Understanding men

[cailindana]

I've had some interesting conversations with DH lately (who has recently got into feminism in a big way) about how patriarchy has affected him. It's something I'm interested in as I think it's part of the bigger picture and worth knowing in terms of combatting the effects of how our society is structured, both on women and men. As a woman of course I have limited insight into how men see the world and so would appreciate views specifically from men.

What DH has said to me is that he has been trained by his upbringing to overvalue what men do and undervalue what women do.
He says he has found it extremely hard to be in any way honest about his feelings as he has learned that it is not acceptable for him to share how he really feels.

Both of these things have contributed in large ways to the problems in our relationship and now that he's recognised them and tried to overcome them things have changed. I have to admit though I am a bit discombobulated by the change almost as though he doesn't quite fit my expectation of how men should be (indoctrinated in me by my sexist asshat of a father). So I've also had to change my attitude.

Any thoughts?

Yonic - no, of course not, I was being facetious! Besides, I'm a union organizer now, so not a complete waste of my DM's placenta !

Oops

Bipedalism increases the risks of childbirth.
For the mother, or for the child? Slightly confused - I was just remembering my father adjusting calves' legs into a better position, when cows were having trouble giving birth. But then I thought, maybe you mean the whole standing upright thing for the mother, and how that will change the relative position of the womb and birth canal.

Status of women in IT
Thomas Misa (ed) - Gender Codes - Why Women are Leaving Computing is good on this. Most articles I've read on the matter tend to agree that women have been pushed out as computing's become more professionalised. I'd agree that it's more diverse in that there is a far, far wider range of roles now than there was 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there are more women. If anything, it seems to have been getting worse in the past 20 years since I started in it.

Also, we should remember that Grace Hopper was the won the first Man of the Year award from the DPMA. They couldn't even be bothered to change the title of the award so that it wasn't man, when the recipient wasn't a man.

Oh, and some of the miners were women. Yes, while they were pregnant.
Until the 1842 Mines Act. (Well, until a while after the 1842 Mines Act.) There was a lot of concern about things like women who were working half naked because of the heat - their moral welfare, rather than physical. And I think that's often the case with women's work - it's not judged on the work itself, but on how it reflects on women's morality (the goalposts of which are far more easily adjustable than something like the output of X hours labour produces Y amount of goods.)

EBearhug, for both. It is mostly about the shape of the pelvis IIRC.

Again IIRC, that leads on to the issues of the great vulnerability of human babies compared to the young of other mammals. Human babies are going through physiological changes in the months after birth that other mammals go through while in the womb, because human babies have to be born earlier in developmental stage due to the size of the pelvis and the human head. It makes them much more dependent on adults.

Easy to read explanation here:

pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/resources/clarifications/HumanBirth.html

Yonic, I was wondering if these sad mortality rates are consistent through out nature. I wonder if they are inline with other species that carry their unborn. (Maybe not now with the improvements in medicine).

Interesting question.... trawling through google:

The highest known mammal maternal mortality rate at birthing is suffered by species of hyena, estimated by researchers to be around 18% for first time births.

pregnancyandchildbirtharoundtheworld.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/15-pity-hyena-mother.html

Hyenas are exceptional though. Very few mammals (with the exception of domesticates) have the problems humans do.

Sorry, the history nerd in me can't resist a quick rant.

I know we're talking about general class level analysis, but it's really not a case of men=war, women=babies.

Women have always done the same things as men, albeit in smaller numbers. Women have always done manual labour, and worked both inside and outside the home. Throughout history, we have examples of female, philosophers, poets, scientists, rulers, and yes, soldiers. Women have fought in the front lines, and, more frequently, they've fought in street battles after their army was defeated and the city invaded. And of course, someone has to keep the farms (and more recently, factories) running.

I've said the same thing Sheshata. A fair few men I know (including DH) who consider themselves feminist allies have let it slip that one of the reasons they think women haven't been celebrated is essentially because women have done nothing to celebrate, not through any fault of their own, of course, but due to patriarchy. So they give the impression of being sympathetic while at the same time implying that for the last few eons of history women have pretty much not existed. I mean how on earth do they think women have gone through the entirety of history doing nothing? How does a living being even do that? We have done an incredible amount, against massive odds, but it's all just been entirely ignored, not written about, not recorded, erased. The things that we were 'allowed' and expected to do, like bearing children, raising children, running countries while men were away at war, are all just portrayed as "ordinary" not worth commenting on, not worth commemorating. Every single ounce of effort put into shaping this world by a man has been at least matched if not more by an ounce of effort by a woman. But we have to sit there and see so called "allies" saying "oh poor you, you weren't allowed to contribute anything." FUCK OFF. We contributed so fucking much. Just start opening your fucking eyes and seeing it!

Applauds Cailin.

The "history books" (ie the history that most of us acquire through school, TV, museums and stately homes) record - what? The actions of, say, 1000 people or so for a period 500 years ago. And these were the ones that were probably rich and/or aristocratic for the most part, high up in the church or renowned artists or politicians. The farm labourers and house painters and wool carders and sheep Shearers didn't make the records regardless of sex.

Indeed Yonic. Add to that the fact that anyone who was in power was most likely male (with some exceptions of course for queens and other aristocrats) and it looks like women did pretty much nothing. Except that every single person throughout history came from a woman. But oh that's nothing, just ordinary. How interesting that that's ordinary and nothing to think about eh? Only what men do it worth a mention. Funny that.

"MrN, your contention was that the wars of the roses affected everyone simultaneously. They didn't. Battles were localised and sporadic. "

No, my contention was that major wars affected everyone simultaneously.
I gave two examples: WW2 and Roses. You picked up on Roses as not affecting everyone simultaneously which is true but that just means it's a bad example.
WW1 & WW2 did so, more so for people on the continent than in the UK.
I don't think a bad example undermines my point.

Good question Buffy, I'm curious to hear the response.

I think it's worth considering whether war=male is even a valid concept anymore. Soldiers are not the most at risk group in situations of conflict. Guess who the most at risk groups are? You got it: women and children! Far far more women and children die than soldiers in modern warfare, and that's even before we start thinking about the huge increases in sexual violence and domestic violence during these periods when violence is normalised. Men start wars, not just men are 'sacrificed'. Even the UN has stated that it is more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in conflict situations. So actually we could do with a few statues to represent that massive loss rather than a very narrow (and male) idea of the heroic soldier.

"Soldiers are not the most at risk group in situations of conflict. Guess who the most at risk groups are? You got it: women and children! "

Not sure you can say that definitively.
It varies massively from conflict to conflict.
e.g. WW1 UK military casualties = 735,000, civilian = 124,000-ish.
Whereas for Germany it was 2,000,000 vs. around 750,000.
Fow WW2 the numbers were 383,000 vs. 67,000 for UK and about 5,000,000 vs. 2,000,000.
In fact, in all the figures I can find, even counting the famine and disease in USSR, the military figure is higher than the civilian.

I'm struggling a little to comprehend this line of thinking a little bit I think. I mean there is certainly room for a social history of motherhood and childbearing. I can imagine such a work would be quite illuminating.

However I feel we're talking about an individual's historical footprint, and I'm not sure how childbearing can figure into that. Not taking away the risks involved, but more because as you point out it IS so commonplace.

Now I don't want to come across as negative, as I think your're right in pointing out the historical bias against women as indeed the bias is as plain as day by their absence/minimisation.

I would like to ask what precisely would you like to see written in the history books to correct the problem as you see it?

I agree with Buffy. Who decided that history is about the footprint of an individual person? Why does it have to be that way? Of course there are notable people in history who changed things dramatically and it's worth knowing about them but why discount every other person who also ran the world, just not on such a large scale?

I was referring to present day war: General Patrick Cammaert said in 2008 that it is now more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in armed conflict. Here's an interesting passage from ann firth murray's book:

'Women and children comprise the majority of civilians killed in wars and make up 80% of those who fled their homes.... Likewise women and children make up 80% of the caseload of the UNHCR... Women suffer numerous and diverse violent acts - the majority of which remain invisible.'

And that is the point isn't it? Women don't feature in the narrative so their suffering doesn't exist. I, like the rest of us, have been socialised to empathise with the plight of the soldier but we have to look really hard to find the women. That is the problem. It's so hard to do. I have spent my life thinking about my grandfather's role in the English army during ww2. It is only recently that I started to really consider my granny's experience: a 16 old living occupied austria and threatened with dachau for 'mildly' criticising the nazis. Who suffered more?