As a boy, I thought I would want to get a job I could work in for a long time. To me, that meant finding work I enjoyed doing. It could have meant something involving guns and justice, or great amounts of money. But for me, it was people and their intricacies. Psychology or psychiatry seemed to offer the chance to understand different personalities and both peaks and sink-holes of life, but education was much less expensive, and faster to get into. Running a classroom involves children or young people, and that means connections to women. We are all the products of women and education as an occupation is attractive to women.
I have been attracted to books and fun things to learn or dream all my life. I have enjoyed the company, personality and insights of women but I am not a woman. We really are in a time just now where women are emerging as a force, when they are developing all sorts of goals and ambitions. I hear about male privilege and repression of women. I feel as though I have seen that women do get thrust into all sorts of positions they didn't ask for, and denied all sorts of power they want.
But I have suspicions and questions. I wonder about the idea that women "farm" men, control them, for fun and profit. The farmer has a herd of cattle that he more or less controls. Does the lady of the house have a man that she more or less controls? Throughout the dance of life, it seems quite possible that both sexes take their knocks, have their burdens, make their mark, reap their benefits and contribute their parts.
We are reading Michelle Obama's "Becoming" and it is excellent. She beautifully expresses the pain and frustration and fear of being cheated of what she could do by motherhood and wifehood. She wanted children and worked hard to bear some. We don't at this time have much pressure on men to carry children for nine months, go through childbirth and then parent the child for 20 years and more. As we keep urging our girls to become CEO's, top lawyers and find cures for cancer, more of them pushing biological and parenting goals off for later.
Twice, recently I was in groups of mature men and found a way to momentarily try to exemplify pumping up men through purring admiration for their bodies and status. Neither time took me a full minute, but in that minute, I was surprised to see the reaction. Of course, they were surprised my behavior and deep unsuitability to be womanly, or effectively "in awe" of them. But I suspect that if I were properly built and dressed and had the right voice, skin and hair, I might be more able to inspire those men to battle or achievement.
I have long suspected that women live longer than men in part because our social patterns for the two sexes promote women's ability to enjoy life in more ways and more deeply that masculine models do for men. I heartily recommend these two TED talks that I watched yesterday:
Justin Baldoni
https://www.ted.com/talks/justin_baldoni_why_i_m_done_trying_to_be_man_enough?language=en
Eldra Jackson
https://www.ted.com/talks/eldra_jackson_how_to_break_the_cycle_of_toxic_masculinity
