Um, not to put too fine a point on it (and generalizing horribly), that is our model, and I think the one the majority of us are comfortable with. Denigrating that friendship model as dysfunctional is as mistaken as denigrating female approaches to relationships.
Given us males have substantially higher rates of mental illness and a higher propensity to violence, higher suicide rates (2x-4x) is a no-brainer. It’s simply the way we’re built.
And the harsh reality is that the Western world has been constructed to offer straight white males the lowest difficulty setting there is. However, the price is that if they fail anyway (and quite possibly through no fault of their own), society has little use or sympathy for them, now that it’s no longer fashionable to send them off to die in some pointless war.
My earlier ambiguity makes it sounds worse than it really is: I have a handful of deep friendships with women that survive time and distance across years and decades - and more importantly are actively encouraged by an amazing and understanding wife. On the other hand, the male friendships seem to survive time just fine but distance less so. Hence my active interest in this particular subject.
I don’t understand, the solution appears to have been solved by having female friends. Considering the long-standing “popular” opinion that a friend of the opposite sex is there because one wants to have sex with the other or that friendship entitles someone to being the ideal partner of the other, I can’t put the blame at the foot of being a man alone. Society is contructed to isolate men and tell them they are special, and unless they take that lesson to heart they are an abandoned outlier.
I’m an introvert to an extreme so I get the socialization I want from my family, online friends, and random web communities. If I couldn’t get social fulfillment from that then I can easily see how hard just being guys and friends without a specific reason behind it can be.
I thought it was a huge missed opportunity for her to cast her ideology in stark oppositin to Trump’s in a way that will matter after the election:
She should have talked about how she respects that he exercises his American right to express his opinions even when she finds the opinions themselves repugnant; pivot to “the answer to speech you don’t like is more speech,” and maybe make a few deplorables feel a little less irredeemable over the next four years.
But are we comfortable with that because that’s the way we’re built? Or are we comfortable with that because we’re taught that’s our role and we accept it? Because that’s our role. To stoically shoulder that burden.
And maybe these things are connected? Call it a gut feeling, but I want to reject the starting axiom of “You’re here to suck it up and take it and never complain about it because life sucks and then you die, but you won’t bitch about it if you’re doing it like a man.” I can’t help but notice that ‘bitch’ winds up being the active verb in that construct. Certainly we have other options?
Of all of Scalzi’s essays - his Lowest Difficulty Setting is something that simply cannot be linked enough. With 'Being Poor’ a damn close second.
Indeed, but since hatred of women is probably not the primary motivation in many cases and there’s no significant difference between men and women on this issue (women are slightly more against it than men in 2016 according to Pew, and Evangelicalism is 55% women and very anti abortion (and in my experience, women are and have been some of the stronger voices in this issue, while men seem to be more upset about immigration)), I prefer to focus on the startling ineffectiveness of conservative approaches and the fact that you can’t sing the praises of small government and want it to be the morality police in issues like abortion and marriage.
I think that if it can be shown that conservative approaches actually result in more abortions and more harm to women, those who would hold their nose and vote for anyone as long as they claim to be pro-life can keep their personal convictions on the issue while voting more pragmatically (and in line with their convictions on other issues). Those who are motivated by misogyny aren’t likely to be reached by this level of discourse anyway, but I have convinced more than one pro-life Republican that they can vote pro-choice with a clear conscience.
Incidentally, my future sister-in-law is writing her PhD thesis on the Southern Baptist Convention’s change of stance on abortion. She’s been given access to the recordings and minutes of the meetings, so she was able to comment a lot more about issues like how the topic was received throughout the mid- to late 70s. Apparently there was more support for eugenics earlier on, and this was publicly discussed.
You make it sound like a responsibility rather than a privilege.
Look, I’m all for people forming any sort of relationships they want, and there is a problem with relationship types being typecast as male or female because there are always going to be lots of people who don’t fit into one bin or another. If my sons found “best friends” of that sort, I’d be delighted. But I’m not going to find fault with what they’re comfortable with.
But if observation is any guide, the odds are they won’t with anyone other than their spouses, and that will be what they are happy with.
It’s like my mother-in-law who is offended because some of her acquaintances have no wish to “share” their health issues for rightful fear of ending up being fussed over at the cost of their dignity. Now my M-I-L is an angel for those who do want that sort of thing, but there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with soldiering on if that’s what you prefer.
Well, society does tend to take naturally occurring divisions and magnify them, so I certainly accept that our natural tendencies get reinforced by society. What I was objecting to was the idea that a preferred paradigm for billions is somehow second class (sound familiar)?
