I’d rather not know my role, even if that meant getting oppressed.
As do I. As does just about everyone.
Is it really? I don’t feel any biological imperatives whatsoever in deciding which books to read and which media to consume.
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No, but that doesn’t stop the stream of Just-So Stories that conveniently justify the ideology and strict gender roles.
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But Valerie Solanas was the best feminist ever! </sarcasm
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Thanks! Now I don’t have to bother posting myself. 
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I don’t doubt that this is part of it; but I would argue that even within the context of a full willingness to deal with ‘adult responsibilities’, you can’t ignore the fact that division of labor is enormously useful. This certainly needn’t be along ye olde traditional gender roles lines; or even between people with social connections(as both Marxists and Capitalists recognize, it is enormously effective in the context of market relations as well).
“Adult responsibilities” are a pretty full plate; and tend to be expecially tricky when it comes to things like overlapping demands on your time(do you provide some sort of ‘during business hours’ service? Enjoy trying to fit doing a chore that requires access to others ‘during business hours’ into your work schedule… among about a zillion other examples.
If you throw enough ‘gig economy’ and contractor labor at it, you can pretend that ‘adult responsibilities’ are doable on top of a full time job, sleep, and maybe even some time for socializing and recreation; but it’s a nontrivial exercise; markedly more so if you don’t earn enough to be able to afford to buy casual labor to fill in all the stuff you can’t attend to personally.
I certainly don’t mean this as an endorsement of The Wisdom of Traditional Gender Roles that SJWs don’t want you to know about!!!; specialization of labor and the efficiencies of having two or more people with complementary schedules, skillsets, etc. collaborating to fulfill the requirements for everyone involved can work just as well if you totally invert the traditional gendering of various jobs; or if it’s you and a friendly same-gender roommate collaborating; or if it is one of the (fairly common outside of post-WWII middle class suburbia) multi-generational family structures under one roof; but it’s pretty hard to deny that, for most tasks required to fulfil ‘adult responsibility’ a single person can do one of the jobs well enough to solve the problem for two or more people much more easily than a single person can do all of the jobs well enough to solve the problem for themselves.
As for the matter of “The most popular by far are the ones with the feisty female who is tamed by the wild man (e.g., a Scots laird). I’ll be perfectly honest, those are kinda titillating for me. There are moments when I fantasize about a man pushing me up against a wall and forcing his lips to mine” the fact that this is apparently a very popular fantasy trope; but very similar behavior often tends to land somewhere between ‘harassment’ and ‘assault’ if somebody tries it in real life; I’m always reminded of the annoying complications of gift-giving:
If you(without hinting/prompting) from the recipient, given them something that they want; they often enjoy it even more than if they’d just purchased it themselves, since they both get what they want and they get confirmation that you know/care enough to be able to get them what they want and follow through and do so. If you correctly get something that they didn’t even know they wanted/would want but didn’t know was available; the outcome is even better.
If you get someone what they want by asking them what they want; or because they ‘hint, hint’-ed you; they still get what they want; but no affirmation that you know them well enough to get them what they want without prompting; though you are at least motivated to do what you can to get the right thing; rather than just phoning in an Applebee’s gift card.
If someone gets you a gift that is very much the wrong thing; that is less good; though if they signal that they weren’t sure they got it right and would prefer that you correct it rather than pretend to like it(eg. tactfully providing the receipt/whatever is needed to turn it into cash/store credit and get yourself something you want) that is a plus.
Worst case is where a gift is blatantly the wrong thing and the ‘giver’ is more or less overtly demanding about expecting you to like it, show appreciation for it, would be offended if you did manage to return it or just consign it to the bottom of a drawer somewhere.
Obvious gift-giving is a lower stakes situation, and lacks the affective charge of mating-related activity; but it seems like analogous parameters apply: Why wouldn’t you feel even better understood/cared about if someone does what you want them to do(or comes up with something you hadn’t thought of yourself; but agree is a great idea) without having to be asked or hinted-at; with someone who doesn’t have the same level of knowledge; but is fully sincere in trying to find out and act accordingly markedly better than most of the rest of the alternatives; but not quite as ideal(and, since books have the advantage of narrative causality; and the author can thus ensure that unilateral acts of what-I-think-you-want reliably are what you want; rather than assault; romance novels are a natural habitat for people who take the initiative in the face of imperfect information; since the actual risk is entirely in the hands of the author; not ugly real-world probabilistic concerns).
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[quote]Just curious, what if that field were something like computer programming or electrical engineering? Both traditionally male if you go by percentages, and both “male” if you go by social roles, but these are jobs that are on the analytical side of the traditional male role rather than the strength side. Maybe it’s strength, or especially strength of character, that you find attractive. I know it is for me.
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Both perfectly fine with me. I was trying to think of fields that might be difficult to enter due to harrasment, but as I think about it, the fields you name probably the problems begin earlier on, in school - when girls are subjected to microaggressions and made to feel awkward and less than for their choices.
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Boy do I have all the thoughts on this. In my experience, the cultural ideal of masculinity gets baked in very early on. Fathers to sons via the usual aphorisms: “Boys don’t cry”, “Don’t be such a sissy”, “Just man up and deal with it”.
As a boy I learned very quickly that vulnerability was a green light for every bully at school to make my life a living hell either by humiliation or a good old fashioned beating. I learned to hide any degree of physical or emotional vulnerability purely as a survival mechanism. Social pecking orders were partly defined by whether or not someone could kick your ass well into high school. Afterwards, the threat of physical beating was replaced by other forms of damage: character assassination, career ruining, and other more abstract forms of retaliation. And often the powerful prey on the vulnerable just because they can - it’s how the power relationship is defined: can I exert my will over you? Do you have the means to prevent me from doing so if I try?
I’m not going to try to explain any of that with any sort of evolutionary psychology handwaving. Just that my personal experience with masculine norms is that they involve power hierarchies. In public or masculine spaces, power is currency. Vulnerability is an invitation to be attacked.
Got it in one. If I present you with a vulnerability, will you potentially use it to damage me now or in the future? If I don’t have to ask myself that question, I trust you.
One, you’re among friends - no apologies needed. Two, there’s a darn good reason that the romance genre is so overwhelmingly popular.
From my own personal experience, I would argue that the actual act of having your autonomy negated and having someone force themselves upon you is in no way, shape, or form erotic. But when both parties agree to pretend that this is the case, you have a remarkably potent erotic recipe on hand - for the right participants. Does all that tie back to the premise of power as masculine currency? While I’m not entirely sure, I can’t help but notice the similarities.
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It’d be interesting to see this from a BDSM perspective. How many male subs to female doms and vice versa.
There could be something in that, but I don’t know if the stereotypical alpha-male in public, sub in private trope is actually a legit thing or not.
Agreed. I have some personal experience and plenty of anecdotal evidence that male subs are very common in the BDSM community. Something something violating cultural norms is hot. Being culturally forbidden from expressing vulnerability makes being vulnerable an erotic trigger. Nothing academic nor rigorous that I could point to off the cuff, though.
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The trouble starts when trying to give one all-encompassing definition of manhood or womanhood or whateverhood. Everyone’s a little different. Some people are comfortable in roles other people balk at, and vice versa. I’m an extremely private extroverted-introvert (enjoy company, recharge with alone time). I’ll try almost anything consensual once, so I’ve tried a lot of different roles in relationships, dalliances, friendships, ect… What I discovered is that the idea of personhood that I mostly unconsciously modeled myself after growing up was that of the psychologically self-reliant explorer archetype. I was raised by good parents. My Dad’s retired career military and very much the strong silent type. My Mom’s a musician and retired nurse. They’d probably still be married if they weren’t both so Type-A. They take themselves too seriously, but most people do. I still left home early because I wanted to live on my own terms, and that’s not something you can do when your home is not your house. I never resented that, but it’s a fact nonetheless.
I don’t boss people around and I don’t put up with being bossed around. I default to making decisions because I like things to get done, not because I see it as being manly. If someone makes a decision I don’t like, on a case by case basis I’ll weigh going along with it against how much it matters to me in that situation to do it my way. If my way is more important to me than ensuring their participation, I’ll do it my way and give them the option to go along with it or not. If I do go along with their decision, it’s of my own choosing based on my desires, no one else’s.
I don’t try to coerce them. Even in the situations where I could psychologically coerce a person or people to go along with my way of doing things, I don’t want anyone giving in to me to please me. If they’re not on board of their own desire, then they shouldn’t be on board with me at all.
I believe many (probably most) people try to contort themselves to a Procrustean bed that they, for whatever reason, believe is the only bed open to them. What I have found is that you can live your life and be the sort of friend and lover that you want to be, and there are people who will accept you for it, many more than most assume.
In the whole alpha/beta oversimplification, I’m probably closest to what the simpletons to who subscribe to that scheme would call an omega.
About vulnerability. I’m fine with leaning on my wife or vice versa for support. It makes life easier. But one reason I asked her to marry me is because she, like myself, is anti-codependent. Everyone is born alone and every dies alone. When I’m struggling, I usually turn inward, because that’s where my strength is.
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I take it you don’t use porn then.
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Actually… no I don’t, but good point.
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I don’t think I’m imagining this - it seems that in recent years, there has been a growing recognition generally that intentionally exposing a vulnerability is a sign of strength.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting that confused with a greater acceptance of folks being openly gay, which has just become less of a vulnerability. But if so, that sort of implies the former in a more general sense anyway.
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Thank you. I certainly wouldn’t try on other messaging boards but here, usually, not always, there’s an openness.
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Tensions have been high here, but it looks like this topic is doing okay, knock on wood. Good topic!
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So is the phrase “topping from the bottom” ;p
There are plenty of dynamics even within.
Yep, the issue is not appreciations of differences, but when social conservatives tend to use it not to appreciate differences of the genders, but to attack outliers and non-normative expressions.
Oh they’re just APPRECIATING man and woman, but gosh, those persons who don’t act “decent” get full disdain.
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Well, it can be an excellent strategy in serious combat, so perhaps also in less exigent circumstances.
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When I started working in computers in the early 1960s, about half of my colleagues were women. Women were gradually pushed out in the next 15 years or so, mostly because entry to the field was largely captured by academic institutions. We all know what an official ‘engineer’ is supposed to look like.
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Yeh, x feed tall and x degree in math, engineering, physics, and later computer science.
If you lacked the length and/or had breast you were toast.
/s
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