I’ve always had an interest in human behavior. Its study fits somewhere between hard science and social science, and that appeals to both sides of the brain. And as a bonus, I don’t have to go far to make observations.
Of particular interest to me is the ongoing social conflict between the sexes.
My school teachers were almost entirely comprised of women, especially during my earlier education. I concluded that women were simply more interested in this type of employment, but have since discovered that to be a fallacy. I’ve reviewed a number of studies on the matter, and they all distill down to a generalized fear of sexual assault and a belief that women are more nurturing. Somewhere along the line, we as a society concluded a priori that all men have the predilection for rape, and of abandoning children. I guess we can thank Generation-X for that?
Then there was my older sister who, through some combination of this scholastic indoctrination and personal experience, seemed to seethe with dislike for her male counterparts. For whatever reason (probably something as simple as sibling discord), I was the regular victim of her constant monologues expounding upon sexist injustices and how I was part of the problem.
Now, in the workforce, I’m constantly exposed to pro-women sponsored committees and articles about women’s accomplishments on the internal site. The local news takes time to interject professional annotations about “girl power” to otherwise gender-neutral stories. I’ve seen the rise of several women-targeting television networks, and even Netflix shows a growing catalog of documentaries about famous women and women’s struggles.
In response to this, the media providers thought to target men, but rather than doing so in a way that philosophically addresses our identity, it shamelessly capitalized upon it, and we were given things like SpikeTV, Maxim magazine, and Askmen.com–in their own right sexist (and often false) assumptions on male interests.
So I wondered: why does this disconnect not simply persist, but continue to grow?
Obviously, it would have been a bad idea to approach people at random and ask their thoughts. Even if the response had been positive, it’s unlikely to have also been truthful, and since the majority of my extra-familial conversations involve coworkers, I didn’t relish the thought of explaining academic research to a humorless Human Resources representative.
What I needed was a group discussion, free from judgment; and that combination could only exist within anonymity. So I went somewhere I had never in my life gone before: Reddit (shudder). I found two subreddits: /askmen and /askwomen–assuming their inherent duality would represent equal sides of an argument. I dug around in the archives and read some specific discussions, then simply resorted to passively reading each day’s posts for a few weeks. Eventually, I accumulated enough information that I was able to identify a few consistent and high-impact topics. I will summarize them and offer my thoughts:
- Men and women both have concerns regarding public education’s entire staff being female. I was not alone in this sentiment, and apparently this childhood experience continues to haunt men into adulthood. Anecdotally, many male teachers complained about the entrenched feminism and its hostility towards allowing men equal footing in early elementary school classes. The issue has grown well beyond self-selection–there are plenty of men wanting to teach at these levels, and they’re universally complaining about being actively excluded from doing so. Of course, a complaint itself does not indicate wrongdoing, but the prevalence of the complaint alone indicates that somewhere, there is a problem.
- Equality in the workplace was a mixed bag. Women complained more about sexism in small companies and with specific bad bosses, but as a whole with larger companies–sexism was more of a varying perception. It would appear that companies which have large employee bases are more likely to see employees simply as resources–and while impersonal, serves to benefit the feminist cause in that diversity is achieved simply through finding enough qualified employees. Economics have rendered sexism non-viable. As for whether or not men and women receive equal wages, well, complaints again centered on small companies. Since much of that is self-reported, and we don’t know the qualifications of every person surveyed, and organizations which attempt to aggregate this data aren’t honestly sharing how they got it, this statistic is simply going to remain unreliable and twisted for the benefit of whichever side of the argument is using it.
- Men are naturally concerned with being attractive to women. The subreddit’s existence is testament to a willingness to set aside pride and ask an online community of women for advice and criticisms. Women in turn are more than happy to share their thoughts. Of interest here is that these women would later complain about specific male tendencies, despite having previously told men that they find these tendencies attractive. Is that intentional deception? Normally I would doubt that conclusion…except the women who were giving this misleading information were the same usernames. I have no idea what this indicates. By contrast, women have an oft-misconstrued perception of what men find attractive in women (for this I can personally vouch), but the women here were reluctant to ask for clarification, and when men volunteered the information unsolicited, the responses were not positive. So it would appear that men want to know what women like and women won’t tell them anything reliable; and women presume to know what men like but they’re often incorrect, yet don’t want to hear attempts to provide accurate information. I admit I don’t understand that thought process, so I’m not going to attempt to offer an explanation.
- Apparently women walk around in fear of being attacked. I had figured this was a general concern, but not such a ubiquitous one. The myriad of posts on this topic are rife with suggestion on how men can avoid appearing like they’re constantly wrestling back some innate urge to inflict mass violence upon women. I must say, the urge to rape and kill women has never taken a foothold in my subconscious. Of course I understand that such violence does exist, but after the amount of lecturing I received during my schooling about remembering to not rape (as if I needed reminding), maybe it’s only the constant discussion that keeps the fear omnipresent. Even in college they lectured me, being required to take an orientation class in which they had thespians recreating a sexual assault scenario and asking the class what was wrong about it. We’ve all been told not to rape so much that as a society we’re starting to believe that all men are rapists unless constantly reminded to not. Drawing a correlation that because some men are violent, all men have the capacity for it, is a flawed form of inductive reasoning, in itself sexist, and the type of logic for which is the very source of all forms of bigotry. These discussions were lengthy and very emotionally-charged. I didn’t participate, but I admit that I lost my objectivity for a time.
- Dating etiquette. Who pays? Who asks who out? What qualifies as a date? This is where I found out that Americans are way different in this arena from Europeans. The latter has adopted a more direct approach, having enough sense to admit that economics are still a major factor in matters of the heart. We Americans, however, hold on to outdated courtship models while still trying to be progressive and sexually liberated. The result is that no one here agreed on anything, while Europeans have much more clearly defined protocols. Seriously, the arguments went on and on. I read pages and pages of a single thread solely discussing whether or not it was appropriate to open a door for a woman. Yikes.
Conclusion
These were, as they say, the trending topics. I can’t say how well some online discussion boards represent the population, but it’s about as close as I can get to a large sample size. That, and it was all the energy I had to endure it.
I posit that, as a society, our outdated mating rituals may be the cause. In earlier times, a woman’s biological role in the reproduction process forced her into fulfilling certain expectations, and while valid and necessary at the time for simple species survival, fails to transfer well into modern circumstances. Fear of change prevents meaningful adaptation, which creates mutual contempt towards that few, which then grows to encompass entire demographics; all the while the human drive for companionship and sex is channeled into weapons: men who harass women into submission, and women who sexually manipulate men for personal gain.
Maybe I can look back on this post years from now, and feel happy with what we’ve achieved since…or…sad. Or maybe we’ll just end up killing ourselves instead.
–Simon