In Part 1 in this series, I discussed the unwritten rules, expectations, and norms (REN) that shape boys and girls differently throughout their lives. childhood.
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As a psychologist and student of history, I struggle to remember a time when gender relationships were more contentious than they are today. Although writing about gender issues today can be extremely tricky, I feel compelled to offer some observations from the socialization experiences I have had in groups governed by men. And women, respectively, throughout my life.
Like most boys, I grew up in environments governed by the norms of traditional masculinity. I was a part of countless sports teams, including my high school’s varsity football team, and in college I played baseball on a athletic sotck exchange. I was also part of many male social groups and spent most of my life adolescence working at the local lumberyard.
Backup tight end on the undefeated 1991 Farmingdale HS football team.
Source: Courtesy of John G. Cottone
The male-dominated environments of my youth were disproportionately physical, they demanded toughness, and they helped me fit into the fraternity of traditional masculinity.
However, in the second part of my life, I was socialized in environments governed primarily by women. Be educated and trained for career After I earned my doctorate in psychology in the late 1990s, the vast majority of my peers and supervisors were women. I was the only man in my doctoral class, and at most of the professional institutions I worked at, men made up a small minority of the staff.
In my current job as a psychologist, I have a private practice where more than half of my patients are women (most of whom are either second wave Or fourth wave feminists) and I have facilitated many women’s activities therapy groups. Additionally, having coached my daughter and her friends in several different sports over the years, I have acquired a education from the next generation of female leaders on what’s cool and what’s not. Unlike the male social groups of my youth, the abilities on which success in these groups most depends female majority environments are emotional sensitivity and communication skills.
What I’ve learned from spending a lot of time in traditionally masculine and feminine environments is that they each have their own implicit character. rules, expectationsAnd standards (REN). In a complementary article to this one, The unwritten rules of childhood and youthI explained the differences (as I see them) in REN from traditionally masculine and feminine environments and discussed how this shapes boys and girls into men and women respectively.
Women in police forces and other traditionally male groups.
Source: John G. Cottone / Quixotic Publishing © 2020
In my experience, when the RENs of a particular environment are obvious and understood, most people conformwhether they agree with them or not. For example, when women join a traditionally male group, such as a police department, or men join a traditionally female group, such as a yoga studio, they generally do so with the following attitude: when you are in Rome, do as the Romans doand they accept the RENs of this respective environment without complaint.
However, problems begin to arise in environments where it is not entirely clear whether traditionally masculine or feminine RENs should prevail. In these areas, such as schools, white-collar jobs, and mixed social groups, men and women tend to project their own REN onto each environment, which often leads to conflict and resentment. This resentment is then filtered through each gender group’s meta-narratives with statements such as “Steve is just another privileged male asshole trying to take us back to the Stone Age.” Or“Women like Beth are responsible for the Wussification of America.”
From there, each gender group’s meta-narratives are exploited through various media prisms, resulting in controversial imbroglios like Player Portal.
But how did we get here?
Throughout most of recorded history, a disproportionate number of survival activities were not only physical but also strenuous. Whether it’s hunting, farming, mining, shipbuilding, fishing, or the construction trades, most of our species’ survival tasks have been delegated to men , because they have on average a larger body and greater muscle mass. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, men are on average about 15% taller than women and weigh about 20% more (Ogden et al., 2004). Men also have greater total muscle mass than women (Jansen et al., 2000), giving them advantages in most physical strength tasks (Miller et al., 1993; Frontera et al., 1991). ; Leyk et al., 2007). Therefore, it stands to reason that in eras of our collective history when the overwhelming majority of survival tasks required physical strength, men were burdened with the responsibility of completing these tasks because, compared to women , their bodies were more capable.
Whether this physical advantage was a blessing or a curse for men is debatable. On the one hand, while men are entrusted with the majority of the physically demanding survival tasks of our species, men have had a privileged position in positions of power within their respective social groups, relegating women to “the reproduction of mothering“, as the famous feminist sociologist said Nancy Chodorow suggests. On the other hand, the physical advantages that men possess have made them the most obvious candidates for the most physically demanding activities of our civilization, stressfuland dangerous work. It also means that men have been disproportionately forced to fight, kill, and die in our species’ countless wars. For these and other reasons, men around the world have an average lifespan about four years shorter than women (United Nations, 2015).
Robots are replacing auto workers.
Source: Vanitjan/Freepik
But things started to change with Technological revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries. Building on the progress of the initial project Industrial revolutionparticularly with regard to the development of metal alloys, the technological revolution initiated a major change in the means of production, with heavy machinery replacing men for the most laborious and dangerous tasks of our civilization.
Additionally, with machines reducing the need for brute force for physically demanding tasks, these tasks could be accomplished by women and children just as efficiently as men.
As a result of these developments (and the loss of male workers in the two world wars), the percentage of women in the workforce has steadily increased over the past 120 years. Additionally, the tasks to be performed by our workforce have also changed dramatically, with a growing percentage of jobs requiring intellectual prowess rather than brute strength, and this is where women have proven themselves. at least as capable as men. On this subject, women now outnumber men in American universities (NBER, 2020), medical schools (Glicksman, 2017) and law schools (Pisarcik, 2019) for the first time in history.
By the early 20th century, virtually all work environments were dominated by men and, as a result, the majority of public workplaces and social environments were governed by the implicit RENs of traditional masculinity. Since then, however, women have entered the workforce in greater numbers and, as a result, an increasingly vocal chorus of women have expressed discomfort with the traditionally male RENs of their workplaces, calling for them to replace with the REN of traditional femininity.
Today we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in history, where, for the first time, women represent almost half of the overall workforce and in many careers, women represent more than 98% of labor. Given the new reality of women’s workforce participation at such high levels, is it any wonder why there is so much disagreement over which RENs should govern these respective environments? On the one hand, men in these environments feel justified in asserting that since their industries and workplaces have thrived for many years thanks to the dominant RENs of traditional masculinity, these RENs should continue to reign. However, given that women make up the overwhelming majority of the workforce in some sectors, it is they who feel justified in demanding a change in REN that is fairer to them and consistent with the REN with which they have been socialized.
Gender tug of war.
Source: WaveBreakMediaMicro/Freepik
This tug-of-war over traditionally masculine and feminine RENs has intensified over the past century and become the frontline battle of most of our culture wars, extending to every part of our culture and our policy.
The 2016 presidential election, the first between a woman and a man, was considered by many to be the most bitter election in our history. The winner of this election, Donald Trumpseems to have taken his victory as a mandate to govern in a tone of hypermasculinitybut rather than returning America to a time when traditionally male RENs ruled all public spaces, his election only emboldened women’s groups and the #MeToo movement to pull even harder in the opposite direction. Therefore, there is no end in sight to the tug-of-war between the sexes that we have endured since the start of the technological revolution. Unfortunately, these battles of the sexes will continue to intensify unless we are able to coalesce around a new set of RENs that combines the best of traditional masculinity and traditional femininity.
Your voice will shape the future of this conversation: how will you use it?
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