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?

That's a good point, Nosey. I think we can be very UK-centric on here. There was another thread about marriage and giving women away. Turns out that other nations do it differently. Maybe it's true for birth too.

Currently women are expected to carry the babies, give birth to them and then do all of the work afterwards too with no pay and no recognition. IMO if men retained their current status but also had babies then either women would still be expected to undertake all the childcare with no money and no recognition, while men would be seen to have made their massive contribution by bearing the children in the first place, or men would do the childcare but it would be a Very Important Job, protected by law, paid, accommodated by the working world.

I think there are too many factors for my tiny brain to accommodate all at once. But my first thought is that if men had the same physical changes as women, women would by default be the dominant gender. It is that gradual change in physical capabilities, followed by recuperation, that has hampered women more than anything else in history. That is also the time when mothers are supposed to 'bond' - i.e. stay at home and nurse the child.

If it was possible for the other alternative, for pregnant men to manipulate society so that they retained dominance, then wouldn't we have seen that occur in at least some societies, and for women to be both child-bearers and the dominant gender? I don't know, just musing.

I agree Yops. It is childbearing that has placed women in the vulnerable position in society. And it's the fact that men feel threatened by women's ability to bear children and their desire to control that that has led to the situation we're in. It's no coincidence that the advent of the pill was the first big stride in true women's liberation. Once women gained control of their fertility they started to gain control of their lives.

I'm still struggling to understand that you think your having a baby is in the same league as WW1 (for example).

In the whole of England there are 31 villages that didn't lose anyone in WW1 - they're called the "Thankful Villages". So it's pretty clear that large events like that affected pretty much everyone in the country.

That's why there are statues reminding people of the sacrifices made by all.

Childbirth, whilst important, doesn't need a statue in every village square, or city centre.

Neither do the Introduction of Seatbelts, Vehicle Emissions Testing or Smoking Ban - all massive (allegedly) improvers of living quality & savers of lives......

i don't think anyone thinks it is the same as individual birth though do they? i am sure the mothers of those who died in the first world war wanted to see their sons commemorated and this is the way we tend to do it in our society. it is the scale of risk and death that women encounter as a whole group, throughout history, that we're talking about here i thought

And it's the fact that men feel threatened by women's ability to bear children and their desire to control that that has led to the situation we're in.

You might be right, cailin, but I've never quite joined the dots with that idea. I've always thought we've just gone out and made hay/fucked shit up whilst women have been carrying or nursing. A bit like a kid with crayons left alone in a white-walled room for ten minutes.

"I've always thought we've just gone out and made hay/fucked shit up whilst women have been carrying or nursing."

I'm always amused by the documentaries about various tribes where the men go out on a hunt, which is of course the important job which involves lots of ceremony, posturing and is done by the important men, not the boys or women.
And after three days away hunting they come back looking pretty disconsolate with a squirrel which they proceed to share between the most important men.
Meanwhile the women sit at home doing the unimportant work and look much better fed than the men for far less pomp and fuss

"I wonder how many villages have never lost a women in childbirth?"

a very good point

Talking to just the men here (seeing as this thread is about understanding men) - about something that Cailin has just written about above @ 15:06 "its the fact that men feel threatened by women's ability to bear children".

I have no idea what she's writing about, but this seems to be standard feminist ideology. Do any of you feel any kind of threat by this - if so what is it that you threatened about ?

Thanks.

Cadno, no. I have read it before. I always assumed it was some kind of jealousy that was being hinted at. Given the pain, inconvenience and risk to health/life, pregnancy is near the bottom of my bucket list.

Control though? I get the bit about men wanting to establish virility, fatherhood and raising their own male heir, as opposed to bringing up up another man's offspring. Perhaps that is what is meant.

Buffy, we were talking very specifically about solidiers and made reference to moment in history. You can't rewrite it. I can't change facts. Commenting on facts is very different to analysis. I don't know why you don't understand that? It's pretty obvious. You are either disingenuous or a bit foolish.
I do understand feminist analysis but it doesn't change historical facts. We were actually talking about whether the soldier's actions were altruistic. Not analysing the merits and morals behind the war. I'm sure you'll deliberately not understand and order people around on the thread to save face.

Yes - whatever they are getting at, I don't think a feeling jealousy.

There might be an angle in your second point re: anxiety for some men as to whether he is raising his own children. But if that is it, then describing it as a threatened feeling over women's ability to have little ones seems a bit of the mark somewhat.

the fact that men feel threatened by women's ability to bear children

Has always interested me, I've never met a man who has felt like this.

Maybe it's a case of trying to make men jealous of it by repeatedly telling them they are?

What is there to be jealous of precisely aside from the "higher" feelings of love, compassion etc that men are mostly accused of lacking in great quantities?

But it is still control though. My woman, let no other man touch, my son and heir etc etc. There has always been an insistence within UK society for a male heir. Look at our German overlords in Buckingham Palace.

Control over a woman's childbearing tries to guarantee heredity. You can't really control it though, can you? You know what women are like - let them out of your sight for 10 minutes and she's snuck into Olaf's tent and is getting knocked up by a big ginger Viking.

Ridiculous really, but there you go.

I'm not sure any men are threatened by the ability to bear children but "Given the pain, inconvenience and risk to health/life, pregnancy is near the bottom of my bucket list." did make me laugh.

Back to another point about the value of work, which interests me.
The value attributed to work, in terms of the money you get for it, bears almost no resemblence to the importance of the work or even the skill involved whether it's men or women doing it.
To look at extremes, emptying the bins is massively important to our day to day lives, yet is poorly paid (valued).
Selling microscopes is pretty unimportant job on the scale of things, yet a microscope salesperson will get paid far more and have far better working conditions.
So it's about the money generated. City traders generate a lot of money and get paid a lot. Nurses generate no money (at least NHS ones) and get paid much less.
If all city traders were women and all nurses men, would the pay be reversed?
I doubt it, as nursing would still not create the money that trading does.

Thanks - so as far as I can see, non-threatened men 4 vs threatened men 0. I hope this is helping Cailin understand men a little better ( I wouldn't put any money on it tho')

Isn't the point though that women are in the majority of low-paying professions? Find a valuable, essential but low-paying job, and what are the odds that the positions have a large amount of women? Cleaners, nurses, teachers, carers. We'd be stuffed without them. But as you say, some knob-jockey in the City moving money around a screen gets a bazillion pounds 'commission'! Commission - now there's a male concept ! Getting a cut on someone else's talent or commodity.

Yes Yop, but as I said skill or importance doesn't seem to equal good pay.
Plenty of male dominated jobs, even fairly skilled ones, have piss poor pay too.

If men felt no threat wrt women's sexuality/fertility, why was such effort put into shaming women, making sure they didn't 'lose' their precious virginity, punishing women who have children out of wedlock? What was the purpose of that?

" the War of the Roses, etc. would have affected everyone living in this country simultaneously, although some more than others"

This is incorrect. The wars of the roses was a series of sporadic battles punctuated by years when one cousin or another was actually on the throne.

By contrast, hundreds of thousands of women in that era died in childbirth or of childbed fever. Including Henry VIII's mother and two of his wives.

I like the idea of a tomb of the unknown mother.