If young men want ‘traditional’ gender roles, we need to know why - Kathleen Stock

[IwantToRetire]

Gen Z women and men are growing further apart in their political outlook and aspirations. It is vital the root causes are understood so we can all find common ground

Afew months ago, alongside other proud parents, I sat watching my teenager’s GCSE drama class showcase: a dozen short plays, devised and performed with gusto by small groups of pupils. In terms of theme, there was a definite attraction to the darker side of life; indeed, in nearly every play there was a hair-raising death. Another repetitive strand — at least, in pieces written partly or wholly by the girls — was the shoddiness of men’s behaviour.

One character struggled to find the kettle after his wife had died, having never used it before; another was violent to his family; and what viewer could forget the fiendish theatre manager, forcing dancers to take stimulants so that they could work longer hours? Worst of all, though, was the policeman who was also a serial killer, dramatically strangling his detective wife on stage after she discovered he was the culprit. There were also quite a few impassioned speeches about the prevalence of patriarchy and misogyny in society.

At the final curtain, I looked around at the mild-mannered, supportive fathers in the audience, many of whom had cut work short to be there. What could these men have done to their children, I wondered. Or, more seriously: was it possible to give young women today some awareness of male violence without causing them to write all men off?

Full article at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/if-young-men-want-a-return-to-traditional-gender-roles-we-need-to-know-why-g3pnmfj56

I disagree with nearly everything she said, but agree this is something that more people need to be talking about.

Or I suspect, as it has always been, women will have to adjust their lives to accommodate intransigent men and boys.

Can be read at https://archive.ph/gGXMV

Wouldn't be massively surprised if men and boys were deeply interested in maintaining gender roles created to flatter and facilitate them and their view of themselves.

That'll be your super powers at work.

Everything about this resonates - mostly misery in books and film and TV.

this in particular stuck out "But I don't think we are living in a world where you are socially allowed to feel joy or delight anymore"

yes. It's an irritant to people if you are cheerful about something.

I tend to agree with this. If men have a lot of intent and energy that in the past they would have expended on working/providing, then why can't they turn that to figuring out what it might look like to be a man now?

Where are the men's groups for, say, men who want to be nurses?

Why don't men, if they don’t want to clean and do childcare, look at why they think it's acceptable to hope/assume/insist that a woman do these jobs for free?

Why don't men turn their minds to the issue of people like Andrew Tate, why some young men find him so appealing, and what might be done to address it?

I'm not sure about this. Yes, there's an awful lot of books, TV etc featuring dystopias, apocalyptic times, murder, abuse etc.
But there's also Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing, and Strictly, and those shows about pootling around canals, and Monty Don looking at beautiful gardens, and novels in which women inherit a charming cottage in a village and cause uproar among the locals and then get together with the local hunk and all is well.
And on social media there are many accounts and individuals dealing in the pleasures and joys of small things like hearing a lovely conversation in the street, or posting pictures of your dog.
Along with the many podcasts about true crime, corruption and The State Of The World are lovely, silly, sometimes deep but sweet ones like Grace Dent's Comfort Eating, Walking the Dog with Emily Dean, Shaun Keaveny...

A lot of this comes from the broader culture. I know a lot of people banging on about what’s expected of women in the manner of America Ferrera in the Barbie movie. In real life though, the expectations come from women themselves. My DH is a heavily involved parent but he is not bothered by: buying thoughtful birthday presents, arranging extracurriculars, high standards of neatness/cleanliness. Those are all things that I want for my kids and put myself under pressure to deliver, but it is not my DH or my kids or even society making me do it.

In reality I think that in general, mothers are different to fathers. We want more/different things for our kids. We now want or need to work but we can’t stop being mothers and we are limited in how far we can get our DHs to take on the mindset of a mother. Naturally this causes enormous stress but it is not the fault of the patriarchy.

Social media seems to pit everyone against each other and this includes men and women.
Men and women seem to want supportive relationships but are confused on how that works in todays society.
Some young men look to people like Andrew Tate because they feel like society doesn't value their masculinity. They seem to think that they're being told that all masculinity is toxic and need to change.
We need to tell these young men that it's fine to be traditionally masculine and that doesn't mean that you can't be a decent partner that values equality and fairness in a relationship.
I don't think we can put the blame solely on Andrew Tate. There's a whole bunch of social media that's emphasising really unhealthy messages regarding the supposed roles men and women play in society. Much of it is wrong, exaggerated or focused on a minority of people but as ever, social media has a strong influence and makes it seem that these young men don't have a place in mainstream society.

I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with how negative women are about men. I have friends (who say they are happily married) always moaning about the patriarchy and how awful men are. This is despite the main relationship they have with men being a good one. I think it’s just seen as good to slag men off.

I think your post is interesting. I actually agree with you that women are men are fundamentally different in terms of what they value and I do controversially believe this is at least partly rooted in biology. It is therefore completely natural that mothers and fathers will value different things. I think from an evolutionary perspective it would make sense for the sexes to broadly specialise in slightly different areas and interests as it broadens what actually gets done for the benefit of the family/tribe.

I think it is the fault of the patriarchy though that they have belittled and trivialised the interests and activities typically associated with women. Having a tidy and clean house is considered a frippery when it has been proven time and again that it's important for people's mental and physical health. Extracurricular activities are hugely important for children as it not only allows them to develop interests and friendships outside of school but also can make a real difference when they come to apply to university or for jobs. The list goes on and on.

My point is that equality is generally a shorthand for women doing the same as men. Working the same types of careers, earning the same kind of money and not being bogged down by kids or domestic matters. The problem is, what if women actually naturally are more concerned with children and domestic matters and therefore aren't happy if these things are compromised? The men may well continue on not caring and having lower standards but that doesn't automatically mean the woman must overlook what she actually cares about and lower her standards too.

Not at all convinced women are 'concerned' with scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets out of deep female compulsions. Remember the impact of labour saving devices eg washing machines etc.

Of course they don't have a desire to scrub floors or clean toilets as these are pretty nasty jobs. However studies suggest women do generally place more importance on having a clean and tidy homes. This can be achieved through doing the work themselves as family unit, outsourcing it or using domestic appliances. I also believe women will prioritise their children and associated tasks often more than men will. The alternative viewpoint is that men and women want exactly the same as each other which just seems completely contrary to trends that can be observed across cultures, across history and across similar species.

So if we are at the point where women and men have different priorities then why is it that the woman is considered as fussy or unnecessary if they seek to have their wants and needs met?

A lot of times images of "good" masculine men, in the media for example, or even public life, are treated as kind of comic, or something to be indulged by women.

I don't think it's a surprise that this is not appealing to many boys as a model.

And explaining female progressivism away psychologically would be easy enough to do. Since today’s left seems largely to be interested in dismantling social norms rather than standing up for any, its allure for young women could be explained in terms of high levels of feminine agreeableness and a confusion between being socially permissive and kind.

This certainly rings true to me in terms of gender ideology. Most of the time it seems to be women who are most pushing it, and accusing those who don't agree of being bigots. Men I find more skeptical, overall.

author was never a drama kid, huh?

years ago, when I was one, everything we studied in drama class had a serious dose of...well, drama!

you don't make plays about mundane life, you need conflict, action and if you can add a death or six -even better! gives you the sweet points for dramatic fall on stage, and what teen does not want to look like a unconvincing corpse with the tongue sticking out while watching the audience's reaction through half-closed eyelids?

for as long as theatre existed, the aim of the play was to evoke strong emotions - and the negative ones are easier to pull off for a bunch of teen actors

Women placing more importance on clean and tidy homes could be partly social conditioning, in wider society and within a family/growing-up experience.
And I'm not sure men do, in general anyway, care less about cleaning etc; I've seen threads on here where men are incensed if their wife/gf etc hasn't done some cleaning or tidying task. I think at least to some degree some men really think that's 'women's work'.

I do agree though that there's a general tendency to scoff/belittle if a woman expresses a desire for a clean house or for piles of things to be tidied away.

I haven’t read this full thread but wanted to comment because I read the article when it was published and thought it very insightful and interesting. We should stop treating boys as two dimensional characters. There is a lot to consider in the article.

also nobody wants chores, they're chores because we have to do them. I enjoy having clean kitchen, not cleaning the kitchen - and I am sure there men are similar, only now many of them are taught they need to clean the kitchen to have a clean kitchen.

25 years ago l was a teacher at a nice comprehensive.

I had a pastoral period with my y9 form. All the girls wanted to be architects and peadiatricians

The boys wanted the girls to be housewives. So they would have someone to cook and clean for them. The girls were horrified.

Its not a new thing.

Of course it will never be completely consistent across a population and there will always be plenty of examples that buck the trend, but I still think it's true for the vast majority of couples. Socialisation plays a role but I will never be convinced it's the whole story. Biology is strong!

It isn't just cleaning or tidying that is belittled. Looking after children and family organisation is also devalued. The example of buying thoughtful gifts really rings true too! We all know how much we (men and women) treasure that thoughtful gift that was bought with love for us and yet it's seen as such an unimportant activity to source the gift.

I would certainly be interested in seeing some studies into the possible biological roots of the division of/importance placed on different tasks.

This point really stands out to me. Boys need to see role models every bit as much as girls do. The most straightforward is their father. I think the work that Louise Perry has been doing in looking at healthy societies to support women and children is interesting. The father figure is an important part of that. Honestly, I think our culture has denigrated the role of men in family life. It hasn't played out well for our sons (or our daughters). There is no society without both happy, healthy men and women.

I am starting to contemplate reframing the role of provider. If men truly want to be providers, there are plenty of ways they can do that. What is cooking a meal but providing food? What is cleaning the kitchen but providing a clean environment? You don't have to slay a dragon and bring home meat to provide. Being a partnership in the mundaneness of some parts of life so your partner doesn't feel it's all on them is being a provider. So how can men convince other men that this is worth doing?

Traditionally, the man provided the home and the woman looked after it. These days, women are jointly providing the home but the men are failing to jointly look after it.

Yes I agree. Although these standards are not imposed by the patriarchy they are undervalued by it, which creates many problems for women. It’s extraordinary really: raising functional humans is probably the most important thing for our society and yet it is not valued at all. If it were our culture would look completely different.

I think a lot of people women buy into this though so there isn’t the social/political pressure to value child-rearing more.

Yes, I sometimes find it most depressing on MN as there is an aggressive insistence that men and women are the same and want exactly the same. Observable differences are almost always put down to socialisation despite science simply not supporting this. We actually don't really know why men and women are different so the scramble to completely deny that biology can have any role is more about pushing an agenda than caring about truth.

The patriarchy has done such a number on women and 'female' activities that there is a strong contingent that simply can't accept that some women want to stay at home with their kids or clean the house or whatever. It can't be allowed because they then think this will be used as proof that all women want this and women will be stripped of their hard won rights. It's a defensive stance and one that doesn't really progress the position of the women that aren't happy simply doing the same as men. They are sacrificial lambs for some though in the supposed fight to equality.

Louise Perry questions whether the feminist movement has been a net positive for women. I think it was morally necessary but I do have some sympathy for her pov. I wonder what a feminist movement that focused on valuing the domestic sphere would look like.