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?

There are lots of war memorials to ordinary soldiers who have died.

As I mentioned already, Meph stated who qualified for statues, as 'how things are.' As for masculine language how about the very obvious thing of calling the human race 'mankind,' using 'he' to denote any person, always saying men and some rather than women and men?

Actually the way we debate is adversarial, which isn't necessarily helpful. The very notion of "my opinion" vs "your opinion" automatically presumes one will be superior than another.

I'm not accusing you of necessarily believing your view is the right one. After all it is very possible to enter into debate in good faith and work from the position you are likely wrong, but even then it speaks of a view of their being a superior opinion.

Better I believe to presume we all have perspective of an issue, and the more we share those perspectives the better able we are positioned to perhaps perceive the totality of what we discuss.

I don't think a lot of this is conscious as we are almost hardwires into this adversarial mentality, it's shot through all levels of law, government, academia and it's tough to unhook that default.

OK, so back to Florence Nightingale who made a huge contribution to modern medicine in many ways and is, rightly, celebrated and her contribution highly regarded (although I suspect many people don't realise the full extent of her achievements).
So, are you saying the reason for this is because she somehow fit in with what the male concept of success and achievement is?
(Genuine question, not leading).

PS. I also use "it seems that" and "i think", partly because of an academic background but mostly due to a tendency to be non-committal.

No one's answered my questions so I'll ask them again. Men: Do you accept that in many ways women's experience of life and the work is dramatically different different to yours? And that in many cases women may have a completely different but equally valid view on things?

In her lifetime Florence Nightingale came under huge criticism for being a troublemaker.

Though just as an aside, with Florence Nightingale, it's interesting how her "female" achievements (nursing, caring) are the ones she is recognised for.

Her more "male" achievements, data analysis and data visualisation (the woman was a pioneer, she was the person who developed pie charts) are mostly forgotten or ignored.

Florence Nightingale was a manager, epidemiologist and statistician. She displayed all the qualities you would expect from someone with those skills - a great analytical mind, attention to detail, rigidity, sometimes rubbing people up the wrong way. She had a lot of quite serious disagreements with higher ups. They punished her quite harshly for not being feminine enough (ie quiet and compliant) and she ended up quite broken in the end - she couldn't understand why her work met with such resistance. And now she's remembered as an angelic lady who looked after men. That's not what she was at all. People found her quite scary and single-minded. Basically she was no different from many brilliant men. But that's conveniently hidden under the picture of the nurse with the lamp.

She also wrote over 200 books and established the principles of modern nursing. In spite of being wealthy she had to fight tooth and nail to even be educated, simply because she was a woman.

Haven't read the full thread I'm afraid, just the first couple of pages and the last and got a bit confused by Buffy's academia stuff (nothing unusual there!), but in answer to your questions Cailin:

"No one's answered my questions so I'll ask them again. Men: Do you accept that in many ways women's experience of life and the work is dramatically different different to yours? And that in many cases women may have a completely different but equally valid view on things?"

Yes, and yes. Ideally this should be gender irrelevant, i.e. individuals have different experiences and opinions that should be equally valid. Of course the reality is that prejudice colours all of us, unfortunately.

RE: Your OP, completely understand. Before I encountered Feminism and the reasoning behind it all I was happily ignorant to it. Society, my own arrogance/ignorance about it I don't know what's to blame, but it was certainly easier to live that way.

Once I learnt what I know now I can't go back, it makes life uncomfortable, there are things I cannot do without seeing the underlying motivations, watching TV, reading a newspaper, even simply having conversations. I hope and I think I have changed and that will have a knock on impact with the people in my life. Something similar seems to be happening to your DH.

Well Buffy of course your right in that adversarial discourse is valid and useful. Brainfart on my part, I'm a bit exhausted today.

What I meant to say is that adversarial note which rings through so much of how we structure society is not the only way of entertaining discussion.

I was also considering my thoughts in light of your earlier point about linguistic and cultural biases and defaults being structured to disadvantage women.

I think the adversarial component very much benefits this patriarchical structure.

Do you accept the idea that women's experience of the world is quite dramatically different than yours? And that they may view things in an entirely different, but equally legitimate way?

Yes.

Don't apologise Buffy, when I find words I don't understand my Googlefu gets significant exercise and my lexicon improves too!

Luis and hidden, so if I say many women see all unknown men as potential rapists, what is your response to that?

Cailin - Sadness, overwhelming sadness. Followed by guilt. Once upon a time I would have had a desire to try to defend myself.

I'm normally quite a rational person therefore: If many women experience men to be potential rapists, then why should that experience not inform them of the threat that an unknown man may pose? I've seen the stats on here, rape/sexual assault is not uncommon so womens defense is entirely understandable.

Although I do worry that the majority of those rapes/sexual assaults aren't from unknown men.

"Do you accept that in many ways women's experience of life and the work is dramatically different different to yours? And that in many cases women may have a completely different but equally valid view on things?"

Yes of course.

Thing is, we've had plenty of men on this board MrNosey simply denying women's experience, saying it was bullshit. IME a lot of men struggle to see that women essentially live in a different world. I'm curious to know your view on women seeing men as potential rapists?

"Like, either you listen to women and believe we're trustworthy witnesses to our lives in the same way men are, or you kinda don't."

This bit is key. I think many men aren't trustworthy witnesses to their lives.

"if I say many women see all unknown men as potential rapists, what is your response to that?"

My response would be that it's a sad state of affairs, but sadly, probably largely justified.
Then I would wonder if all men are potential rapists, conclude that a % of them would probably never be, wonder what that % is, and try and figure out whether an assumption that all unknown men are potential rapists is a safe assumption or not.

'I think many men aren't trustworthy witnesses tk their lives' - what does this mean?