they can talk to and feel comfortable with, but they won’t be physically attracted to him if he doesn’t possess a masculine presence. It’s a law of nature in the same way opposite poles of a magnet attract while like poles repel.
- If they’re more comfortable around women than men.Masculinity tends to be more confrontational – men will test one another, push each other. Femininity tends to avoid confrontation. Men who have developed a stronger feminine side are not comfortable with confrontation and feel threatened. They feel more supported by and less threatened by women.
- If they consistently look to others for approval. While a certain level of self-confidence is healthy and necessary for both men and women, masculinity tends to have a self-confidence that’s almost unwarranted. Masculinity remains self-confident even when they know they don’t have the answers. When that confidence is muted in men, they often doubt themselves and seek approval from others.
If you recognize yourself, Wysong says, don’t worry.
“A lot of times people worry there’s something wrong with them; they worry they’re weird,” he says. “You’re not. There are logical reasons behind it.”
With self-awareness, it’s possible to make changes to bring your male and female qualities into balance – even to choose from which to draw in different situations.
“Masculine and feminine qualities are equally important for both sexes,” Wysong says. “Problems arise when a person gets stuck living their life incongruent from their gender core.”
About Jim Wysong: Jim Wysong is a businessman, contractor and real estate investor who spent more than 30 years observing and studying psychology and human behavior through workshops, seminars and textbooks. His efforts to better understand his own emotional discomfort led to theories that have universal applications in modern society.
—Photo Clare Bean’s Photos/Flickr
About the Editors
Oh no! Gender roles are shifting, as if they’ve been staying the same all this time and now suddenly they’re changing! Things aren’t the same anymore, run away!
Not a single citation other than some dude trying to sell a book. Ugh.
Hee.
Before you criticize the man’s intent, perhaps this might help to see where he is coming from. Re: the lacking of citations in this editor’s review, so what there are lots of garbage books out there by feminists on gender roles with lots of ribbons yet they are lunatic garbage.
http://www.theneuteringoftheamericanmale.com/
So, garbage books on feminism means it’s okay to not cite any sources other than the book you’re trying to sell? Citing your own book does not count as a source.
Gender roles are constantly changing and have been since before the existence of human beings. Now we’re going to put a stop to it… right.
Haha! Yes. I miss the thumbs up button.
Yeah, I don’t like confrontations. First, they’re pointless. Second, I don’t give people reasons to be confrontational. Third, if you still want to confront me, I’ll assume you want to hurt me and I’ll respond accordingly. Don’t know if that makes me more feminine or not.
Why is it odd for men to be stay at home dads? Gender roles–especially in regards to division of domestic labor–are made, not born.
Why is it odd for men to be stay at home dads? Gender roles–especially in regards to division of domestic labor–are made, not born. It is only society which makes these fathers feel bad for their decision, fostering feelings of shame. We need to change our attitude toward compassionate and sensitive males, not change them back to hyper-masculine brutes, a la Robert Bly’s “Iron John.’
“We need to change our attitude toward compassionate and sensitive males, not change them back to hyper-masculine brutes, a la Robert Bly’s “Iron John.’”
Have you actually read Bly’s “Iron John”?
“”But, every now and then, his lawyer wife Julia makes a unilateral decision that leaves him angry and doubting himself.”"
So Julia being an asshole makes Joel angry and doubting himself? Well, that’s certainly demonstrating that Joel is upset over emasculation and not upset that his partner is demonstrating zero consideration for him!
I noticed that too. If Joel had made a unilateral decsicion and it made Julia mad we’d be talking about how Joel is a dominating jerk trying to exercise his patriarchal control over Julia.
So no matter which way you flip its the guy’s fault?
Yeah, and I’ve met Robert Bly, too. Not after a reading–I would not go to see him read as his poetry is mostly derivative and wooden (though some of his older translations are pretty good, and his political poetry of the 1960′s is not bad)–but at a dinner party where he was the guest of honor. Interestingly, in person, he looks rather like an old woman. Guess he’s been eating too much yogurt.
I’m really curious how you got ‘hyper masculine brute’ out of Iron John?
No society is not neutering the men. These men have neutered themselves.
So we need to reinforce ragged old stereotypes of masculinity so some men can score more chicks, or hang out with their own gender as god intended?
I do recognise myself in those, rather flimsy, criteria. But I don’t see why I should alter my personality to live up to someone else’s idea of what it means to be a man. I’m not neutered, I’m me.
This is incredibly hetero-normative, too.
Seconded. And it’s way too simplistic.
“Most men are wired to be in charge; it’s part of their DNA,” Wysong says. “They come into the world with a tendency toward certain masculine characteristics, for instance, a preference for building blocks over building relationships.
No men are wired to be in charge we raised with the expectation that if we don’t take charge we don’t matter. And its not like men come up with this on our own either. Its the joint effort of men and women that heap this expectation on men’s shoulders.
Wow vicious typos.
No men are not wired to be in charge we are raised with the expectation that if we don’t take charge we don’t matter. And its not like men come up with this on our own either. Its the joint effort of men and women that heap this expectation on men’s shoulders.</i.
I find this article offensive! Women are born to build relationships and men are born to build blocks? Wow, way to throw my confidence back a few decades. I thought we were making progress with the genders!!!
If a woman is a stay-at-home mom and her career-driven husband does what “Julia” does, then the woman would be upset about this too! Gender is not what this is about. It’s about inequality, and in a relationship where the working person is seen as more powerful or acts like they are more valuable, then the other person will feel dis-empowered, which is uncomfortable for ANYONE, regardless of gender. This is precisely WHY women fought so hard to get into the workforce to begin with. These stay-at-home roles should be something that a person chooses to fulfill, not one that our gender pushes us into. Also, the core issues (since the author loves the word “core”) is that men and women must find a balance between them that allows both individuals to live a life reflective of their potential.
I have lived in a very patriarchal Muslim country (as an English teacher) and saw very clearly how wonderful our men back home are. I am very, very proud of our Western men. I don’t see it as lack of masculinity that they have become more talkative, expressive, egalitarian, considerate of women as humans, etc. Bravo to our awesome guys! Thank GOD we don’t have a bunch of sexist barbarians running around like there are in Turkey.
Maybe the reason so many of these modern men get along with women better is because a lot of their male peers haven’t developed enough to get along with these evolved modern men! I know some men who cannot stand male company because they are sick of listening to frat-boy types make offensive comments about women all the time. When they do find a man more like themselves, they tend to get along with him just fine.
My man is a kind, considerate, expressive, patient, communicative, open-minded, gender-neutral man. He has all the qualities on those bullet-points, and I wouldn’t be with him if he was a typical macho man who would buy all the nonsense in this article. He’s humble. And to me, he’s still a MAN all the way. I respect him as a human being and wouldn’t want to push him around because he’s a person in his own right, not because of his masculinity.
Main nonsense:
“…masculinity tends to have a self-confidence that’s almost unwarranted. Masculinity remains self-confident even when they know they don’t have the answers. When that confidence is muted in men, they often doubt themselves and seek approval from others.”
Let me re-write that:
The traditional concept of masculinity is to be confident on the crux of self-entitlement and superiority, regardless of whether or not it’s earned. The traditional idea of masculinity remains arrogant and dominant, even when they don’t know what they are talking about. When that confidence is muted in men, they become more humble and collaborative with others.
Not everyone may agree with what I am saying, but I just want to summarize that I LOVE our good ole men and the path they are on in the Western world! True, there are some women out there that haven’t evolved with our men, just as some men still haven’t grown out of the traditional roles of a patriarchal society. Some women still think a man should be a domineering, bread-winning, macho creature. BUT the women who have evolved with the men, the women who ASKED for equality in the first place, are so HAPPY and proud of our wonderful partners for gracing us with the face of humility in masculine form. And THAT is sexy. That is strong, bold, and even confident on a level that previous applications of this so-called masculinity has ever attained.
Only 154,000?
Is that a typo? You have over 300 million people in the country.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0062.pdf
117 million households, 78 million of them a “family”, 5.5 million single dad families, 58 million married couples.
But only 0.154 million “house dads”? Less than 0.3% of all married couples?
That’s got to be wrong but I don’t know if the US Census actually measures who is the stay at home parent as such.
Hey Julie! Apparently I am non-confrontational
Good to know.
OK I know, I know lots of little comments… because of different points.
But here’s the thing, and maybe this deserves some bold:
Running the household IS being in charge these days. Working for a living is NOT being in charge these days.
That article from the other day in the Wall Street Journal on “who wears the trousers” in a family suggested that (1) it’s usually women and (2) if the woman works and earns money she’s LESS LIKELY to be the one wearing the trousers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122359379658821047.html
Why is that surprising? Most wage jobs do not put you in a commanding role. Most of them you’re a cog in the machine. What’s empowering there? Being a house dad is essentially a self-employed sort of position where you set your own goals and has a great deal more options for self fulfillment and being the boss. I really don’t understand why this is not more clear (except for propaganda by feminists since Betty Friedan called boredom over house work, “the problem that has no name”.
Would you rather flip burgers or develop human minds? Is this a hard choice? Is it hard to see that the role that women dominate and exclude men from is somehow 2nd class to what the average working stiff gets up to (entirely legally of course – not job discrimination law helps MEN get into WOMEN’s best job). Friedan should have tried working for a living before she wrote a whole book bitching about how bored she was at home. She could have done some charity work or taken up painting or well ANYTHING. She had kids of course too. Not interesting enough? How about self-improvement? Plenty of room there — she was a spouse beater (according to what her husband has said) so she could have dealt with that.
Of course its rarer these days that anyone gets to be 100% supported by a spouse’s wage, and I know looking after kids can be pretty repetitive too, a lot of the time, but even with all that, why assume that going out to be a cog in the machine is automatically more fulfilling or more “in charge”?
Sorry Julie : that was meant to be a reply to the article.
Can anyone tell me once and for all — does the Friend Zone thing actually happen is that bs? If you are friends with a girl first does that mean no sex? People seem to be at two opposite poles on this one although I guess the “classic” advice is to agree with the Friend Zone concept. I have to say I am skeptical.
Do any WOMEN think the Friend Zone rule actually works? Do any WOMEN think that if they are friends with a man that means no sex?
Do you mean do we see some men purely as friends or do we as women fall in the friend zone?
No I mean this advice that men get that if you fancy a woman the last thing you want to do is be her friend. That if you are her friend she will never think of you as romance material. That if you get into the “Friend Zone” then you have to get out of it if you are to have any chance of dating her.
That has not been my experience at all — that you can’t get out of the “Friend Zone”. I’d *prefer* to be friends first, and I think many guys (at least ones I see here) are saying the same thing. And you know — that would be such a step forward to this “consensual sex” mire that we seem to be stuck in. Like, wouldn’t it be easier to *actually talk about sex* with someone who you thought of as a friend?
The one thing I’ve noticed that has always been puzzling to me is why guys don’t want to seem to be friends *after* they have have had a sexual relationship with a woman. It seems to me that if that was more of the norm, it would make things easier as well. Breakups wouldn’t have to be this overly dramatic thing fraught with drama. You just both agree that you are going to date other people. But why would you not continue to be friends with someone after you stop having sex with them? That does not seem healthy.
It doesn’t seem healthy and the friendship can return later in the game, but in my experience, there is one person who doesn’t want to be friends unless they are also lovers. Heartbreak hurts too much.
All guys Lisa?:P Generalizations! I didn’t want to be friends because she was clingy as hell, felt too much for me, I was young n scared and feeling extremely bad about breaking her heart because my feelings weren’t the same. Feelings are weird, especially for the first time, I mistook them, we went too fast, it ended bad. She fell in love a year later and has been with that guy for quite a few years now.
Friendzone is more when a woman placed you in the platonic area and treats you like a non-sexual being, it basically means a woman who has zero attraction to you yet you are attracted to her and thus is hurts like hell if you really like her, or if you get a bunch of friendzones in a row it can be a massive blow to your confidence. It sucks being “just friends”. When you are told you’re such a great guy, so sweet and nice, but SHE doesn’t like you that way it can feel like a kick to the nuts. You question if she’s honest because if you were a great guy, she’d want you right?
I guess it’s just a term for a painful place to be in life, liking someone who sees you as a brother and not a potential lover, where the thought of intimacy with you is like incest. It’s also worsened by the fact not many people realize not everyone is going to like you, but that doesn’t mean you’re ugly and there isn’t someone for you. But it’s very frustrating if you get them one after another after another.
SORRY! I meant, in my experience, “all-guys-that-I-have-dated-romantically”.
I see what you mean about Friendzone — but have you ever tried talking to these women about *why* they feel that way? Maybe it is their perceived pressure of feeling that you want something more that actually gets in the way.
Or — let’s look at it this way — do you ever want to be “just friends” with a woman without feeling sexually attracted to her?
I’d say it’s probably when they start to use you as a stand in bf for comfort, and ditch you when they get a real one. I guess it’s used for quite a few things!
As for being a friend without attraction, well I’d love to but I don’t really choose who I am attracted to or not, I have friends I am not interested in and others that I am. Can woman pick and choose who they like or something?:P I believe men and women can be friends, even with attraction, but I don’t think we can pick who we like.
And on asking them it’s just the typical you’re like a brother thing, but lately I’ve only met married or taken women probably for the last few years so it doesn’t matter lol. It occured mostly when I was younger, nowadays it’s a bit annoying but eh, plenty of fish in the sea and I have a friend or 2 that like me but I have zero interest in so I can see both sides now. No point trying to force myself to like, or unlike someone, just let nature take it’s course and enjoy the friendships, I got rid of the users and comfort leechs in my life and life has been a lot better since!
But it seems like there ought to be a difference between the Friend Zone thing and a girl not wanting to date you for perfectly normal reasons (eg. doesn’t fancy you). It seems like the idea with the Friend Zone is that your chances of getting a date with a girl who otherwise would be happy to date you, is reduced because she thinks of you as a friend. And therefore the solution offered is sometimes to quit being a friend of her.
It seems to me that a woman would be more likely to want to date someone if they were friends, all other considerations being equal.
If I may suggest a slight addition….. *mature/grown-up woman =P
Yeah I think the friend bit get’s confused, friendzone is more when they see you as a brother, a non sexual entity. There also exists the dynamic where you are friends and can still be attracted to each other, so there are 2 distinct dynamics and the former is the painful one although still natural. But what makes it really sting is if they are comfort leechs as well, which is when you get used for something like intimacy, without getting the rest of the “benefits” from a relationship, where it crosses to a middle ground between friend and lover and you feel the barrier to the next step.
To be honest it’s quite hard to explain, as I think it’s more of a feeling than just a straight up easily definable dynamic. It probably differs person to person and just describes the frustration of wanting to be more when you’re clearly just thought of as a brother.
I was friends with my husband for about a year before we dated. We’ve been together 18 years now. I like having a friend that I love.
For I have met very masculine men that I did not want to have sex with. Who were my friends. I don’t think it has to do with anything other than chemistry and do you feel it.
Yeah if that exists then I guess I give up…it just seems like the type of junk used to sell books..
The friend zone is real. It’s a status thing. Desire in women is linked to hierarchy. This is why women marry/date/bang guys that are older etc. Whoever said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac was spot on.
Reads like a lot of old stereotypes presented as truth. At the very least this is vast oversimplification of gender roles.
Being feminine means not being confrontational? You must not have gone to the same high school I went to. You must not have interviewed most of the women that I know. Being male means being confrontational? You must not have met many men from the Pacific Northwest. We have turned passive-aggressive snarkiness into a masculine birthright without any anxiety about our entitlement whatsoever. We are manly masters of macho sarcasm, and we are ruling the I-5 corridor.
As for Joel on Parenthood: If a spouse is angry at another spouse’s unilateral decisions, that’s not necessarily a gender question. Having your power taken away or denied is not the same thing as being emasculated. There’s an implication in the article that being male means having power and being un-manned means having no power. I’m guessing that to be feminine means to be powerless, in this view of things? There are plenty of marriages in which the outwardly traditional, “feminine,” “submissive” wife actually controls more of the household than the manly husband does.
Men aren’t born preferring “building blocks over relationships”. Study after study shows that many traits thought to be sex-linked are actually learned behaviors.
Everyone! Get back in your boxes! Nuanced human behavior unique to each of billions of individuals is too confusing!
Hahahahahaha!
This article is a joke right?
That’s what I’m hoping. Or rather, that’s what I thought after I sighed and smacked my forhead against my desk in disdain.
I enjoyed this article a lot. It reminded me a bunch of this article. http://postmasculine.com/a-new-masculinity