i want to be a man

;-0

"i don't feel pretty"
"i don't feel attractive"
"i'm ugly"
"i'm fat"

i can't WAIT!

"i'm allowed to have lots of male friends but you can't have any female friends unless you're prepared for me to play subtle mindgames with you or slowly sabotage your friendships"

Gee, but you're not bitter.

(still, I came close to doing it. And it's more like seven grand.)

all you have to do is program your dreams the way i did - i had that unbelievable series of recurring ones where i was a bloke with a really big dick, and i had lots and lots of sex with all kinds of different women - i tell you something - MY GOD IT'S SOOOOOO EASY TO GET YOUR ROCKS OFF WHEN YOU'RE A MAN - instant satisfaction compared to what we go through as women!!!!!

fear my anus!

i hate gender. i wish it would fuck off. (not saying this thread is an unworthy topic, just expressing my own frustrartion with being judged by my gender and me feeling compelled to judge people by their gender).

bring it ON

We are supposed to be waif-thin and beautiful, feminine yet strong; we are supposed to act like tigers in the bedroom, and domestic godesses who can cook and clean and organise everything to run like clockwork in the rest of the house. We are supposed to hold down high-powered jobs, be successful in our work lives and be financially independent. Yet at the same time we are supposed to fulfil the nurturing and caring role - being supportive to our partners and perfect mothers to our children. It's multi-tasking gone mad.

I would really like to know what society expects from you men. Do you feel bombarded with stereotypical imagery about how you should behave, in the same way that the girls are? I really want to understand the pressures that you feel you are under, why you act - and react - the way you do.

Recently, on another MB, I mentioned a website which had some useful information about how to deal with depression; I received more than 30 emailed requests for the URL. All those requests were from men, and that surprised me. No, shocked me actually.

So if I spent a week inside a man's skin, what could I expect to find?

and yes, I think men internalise the pressure more because they are supposed to be tough (whatever that is) and just have a beer and watch the game etc.

but personally its never really bothered me what other peoples idea of a man is. Ive never really cared to try to conform to the stereotype and be macho or whatever the media and advertising agencys mans man is supposed to be.....whats the point in being something other than yourself? Hence I am not depressed, and enjoy being a man - however I would love to be woman for a month or too - just to see of course! ahemn.....err......so what about those Yankee's?

Whether its from greater pressures and expectations or poor coping mechanisims or both Im unsure. Certainly we are still not expected to show much weakness, whether thats the alpha male competitive instinct, or just fear of looking like a faggot (thanks Momus) Ive got no idea.

Im not helping much.Um I thing societies expectations of men as the decisive fearless chivalrous protector and provider is still there. The percieved responsibilty for men is still stronger thus the fall is greater???

Im thinking about choices and relationships, I think a house-husband is sadly still seen as a failure wheras a housewife much less so. I dont think women who choose not to work to look after family are viewed the same way as men. Again the fall for men who fail in "high powered jobs" to become the main child raiser is greater than women.

I guess Id like to hear what ILXOR mens views are on masculilinty and what it means to them. Anything?

Beards, body hair, gold and Brute?

I wouldn't call it irrational myself.

i said (not verbatim) "i can't believe you read this crap! every single page is devoted to finding some way to tell women how they are supposed to look, act and fuck. it's so blatant it's not even funny. 'ten things that will turn him on in bed' or 'why you're a whore if you don't buy a new handbag this season' aren't positive articles to read". i also should have mentioned that these trashy (and unbelievably popular mags)take aim squarely at a girl's self-esteem, something i've found pretty much everyone (especially women who are not totally vain and awful) deficient in.

she said "what about the wire? what is that telling you as a guy?" (she always brings up the wire)

i said "the wire is about music. the wire's propaganda is limited to articles like 'you are white trash if you don't think this lame avant-garde improv group is cool'. the wire doesn't tell me what shirt i should wear or how to kiss girls or the way my stomach should look or what my life should consist of".

she seemed satisfied that i had made some sort of concession re: the snootiness of the wire.

what did i take out of that brief interchange? i guess i do support that women *are* subject to more expectations than men, especially in the media, but i have little sympathy when someone can say to themself 'i'm not pretty' and then expect an article called 'how to get guys to think you're hot' to provide the answer.

i forget what the point is ...

one of the things i realised when i was back looking after my maw and paw earlier this week, is how much i've adopted-learnt versions of her coping-and-internalisation strategies

As for holding in emotions, I definately do not do that, but I think emotions are not all that important. They are unstable and I tend to act and think more in a logical way, and not an emotional way. Embracing emotions can be fun and healthy sometimes, but they often don't take over.

But moaning about pressure on men, without acknowledging the far worse ones on women, is unutterably dud. These fools (thankfully none here, so far!) who moan about not knowing whether to hold a door or that we aren't even allowed to grope a woman's arse any more are all scum. Nonetheless, there are some downsides to sexism and stereotyping for men too. For instance, I make wide use of web dating sites. Pretty much every woman I've got to know through this says that they agree that there is no reason why it should always be down to the men to do the asking - but they all admit that they sit back and wait, and I have only had a few women contact me first. It's a burden, but it's hardly massive. Generally, in these more liberal times, women can act and dress in a wider range of ways than men, but that is only including certain sections of society - my mother would be very disapproving of many women who ILXers wouldn't dream of criticising.

I'd love to swap for a month, certainly. Or maybe 23 days, then I can give the body back...

What about someone who acknowledges the tremendous pressure on women, but who thinks that the comparison you make there is invidious?

On top of that, it's not a zero-sum game, and nothing can be gained by comparing women's lot and men's lot and figuring out (by science) who has it worse -- first of all because the lot of a person in Alabama is potentially wildly different from the lot of a person in Manhattan, let alone someone in Stockholm or Harare or rural China, and second of all because the evils suffered by one gender can never render those suffered by the other irrelevant: two wrongs don't make a right, last time I checked.

Your arse-groping character, while to some extent real, is also a straw man. A far more substantial counter-figure is, perhaps, the man who finds that his friends look down at him, and his parents treat him with vague contempt, for being a househusband. Or the man who is haunted for the rest of his life by feelings of worthlessness because when, at a young age, he was confronted by a gang of bullies ready to beat the crap out of him, he cried and begged for his life instead of fighting to the death -- and nearly everything he's ever read, seen and heard tells him that someone who does that is a piece of shit. And so on.

No, a straw man is one that isn't real, knocked up for the purposes of argument. The people I was knocking actually exist, as you half acknowledge.

Anyway, I did go on to complain about certain things and agree that there are unreasonable pressures on men, and your last example is a very good one. But I still think that complaining because the tiny proportion of men who become househusbands get disrespected WITHOUT noticing that millions of women have also been getting bugger all respect for doing this for centuries is pretty damn dud.

I'm by no means saying that there is nothing wrong with men's lot in this world, I'm saying that we need to have a sense of proportion.

True. My point, though, was that to use them as emblematic of people who complain of "men's troubled lot" is a little disingenuous. And I think it's a bit over the top, by the way, to call men who are confused about whether to open doors for women "scum": last I knew, there was a widely varying range of opinions among women as to whether such an act was the height of chivalry, chauvinism, courtesy, stupidity, or whatever else.

But I still think that complaining because the tiny proportion of men who become househusbands get disrespected WITHOUT noticing that millions of women have also been getting bugger all respect for doing this for centuries is pretty damn dud.

Well, sure. But my point isn't about the "tiny proportion of...househusbands", it's about the nature of the expectations upon men: that they make money, have successful careers, and gain enough power to be sure of being able to protect their families and interests. It's not "househusbands don't get no respect", it's "the vast majority of people (men and women both) consciously or subconsciously hold that a man's worth as a human being is intimately connected to the amount of power he wields". I can understand why you raise the question you do, but it's not really the corollary of the point I was driving at.

I'm all for a "sense of proportion", but what exactly does that mean? What is to be gained by comparing, say, a teenage boy who blows his brains out because he gets beaten up every day at school for being effeminate or bookish, and a woman who starves herself to death because she's terrified of being fat? What political point needs to be made, exactly?

i wanted to pick out this statement cos housewives are seen as and often feel like failures. but in our society it doesn't matter cos women aren't expected to be as successful in their careers as men are. (this isn't to say that women aren't pressured to be successful - as housewives or paid-careerists - just that the pressure is less.) but there are definitely different pressures, appearance, decorum etc

I seem to have to keep repeating that I agree that men suffer ill effects from sexism too - I made this clear in my first post here. However, as Amarga points out, these are not entirely separable from the ill effects on women, and women still get much the worst of it.

Yeah, I've always wondered what it would be like to be of the opposite sex, but one day/month/year will hardly serve to give anything but the slightest glimpse of what it would feel like I'd imagine- best wait for reincarnation.

Pretty much every woman I've got to know through this says that they agree that there is no reason why it should always be down to the men to do the asking - but they all admit that they sit back and wait, and I have only had a few women contact me first. It's a burden, but it's hardly massive.

What I don't get is why those trashy girlie mags mentioned elswhere on this thread don't give out the very simple advice "approach him first", because every girl who has done this to me has been met with sincere and undying adoration- it's an instant "you're cool" badge, at least in my book.

Or the man who is haunted for the rest of his life by feelings of worthlessness because when, at a young age, he was confronted by a gang of bullies ready to beat the crap out of him, he cried and begged for his life instead of fighting to the death -- and nearly everything he's ever read, seen and heard tells him that someone who does that is a piece of shit.

I never fought back (even when I knew that, if I trained a bit, I could possibly beat those guys up.) Never regretted it either, because in all the comics I've seen where the person does they end up getting beat up real bad and the moral of it is that it was somehow worth it. Wuh?

And I think it's a bit over the top, by the way, to call men who are confused about whether to open doors for women "scum": last I knew, there was a widely varying range of opinions among women as to whether such an act was the height of chivalry, chauvinism, courtesy, stupidity, or whatever else.

I was perplexed the first time a girl complained to me about that, because I'd always figured it meant "you are an Earth Godess/Mother Of Life/insert vaguely New Age-y term here and widely superior to myself, thus my role is to honour and serve you" not "you're weak and fragile, thus I have to open this door for you because you probably couldn't do it by yourself". Then again, mentality #1 is as offensive in its own way as #2, I guess...

I was failing to point at the male backlash types who seem to believe, ludicrously, that feminism has gone too far and that men are the oppressed group now.

Cf: "I hate Destiny's Child all they do in their songs is bash men whine whine moan moan now where's my Jay-Z record?"

Oddly enough tho, I've also met women who share (some) of these ideas and proudly call themselves "anti feminists". Which baffles me very much.

I totally agree (though I find the word "sexism" a little limiting to describe this whole complex of issues, but that's minor). They're quite intimately bound up with each other in a way that's seldom true of these kinds of conflicts (with the possible exception of class conflict).

and women still get much the worst of it.

The key issue for me is this: I'm not sure how this statement is useful. I'm setting aside the question of whether I agree with it -- in fact, I essentially do, though it's a bit too monolithic for my taste in that it reduces an extremely complex issue to a single equation (which of course never ever happens on IL* ;-).

[For instance: I feel that the welfare of women in Saudi Arabia is specifically and obviously a pressing issue (and a human rights disaster) in a way that the welfare of men in that country is not. If I were in charge of allocating funds for human rights advocacy in Saudi Arabia, I would probably decide to give substantially more money to efforts that would potentially and specifically improve the lot of the country's women. But I feel the opposite about the American prison system -- unless the sources I've consulted are totally off-the-mark, the rate of rape and sexual torture in men's prisons is absolutely insane, and far exceeds the rate in women's prisons. Some horrible things are happening in women's prisons, but if I were allocating funds for an inquiry, I'd probably spend more money-per-prisoner investigating the men's prisons.]

But I'm not sure what good can come of framing things in this way: if, as Amarga said, we're all victims of the same toxic ideology, then pursuing the question of who gets the worst of it seems to me to be a potentially destructive blind alley, in part (I think) because it pulls us toward locating blame in each other, as groups and individuals, rather than in the ideology. So I'm interested in knowing: Do you believe it's important that it be adopted as axiomatic that women get the worst of it? If so, why?

(btw Martin, I'm not trying to attack you, and hope it doesn't seem that way [and am sorry if it has]. It's a bit like Mark S. and I -- we go at it hammer-and-tongs because, half the time, we're actually pretty close to agreement.)

I don't feel as if I'm under attack from you - but it does seem as if any mention of women having it worse does get you angry. And accusing me of bringing in gender comparisons where none are called for is just silly - this whole thread started as a way of comparing men's and women's lot, and women were asking about the comparative pressures that a sexist society creates. I gave my opinion, and bar the odd incautious word that I've already withdrawn, I stand by it.

An axiom is a starting point, not a conclusion. I have explained before, more than once, here and in private email, why I think women have it worse. To sum up a few of the reasons: number of countries worldwide where women earn as much as men: zero. Number of women among company directors being paid a million or more p.a. in the UK: zero. Average number of women killed by partners per week in the UK: almost two - when a man is killed by his female partner, it is sensational headline news. I don't know the figures on rapes (and it's clearly hugely underreported whatever the sex of the victim) but the disparity is of similar kind. This isn't adopting anything as an axiom, it is dealing with the huge imbalance in the real world.

I'd also point out that I brought up the whole issue of women having it worse immediately after I moaned about the effects that gender-based aspects of my upbringing had on me when trying to deal with my depression, not as some polemical point out of nowhere or political sloganeering unconnected to the point of the thread. That is, I was talking about what difference it made to me to be a man, but acknowledging that the bad impact of societal norms on me was not as burdensome as is typically the case for women - it is you who have stuck with abstract argument.

Of course they're not the same thing! That's my whole question, and what I'm trying to figure out. You said that men who fail to acknowledge the "far worse pressures on women" are duds. The question is: do you think that people in general, and/or our social policies, need to acknowledge them in specifically comparative terms in order for positive change to be enacted? I'm not trying to interrogate you or accuse you of polemics or sloganeering, I'm trying to get your thoughts on what I think is a very important question. This is why I (very briefly) brought up class conflict, because it's an example of an issue in which I think there's a strong case to be made that quantitative comparison is in fact crucial to finding just ways of dealing with the problem. But maybe that's because I don't feel that there are significant social injustices being visited on the rich qua rich, and so I'm not as concerned that the discourse should take a form that validates their experiences.

(I suspect we're going in circles -- perhaps we should take this to private email, or stop?)

No. The comparison was because of the context of the thread, and my point (clumsily made, but I hope I've explained this well enough in subsequent posts) was about men who claim that they have the worst of it. I'm not some kind of nutter who protests against improving conditions in men's prisons because women don't have equal pay.

I think the 'stop' option is best. No one else is posting!