The Seven Worst Things About Being a Male
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-murder-and-the-meaning-life/201201/the-7-worst-things-about-being-maleThe cultural stereotype is that it's great to be a man. Not only do we have shorter lines at the rest room, but we make scads more money and can reach things on higher shelves in the marketplace. We don't have to deal with double standards or glass ceilings, and we're raised to have confidence and high self-esteem, so we can all comfortably act like the Sean Connery version of James Bond. Cooly knock off a few bad guys in the afternoon, then drive our Aston Martins to our expensive hotel in Monte Carlo, where beautiful movie actresses are waiting to throw themselves into our arms.
But in truth, it ain't like that down here in Kansas.
Here are some simple facts about what it's really like to be a regular good ole boy
1. People want to hurt you. I have less than fond memories of the black eyes and swollen lips I suffered at the hands of various bullies as a young man. Or the nervous feeling in my stomach all afternoon when some would-be tough guy challenged me with the classic line: "After school, punk!" When I should have been studying for my math exams in high school, my mind was often filled instead with thoughts about how to avoid some bully in one of my classes, and whether the best strategy was to stare him down or make a self-diminishing joke, allowing him to establish his dominance at the expense of my acting submissive. But except for a few minor injuries and years of anxiety, I got off easy. If you go hang around almost any emergency room in any reasonable sized city, you will see a steady stream of young males staggering in, or being wheeled in, with knife wounds, gunshot wounds, gashes from broken bottles, or fractured skulls from baseball bats aimed at their heads. And as Martin Daly and Margo Wilson pointed out in their classic book Homicide, crime statistics from any year taken at random, from any society throughout history, reveal that men are many times more likely to be murdered than are women. The perpetrators are more likely to be males than females, but even when the usually more peaceful sex decides to murder, her victim is much more likely to be a man.
3. For a good portion of your life, you have an irrationally and self-destructively high desire for sex. By a "good portion" of your life, I mean two things: broadly, several decades between the teens and the fifties, and more proximately, many times a day during those long decades. One researcher found that among men between the ages of 18 and 25, fully 50 percent had thought about sex in the last 5 minutes.
4. If you are heterosexual, those sexual partners you desire so much do not reciprocate your urgency. Clark and Hatfield also had college men approach college women on campus using the same lines. The guys were reasonably attractive, as judged by the fact that over 50 percent of the women said "yes" to the request for a date. But the number of women who said yes to the sexual offer was precisely zero (the study was done twice, both before and after the AIDs epidemic, and the number was zero before as well as after). I heard a talk recently which revealed that it's not all about sex at all - the researcher discovered that if women were not afraid of men, if women found men attractive, and if women thought they'd have more fun in bed with a strange man, the sex difference would go away! The researcher seemed to take the findings as a blow to what she called "essentialism." Perhaps that's good news for Brad Pitt. But unfortunately, most real women essentially find most real men rather scary, unattractive, and unsexy, and they consequently say "No."
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'll just express my thoughts as they come to mind. I'll probably have more to say later.
My own point of view? I'm just a 63-year-old white guy who's been happily married to the same woman for over 30 years. I think I lucked out in that regard. Our two daughters have turned out to be wonderful young women. But I've never had much of a career; so, many might consider me to be a failure.
Of course, I disagree with those of the feminists who have ridiculously extreme views, such as those who have been referenced in this forum. So, please don't misunderstand me when I say I'm still sympathetic to the problems many girls and women have. What has always disturbed me about the Men's Rights Movement (to whom, incidentally, I do not equate this DU group) is that they seemingly have always blamed men's problems on women, particularly the feminist movement. I dare say the problems I experienced as a boy growing up were caused by other guys, not those of "the opposite sex" (although I did know more than a few jerks at school who fell into that category). None of the problems that I experienced as a boy (or a young man, for that matter) were caused by feminists. But, of course, I'm just speaking for myself.
Concerning Point No. 1, how true that is! True, there has been more social awareness about the issue of bullying in the schools; but the "blame the victim" mentality is still in abundance. Where do people get the idea that you strengthen the weak by tearing them down? Some acts of bullying -- especially, in my opinion, in junior high and high school gyms -- are actually crimes of physical assault. An adult who committed the same act of violence upon another adult would soon find himself in a courtroom being prosecuted; but when a boy is subjected to an act of physical violence (even, for example, as extreme as a stronger boy deliberately smashing a weaker boy in the face with a cricket bat and breaking his nose), the only "punishment" the perp may receive is a few days' suspension from school. (This really happened to a friend of mine in London.) As adults, we may feel like responding violently to defend our own "manhood." I can relate to that!
Sex can be a source of emotional pain in more ways that one would expect. At my age (63 years old), I'm stuck with a profoundly low body self-image, which I'm now desperately trying to overcome by pumping iron at a local health club. I've already spent thousands of dollars on personal trainers for about four years now. I've made a permanent commitment for the sake of my psychological well-being, not to mention my physical health. I've had to work against a high metabolic rate, diabetes, and a chronic sleep disorder. (As you probably know, good sleep is essential to bodybuilding.) I've progressed from being scrawny to having an average build. But I still have a long way to go; and, frankly, I'm concerned about my very slow rate of progress! The point of this frank and self-centered admission is that women are not the only ones who experience body image problems.
I'll tell you what really gets me about this. Intellectually I realize that body build has nothing to do with masculinity. There have been many men of great courage who had lousy physiques. The extremely courageous Swede Raoul Wallenberg (who is presumed to have perished during some year in the Soviet gulag) is someone I admire greatly; but, (expletive deleted), I'd hate to have his slight build! My doctor has said that the only exercise I need as a diabetes patient is to take brisk hour-long walks, but I must do the bodybuilding (and take the walks on "off days"
!
Well, I guess I've just made a fool out of myself. I could say we men (well, at least some of us, such as yours truly) are plagued by irrationalities at their own expense; but that's true of women as well.
and no, you did not make a fool of yourself one bit.
I agree that men's problems are not due to the feminist movement, of course, but I think they tend to be hidden and men tend to be shamed for discussing men's issues as if, because women have it worse, we have no right to complain.
One issue that came out for me from your post was the relationship between body image and emotional pain.
As I mentioned above, so few can ever experience what it is to be desired. Rarely even do we receive much in the way of attention from the opposite sex (unless we look like Warren, that is ) nor do we get much in the way of complements.
Now, I can believe that women -beautiful women and maybe not so beautiful women can get TOO many to the point that it gets annoying. But surely it is easy to see that the LACK of being desired can also lead to emotional pain at most or at the least a feeling of being unwanted or unneeded physically.
Response to Bonobo (Original post)
