I have been listening to the 2 hour presentation by Sounds True of Brene Brown called "Men, Women and Worthiness". She is a highly regarded author and researcher, usually described as specializing in "vulnerability". To many people, the word is more acceptable than my synonym for it, which is "wound-ability". If a person is so hardened (usually to protect one's emotional heart from unwanted pain) that very little will touch or move them, they can be described as "invulnerable", unwound-able. Little boys often dream of being in a such a state, like the one Superman and various cartoon characters are in, where bullets don't penetrate and so forth.
Brown has some excellent TED talks which can be viewed on any computer with an internet connection. Just Google (or Bing) "TED" and then search for "Brene".
Brown is a qualitative researcher, which means she specializes in listening to what people tell her and trying to extract from their statements, connections and insights. For several years, she concentrated on studying women's reactions to life but got interested in that of men, too, especially after giving birth to a son.
She was surprised to find that men revealed that their women relatives, lovers and friends did two contradictory things on a regular basis:
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First, they urged the men who were important to them to "open up", to talk about their feelings
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Second, in the background, they consistently showed revulsion toward any revelation of feelings of fear, inadequacy, discouragement. They showed they definitely didn't like hearing about such feelings in their men.
One man put it: "My wife and daughters would much rather see me dead on my white horse than see me fall off."
My own experience supports this general contradiction in women's attitudes toward men. I do think that men are naturally more able and interested in immediately converting fear into rage or attack than women are so, there is an ongoing basis for everybody to expect the male soldier to "Man Up" and march toward the enemies' guns. That conversion trick, sometimes called 'dissociation', is something most males learn early in life and competition.
More excellent insights into men's psychology and the structure of their lives can be found in "Fighting for Life" by the scholar Walter Ong, available on Kindle.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
