Are men and women growing apart generally?

[Lifeisntbad]

Just had a chat with a friend about this. My male and female acquaintances sometimes (with some exceptions) seem so different in outlook that I wonder about this. Obviously they are different from each other as well.
In my immediate circle of 40 /50 somethings the women are generally resourceful independent sociable and open. Many (not all) of the men are depressed, with no enthusiasm, slightly isolated and in some cases a little bitter.
While in one way gender differences seem to be blurring which can only be a good thing, in other ways men and women seem increasingly on different paths, coming together perhaps for having children and then diverging again.

The patriarchal model is about men being perceived to be superior to women, that’s all...

Getting equality is not about men being like x and now we need to be more y which is how women are, it’s about accepting that these assumptions about how men and women are are just sexist assumptions which actually harm society as a whole even if individual men or men as a group may have some privilege under a patriarchal system.

So the answer firmly is not to have a matriarchal system. It is to ultimately get rid of sexism so men and women just are equal.

No different to the shift in consciousness required over all the isms... we’ve still got a way to go with all of them...

(And whether capitalism is a desirable way to run the world is a totally separate issue)

Well....apart from a Matrix style intervention and giving everyone the red pill........what do you suggest?

I hope that eventually men (as a class) will eventually come to their senses once sexism by and large costs them more than they get TBH.

I don’t really see another way, I agree the pendulum is swinging that direction but what we have at the moment is a load of uproar about the ‘sexist’ family court system (no acknowledgement of the role men play in setting the status quo to be woman=caring drudge), the MGTOW thing and the beta uprising crap where men are hating on all women because some individual women did not give them what they feel they are entitled to etc etc...

At some point I hope men as a class will come to see that it is sexism that women don’t want and that men can choose not to adhere to sexist crap...

But we are still at a point where when women speak about not wanting sexism men commonly see that as an attack on their masculinity...

And I want to scream ‘it’s not men! It’s sexism. If you aren’t sexist then there is literally no problem with you as a person but if you are reacting defensively as though criticising sexism is a personal attack on you then you probably would be better looking at yourself than shouting at me’

But then lots of men still see being sexist as synonymous with being a man.

I get you. And I agree.
What we need to unravel is centuries or more of social engineering that has created a largely male view of entitlement as the culturally dominant narrative.
And sexism in all its forms is so embedded in the national psyche it seems to be impossible to eradicate completely.
Maybe that red pill isn't such a bad idea...

But we are still at a point where when women speak about not wanting sexism men commonly see that as an attack on their masculinity...

Yes. I’ve always wondered how much of this reaction is down to genuine hurt and indignation and how much of it is a wilful misinterpretation of our words aimed at a deliberate deflection of the issue.

Most of it, I think, is simply because being misogynistic on all levels is considered the way to be a man. That when women talk about the pathological effect misogyny has it feels to lots of men like to lose misogyny would mean they lose their masculinity and that is what women are asking, that men are socially castrated...

And the weird thing about this whole thing is misogyny and ideas about masculinity damage men, not just women...

Yes speaking out results in a fight. Why does it never result in somebody saying 'yes, you're right'

Earlier I walked in to a dry cleaners/tailor's with two items. I explained what I wanted done with the first item. A man had walked in behind me. I was aware of him waiting, queueing but that's the nature of a queue. I then began explaining what I wanted done with the second item and the man who worked in the dry cleaners cut me off and gave his attention to the man standing behind me who was happy to be served even though the person in front of him in the queue wasn't dealt with yet. He just went for it. When we left I was saying to my son why that was wrong and of course my son told me I was over thinking it, too sensitive etc.... I said to him that if I'd been a man with two items and a woman had walked in behind me, no way would the man in the dry cleaners have cut a man's time at the top of the queue short to serve a woman behind him. NO WAY. My son actually acknowledged that that was true. So phew.

I think it's poor, uneducated men who'd benefit most from equality but they might (?) be amongst the group that resists it most.

Issues such as suicide are often borne out of feeling that they have fallen short as a provider. Or for younger men, realising that they are not a typical alpha male.

Do you have hard evidence to support your assertions Whistles? If you have, ok, that's fine...
If not...you are in danger of muddying the waters in this discussion...

Wh1stles Why would anyone think that was ok?? How has he managed to stay in business by just ignoring a % of customers? I presume you left without getting your dry cleaning done?

Women can have a family and career without a man.

Men can't have a family and a career without a woman.

Unless they adapt they will become increasingly redundant.

Yes Wh1stlles your dry-cleaner sounds like a poor businessman. Or was the situation a bit less black and white than you say? Often I offer to let a person with a quicker order go ahead of me, as do a lot of other people. The dry-cleaner may just have been applying that principle. He would have been a bit mad to have offended a woman customer in order to keep a man happy.

I dont know. Black or white or grey that is what happened. I used to work with the public and we were told to give our full attemtion to the person we were dealing with and to try not to stress about building queues. It was a given that we were working as efficiently as possible. So I think he was a sexist man who felt he couldnt delay a man for the sake of a mere woman. In his own head he felt like he made the polite call.

“Or was the situation a bit less black and white than you say?”

Do you have trouble believing what women say?

Offred I'm talking about spirituality - but I'm not sure that this is on your radar - it never used to be on mine either I thought it was a load of old bollocks - but in a world where I was unhappy that despite having all the material possessions this didn't compensate - suffering with depression probably most of my life and looking for answers this is where I have ended up - my divorce was the catalyst - but I think I had a previous chance at this when I left work 20 years ago as a result of bad management.

Always feeling on the outside of things, always being the one going in a different direction like a square peg in a round hole - always questioning but feeling as though no one listens - probably because no one got where I was coming from. My way of coping up to eyeballs in ads.

The thing is male and female energy is in everything it needs to be complemented for our survival - but sometimes one or other is prevalent but rarely equal. The male energy is lead with the head, female with the heart - you may think that this equates to sexism maybe it does maybe it doesn't I don't really know enough about sexism to comment but it is also how we have been conditioned and what has dominated.

You seem to be going through a huge personal battle trying to justify why\ how you have ended up where you have - and currently I think you feel it is down to the inadequacy of men. I too could probably say the same thing. But there is something deeper going on than this we have to look for the answers in ourselves _ everything happens for a reason nothing is a coincidence. You feel so strongly about this that there is a reason for it. But maybe you have been leading with your head too - responsibility is probably an ego driven condition. But if you look at the things you do and say it is because you care and you care very deeply then this comes from the heart and a place of love.

I'm not sure whether any of this will make sense to you or be of interest but I can tell you that when I am with people who see things as I do everything makes sense and it is the world we live in that seems more and mor absurd. We spend so much of our lives fighting and for what - ultimately to be loved and to care and feel cared for - but fighting just drives us further and further apart. And fighting starts with I want what you have, not being satisfied with what I have, not recognising that I am good at this and you are good at that let's work as a team. This is where we are at in relationships some are lucky they have this - it may not be perfect but it is probably pretty good _ most currently have nothing- because they wanted something more.

So many men think women at home sit on their arses all day - mainly because they have never had to do the full time full on role. Being a mother never switches off - never - you can't switch of at 5 pm or 7 pm because unexpected, uncontrollable stuff happens - you just have to read some of the shit in some of these other posts to realise what is really going on.

Like the single parent with an ill child and her boss is knocking on her door -and you get some arse saying exactly why I never employ single parents.

We are a fucked up society - men don't know where they are because the goalposts changed without them realising - they are having to catch up - but most probably don't even know where they went wrong - they go to all male schools, they work in male dominated industry, but their biggest handicap is that they don't know how to express their feelings if they can even work out what these feelings are- and as a result they don't know how to communicate with each other let alone with the female sex as they have never been taught how.

Offred you have some purpose here I don't know what is is but if you turn your focus around and look at how much you are achieving despite your circumstances and realise that everything you do comes from the heart you may find the answer to what you are looking for

The male energy is lead with the head, female with the heart - you may think that this equates to sexism

Well yes, it does.

Not sexist to invent two kinds of "energy". Sexist to say that one kind is male and one is female.

I’m not going through a ‘huge personal battle’. I left my eldest’s dad because he raped and abused me, he was later diagnosed with BPD, I have supported him (a huge amount) to be the best father he could be, I left my husband because he wouldn’t talk to me about anything, was PA and ultimately because he refused to support me to go back to work, we coparent reasonably equally now, I managed to get away from recent abusive BF with the help of the police. My parents’ relationship is abusive and they abused me, I don’t find it weird that I have ended up with the pattern of relationships I have therefore.

My two sisters have ended up with brilliant men who are committed to equality. My brother married a woman who treated him like crap. Equally i’m really happy at the moment, the happiest i’ve probably ever been.

My whole point on this thread is that personal perceptions of what men and women are like are not relevant, since they are so subjective. It is research which is. Where I have given opinions it is my opinion based on what the research reliably tells us.

I asked you what you meant by spirituality because it means different things to different people. How does one determine what is ‘male’ and what is ‘female’ energy? - by applying sexist ideas about what attributes men and women have, that’s why it is sexism.

And I thought you left work because of your overwhelming maternal instinct? Bad management?

That is the kind of post that really puts people off “spirituality”

The male energy is lead with the head, female with the heart - you may think that this equates to sexism

Why this bizarre need to divvy things up? If men want to tell us that they have no empathy then whatever but that doesn’t mean that women don’t have logic in return. Logic and empathy are not mutually exclusive.

In fact if you buy into all that Men are from Mars bullshit then the study of its favourite man SBCohen showed that women are more likely to occupy both the systemic and empathic categories at the same time.