September 08, 2002
Two of the biggest mysteries that still keep us humans scratching our skulls are how male-female relationships got so complicated and what both genders can do to uncomplicate their interactions. I am glad to see that the conversations among women are continuing on this subject. Each adds new layers of insights and perspectives – some scholarly, some intuitive. There are two worth checking out.
Among a series of strong posts about feminism by a young female Rhodes Scholar who calls herself “glovefox,” is a lengthy response to a series of questions posed by a man, which includes this statement:
By the same token, I might say that since femininity and masculinity are cultural constructions, who could say how they might have manifested and developed if women instead of men were in charge of culture and society and that it was a historical status quo. Femininity and masculinity would probably have evolved very differently and might even be labelled differently.
Founder of Blog Sisters, Jeneane Sessum, has this to say in a post that looks at the way in which weblogging has enabled men to start manifesting a “cultural construction” that has historically been associated with women:
Sessum suggests:
Men ARE reconnecting through weblogging. Not in the same way that women are--more subtle, more slowly--but perhaps in an even more important way. Somehow Real's notion [Terrence Real, “I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming The Secret Legacy of Male Depression“] that cultural edicts have taken power away from women and connections away from men seems just right when it comes to what we're doing here in Blogaria. Women are gaining power and voice in a way that's never been before, and men are connecting in ways that are rare and special and human.
Terrence Reals’ book on male depression is not his latest work. His latest, How Can I Get Through to You: Reconnecting Men and Women, sounds like it’s worth reading as well.
A review of the Reconnecting book in Amazon.com has this to say:
Why is love between men and women so difficult? In this groundbreaking new book, bestselling author Terrence Real analyzes the crisis in intimate relations, a crisis that has lasted more than a generation, yielding divorce rates of 40 to 50 percent. Our culture prepares us to fall in love, but it does not give us the skills we need to stay in love. Here Real offers a radical new vision of love and the practical tools with which to achieve it.
The current crisis is a product of changing gender roles, Real explains. In the past thirty years, women's roles have changed radically and men's have not. For the first time, adult women are asking their partners to access the very skills -- emotional sensitivity, expressiveness, responsibility -- that most men have had psychologically, if not physically, stamped out of them as boys. Patriarchal culture does not raise boys to be intimate; it raises them to be competitive performers. At the same time, girls are taught to be compliant and accommodating. The result is that, within relationships, men feel bewildered and unappreciated while women feel unheard and resentful. Conventional therapy, which either sidesteps the issue or reinforces "traditional" male roles, has failed. The demand for intimacy in marriage must be met with new skills.
Real's insights into marriage are a direct outgrowth of his pioneering work on male depression, which culminated in his bestselling "I Don't Want to Talk About It." As in that book, Real draws on myth, literature, film, and heartrending stories of the men and women he treats to illustrate his compelling analysis. Breaking taboos about love, marriage, and passion, Real not only reconstructs gender roles but also shows that patriarchy's idealized model of love is impossibly flawed. He teaches partners to replace it with a love that acknowledges imperfections, and he then provides five Core Relational Skills designed to help every couple reach their full potential. Innovative, powerful, and eminently helpful, "How Can I Get Through to You?" is the book that every couple has been waiting for -- and our culture needs.
Well, I'm not part of a couple, and at the rate I'm going, chances are slim that I ever will be again. But, just in case, tomorrow I'm going to stop at my library and borrow both books. (Their online catalog says that they’re both in.)
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