To be frustrated and angry that women are still expected to be the "emotion keepers" in families.

[seeker]

And if we don't stop doing it, our daughters will still be thinking they are responsible for "keeping men sweet" in 30 years time?

Not really. I see men and women around me every day and the only real differences in behaviour are ones of biology and innate predisposition.

It is not really a revelation that some posters stubbornly sticks to her own point of view.

Feelings are not failings. They are not controlled by the person who has them. They are, by definition, emotional reactions shaped by a person's past experiences and personality.

I don't believe that 99% of women are innately, by personality, 'fixers' so it must be something built out of personal experience so widespread that it is societal.

Go pick holes in that if you like, but it is true to my experience.

Feelings are not failings, but not taking control of your feelings is a failing.

Acting on feelings can be a failing, depending on the circumstances.

But that is not what you are arguing.

I am saying that not taking control of your feelings is a failing. Unconsciously acting on feelings that you have not examined is infantile.

That is acting again, though Yet you have stated that having those feelings at all is a failing. Feelings are unconscious and cannot be helped.

You are contradicting yourself.

One cannot speculate their anxieties about missed birthday card and etiquette are universal
Nor is your preference (because that's all it is),replicated by other women
Society isn't compelling you about a card,you're doing it to yourself and could stop too

I'm not contradicting myself. I don't believe that adult feelings are, or should be, "unconscious and cannot be helped". I believe that adults have a responsibility to examine their feelings and take control of them. If they don't they are imprisoned in their childhood.

I completely disagree, as would most academics in this field.

This is not deep unconscious human response its etiquette.this can be stopped if so wished
This isn't a universal response it's your personal preference about inconsequential froth
Ive never had desire to fix my dp,he's adult,he capable and I'm not his fixer.

Youd struggle to find an academic who support that card buying is unconscious
yes Unconscious by definition beyond voluntary control as it isn't conscious and known
Card buying is etiquette and social affectation,not a tussle between Id,ego,superego

Bonsoir, I do not think seeker is disagreeing with you that adults can and should examine, reflect on and try to control their feelings. This is exactly what she is trying to do with this thread. The original purpose of this thread was to collectively critically examine the feelings that she and many other women (maybe not you, that's fine and accepted!) have about their responsibilities for emotional well-being of men. What was wrong with that?

Where there may be a disagreement (correct me if I am wrong) between you and seeker is on the significance of social conditioning of feelings. Your statement " I see men and women around me every day and the only real differences in behaviour are ones of biology and innate predisposition" seems to indicate that you see gender as purely biological phenomenon, with no cultural/social input whatsoever. For many of us, this is a strange position, considering the historical development of notions of masculinity and femininity in this country and the massive differences in understanding of these notions that exist between different ethnic groups and nationalities.

"and the massive differences in understanding of these notions that exist between different ethnic groups and nationalities."

See, as one who is fairly obsessive about dissecting cultural difference and spends a good part of her life doing so, I disagree that there are really so many differences between cultures in the expression of femininity and masculinity - at least, between cultures that are exposed to modern science and development (and are therefore not trapped in infantilised belief systems).

But does similarity in the expressions of femininity and masculinity in post-industrial nations mean that they managed to achieve a total break with their histories and create a culture-free space, or does it simply signify a convergence of cultural norms?

I think that where and when many cultures meet, it tends to highlight that which is useful and true and universal, and also to highlight that which is superfluous and meaningless and particular to one culture. And intelligent post-modern people tend to go with the former!

Bonsoir, forgive me for being pedantic. I am not sure in what way you are using the word "post-modern", but in its most widely used sense, it signifies a philosophical position that expressly rejects the possibility of a "universal truth" as applicable to social reality. More radical post-modernists would reject any possibility of objective "reality" in social reality at all.

So what makes you think that "meeting of cultures" illuminates biologically-determined truths? Would you then say that the wide-scale adoption of fascist ideas throughout Europe in the 1930s meant that there was truth to those arguments? Would you say the same about the current spread of consumer culture throughout the world? Is consumerism "useful and true and universal", and, importantly, biologically determined?

I don't think that the widespread (and very short-lived) adoption of fascism in Europe was anything to do with the meeting of cultures, so I don't think that illustrates my point.

Consumer culture is, on the other hand, highly revealing of the pretty universal human urge for a quick hit of pleasure.

Interesting that people talk about societal pressure on women as if somehow society and woman are two separate things. Doesn't society comprise of roughly 50% women?

How do you know that present attitudes to gender will last forever? Fascism and attitudes prevalent in it lasted for longer than we had legislation making homosexuality legal, for instance.

Consumerism is definitely on the rise, but so are the anti-consumerist movements. There does not seem to be a universal love of quick hit pleasures.

countrykitten, no, people who argue that social pressure exists believe precisely that women and society are not separate. Women live in society and not just in their own heads, they form it and are formed by it. A more radical position that not all proponent of social pressure on this thread will subscribe to will hold that it is impossible to separate a person from society at all.

Anti-consumerism is a legitimate and mature response to over-consumerism. Like a child growing up who grabs all the sweeties (unless an adult stops them), and then matures into an adult who can stop themselves from gorging.

Countrykitten, I don't know why you think my analysis or my anecdote were either (a) projection or (b) made up.

You don't know a lot about me or where I may have worked during my 48 years of life so far. You may have assumptions about me that are unfounded. You may have difficulty accepting that other people's experiences may be different from yours, or that things they may think or see in the course of their lives challenge your argument.

Bonsoir, we are sliding off track. We are not really debating the virtue of consumerism or anti-consumerism, but whether convergence of cultures signifies emergence of "useful and true and universal" things that are based in biology and not cultural expressions.

You first accepted that consumerism as a spreading value and behaviour was universal and true if not useful. Now anti-consumerism is also seemingly universal (i.e. legitimate and mature). I am getting lost. What is universal and true and useful here?

Countrykitten, There is corresponding pressure on men but that is outside the parameters of this discussion, which is about women. The question of pressures on men, how men and male roles are defined and policed is an interesting one.

Totally agree with mathanxiety about the social pressures and expectations placed on men.