Maher new rule- masculinity brave sports guns
By Al Smith, Literate Owl blog, January 26, 2013
While popular culture continues to tell us woman are oppressed it is males I see floundering with their roles and sexual identity. Now I’m not disregarding horrors like rape or domestic violence, nor issues like equity or fair pay but I believe that gender bias is largely a myth driven by media embedded too deep in a politically greedy white male Washington DC. In my world, the only place women are under represented is political office. From my armchair, I see a culture of men ( and boys ) quite unwell and acting out with dysfunctional behaviour and following questionable values. Bill Maher is an entertainer but his monologue raises some questions about many of my male counterparts.
By Bill Maher, on Literate Owl blog by Al Smith, January 26, 2013
And I think it’s because a lot of men today just aren’t feeling all that… useful. They did in the days of hunter-gatherers, but in today’s society, women do the hunting and the gathering — it’s called shopping. And the men, for most of us, the most masculine thing we do all day is pee standing up.
And that’s why we wind up idolizing other men who do the masculine things we’re not doing: football players, soldiers, action stars who solve every problem with violence, tough guys who start wars for no reason, generals who conquer rag-tag armies from third world countries. These are the vessels of our outsourced masculinity.
Why do men collect guns? You know, former Georgia Senator Zell Miller once said, “I’ve got more guns than I need, but not as many as I want.” Well, the Pentagon is just Zell Miller on a larger scale with shoes on. It has more guns than it needs, but not as many as it wants.
And I know some of you out there are saying, oh, that’s some liberal bullshit right there, calling guns a replacement for testosterone. But if that’s not true, how come as a man gets older, his gun always get bigger?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDA9vEjeABA&sns=tw
Living vicariously through the "action figures" in sports, movies, the military, all in a blind "outsourcing" of our masculinity, has merit as a perspective. Living vicariously has always had its own tragic pitfalls, mostly found in an emptiness similar to the hunger experienced after eating Chinese food. Often, too it is the feelings and the full experience of powerlesness that drives us to suck life energy from others who, they believe, are living a real, authentic, full and fulfilling life.
In the historic 'run' to this epiphany, men have disdained opportunities to experience life differently.
Conquering the competition, extrinsically, has relevance only for those whose testosterone levels require a physical release, in adolescence, early adulthood and perhaps even up to forty-something.
However, as Carl Jung reminds us, human life takes a different turn sometime near the mid-forties, and many of us turn from extrinsic rewards and pursuits to the intrinsic variety, looking inward, reflecting on the meaning and purpose of our existence, 'becoming something like more spiritual' (to use today's parlance) and less interested in the acquisition of symbols of success and power 'over'.
In the course of that development, males often find themselves searching for words to describe, and thereby help them to accept and to uncover, the pain they have been avoiding for the first four-plus decades of their lives.
It was words in their English classes that sounded, at fifteen to most of them, like so much "BS" or, put another way, "too effeminate" for my taste. Shakespeare often drove male adolescents crazy with his verdant text filled to the brim with metaphors, similes, personifications, pathetic fallacies, ironies and dramatic ironies...just to mention a few of the "extravagant overblown" exposures of human emotions...like jealousy, the pursuit of power, the tragedy of hubris, mistaken identity and character foils to entertain and, if necessary, to teach....Milton, too, with his copious pages of pounding yet balanced political rhetoric breathing hot from the mouths of Beelzebub, and the host of the fallen angels in Paradise Lost seemed, to the mechanical, or even scientific and especially pragmatic adolescent, more than a little melodramatic.
And, being male, one wanted to avoid melodrama like the bubonic plague, given its obvious affinity with the female gender.
So, avoiding the devices associated with melodrama, including the words that served as its vehicle, and the exploration of the inner emotions they revealed, and the discoveries of personal responsibility that accompany all voyages into the "heart and the soul" including the forgiveness of those whose overt abuse of each of us somehow, on reflection perhaps over many replays, began to disclose the "part we played in the tragedy," a disclosure that can come only to those patient and courageous and vulnerable enough to believe that the mining of those moments, left silent like the bear in his winter cave, for decades, is truly a journey into a new conscious awareness of how things too painful or too complicated to face are really the nuggets of new life that bring meaning to the last three or four decades one breathes.
Countries, too, just like individuals, and families and communities, have the opportunity to discover their own "shadow" in the repressed tragedies of their collective experiences, should they find the courage and the vocabulary and the perspective and the quiet time to "mine" those moments, lying silent just waiting for their 'spring'(ing) to light.
However, a permanent adolescence will cling tighter and tighter to the extrinsic symbols of power like guns, and sports and military uniforms, and executive offices and BMW's and private jets in a desperate and extended pursuit of approval, acceptance and the pride/hubris of status, in a world addicted to the make-up that permits the permanent avoidance of both truth and vulnerability.
Men, especially, are so deeply embedded in a self-sabotaging culture of masculinities that reduces us to the contemptible "gayness" of the artist, or the even more contemptible "arrogance" of the action figures, in a bi-polar and hypermanic and tragic pursuit of our own emptiness.
Unless and until we discover the garden of multicoloured and nuanced floral arrangements that are already planted and waiting only for our discovery, in novels, biographies, poems, lyrics, movies and plays, and in art galleries, dance recitals, symphony concerts and individual music and art lessons, men will continue their stoic and axelithymic ("no words for feelings") path of self-destruction.
There are those, many of them men, who live by the adage, "what I do matters more than what I say" as if silence and a stunted vocabulary were innate to the male gender. Cutting the larynx/brain off from the oxygen of words, especially those words that express how we feel in all of its nuances, will only exacerbate our experience of powerlessness and generate an even more desperate pursuit of the hollow symbols of hard power...after all, isn't that hard, orgasmic power the core definition of masculinity?
Oh, only in the world of make-believe, you say?
Pity, and here I thought it was the brass ring to which every man both aspired, and once found, clung to desperately, hoping never to be found out as human, weak, vulnerable and still admirable.
Reclaiming our authentic masculinities, including a rich and nuanced vocabulary of colours to paint the canvas of our inner experiences, including our feelings, will significantly reduce our dependence on the acquisition of hard power in all of its many forms, and demonstrate both to ourselves and to our partners, that in weakness and in vulnerability and in deep reflection we can find the full value, meaning and purpose of our existence. And, then we will be able and willing to thank people like Bill Maher and Al Smith for their courageous and cogent nudges.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Dads are critical to development of boys and girls
Traditional dads more likely to raise ‘girlie girls,' says UBC researcher
How fathers act at home appears to shape daughters’ career ambitions
By Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun, in Ottawa Citizen, January 28, 2013
Dads who avoid washing the dishes and doing the laundry at home tend to raise “girlie girls,” daughters who prefer dolls and aspire to be housewives, new research reveals.
Daughters are more likely to believe they can grow up to work outside the home if their fathers have egalitarian attitudes about child care, cooking and cleaning the house and actually take on those jobs, said University of B.C. psychologist Toni Schmader, who presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology last week.
“You have to talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to gender stereotypes,” said Schmader. “And what dad says and does matters.”
Rather than emulating the behaviour of fathers who are focused on paid work, girls appear to align their attitudes about male and female gender roles to “complement” their father’s behaviour, Schmader said.
“Girls may be looking at their father not as a model for who they could be, but as a model for who they could be with [as a spouse],” Schmader said.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Traditional+dads+more+likely+raise+girlie+girls+says/7880401/story.html#ixzz2JIQYcO5h
Here we read that how Dad's behave matters to the perceptions of their daughters.
In other research, we learn that boys learn the "dominance" model of masculinities from a culture "dominated by male bullies" who shame their young boys into "manly" attitudes, behaviours and beliefs.
And one of the weapons those "dominating males" use in their undeclared warfare is ridicule, and the comparison they use is "girlie" whenever they witness or hear about a male exhibiting attitudes commonly associated with empathy, compassion, and "failure to stand up for yourself" as in the exhortation, "Hit him back when he hits you, so he will learn his lesson!"....
In both cases, the description of the negative, "girlie" is applied both to young girls who choose to play with barbies, and young boys who exhibit attitudes, actions and beliefs that run "counter" to a stereotype of healthy masculinity.
If ever we are to begin to transform the culture in which young boys are raised, we are going to have to confront the masculine culture that abhors anything smacking of "weakness" (physical, emotional, or mental) that it witnesses in young male children.
And only men are eligible as agents applying for that role.
Women need not apply! It is, after all, women who oversubscribe to the notion of telling their young boys, when injured or bullied, "Don't cry! Be a man!" in some kind of knee-jerk response to what they believe all men want to both hear and to witness in their offspring. And, when the father discovers his son has been bullied, he immediately directs his son to "go after the xxx-xx-x-xxxxx!"
In the last few decades, female identity has dominated the North American culture, premised on the notion that too many women are not earning wages for similar and identical work as their male peers.
Identity, however, has so many nuanced aspects, which include, of course, the rate of pay of men and women.
However, masculine identity, equally if not more complex, than that of females, merits at least equal time, attention, dollars and public debate as that dedicated to the healthy growth and development of women.
Young men compromise, too often, in order to comply with what they consider "binding rules" of what a healthy male looks like, does, thinks and believes. And both their mothers and their fathers, with differing words and looks, perhaps, but nevertheless both consciously and unconsciously, induce, embed, indoctrinate and acculturate their young boys into a pressurized kind of confusion.
In order to be a healthy male, both experience and research tell us, that support for authentic feelings expressed when felt, and supported by both parents, is conducive to the development of a healthy young man.
However, too many fathers, uncles, grandfathers and community leaders (male) suffer from something new to the vocabulary of studies in masculinities: "alexithymic," (stoic) literally "no words for feelings"
And, of course, unfortunately, they pass their condition on to their male children. Harry Brod, in the introduction to Brothers Keepers, New Perspectives on Jewish Masculinity, writes these words:
..."restrictive emotionality is one of the hallmarks, and one of the most damaging outcomes, of traditional masculinity, signifying a "not feminine" constraint that boys enforce mercilessly on each other throughout boyhood's playgrounds, school hallways, and locker rooms. Males adhere to this crippling standard to such an extent that they are typified as stoic or "alexithymic," literally "no words for feelings" (Levant, 1995) Lane and Pollerman (2002) have identified opportunities to encode emotional experiences with language, in actual communication, as fundamental to the development of emotional intelligence. In their view, alexithymia represents "a developmental deficit consisting of a relative absence of emotional experience" (Land and Pollerman, p. 284*) so that children fail to develop nuanced awareness of, or vocabulary for, their feelings. In this sense, boys' normative deprivation in the realm of emotional communication may be the most costly outcome of the dominant masculine paradigm.
*(Lane, R.D. & Pollerman, B.Z. (2002). Complexity of emotional representations. In L.F. Barrett & P. Salovey (eds.) The wisdom of feelings (pp.271-296). New York: Guilford Press
How fathers act at home appears to shape daughters’ career ambitions
By Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun, in Ottawa Citizen, January 28, 2013
Dads who avoid washing the dishes and doing the laundry at home tend to raise “girlie girls,” daughters who prefer dolls and aspire to be housewives, new research reveals.
Daughters are more likely to believe they can grow up to work outside the home if their fathers have egalitarian attitudes about child care, cooking and cleaning the house and actually take on those jobs, said University of B.C. psychologist Toni Schmader, who presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology last week.
“You have to talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to gender stereotypes,” said Schmader. “And what dad says and does matters.”
Rather than emulating the behaviour of fathers who are focused on paid work, girls appear to align their attitudes about male and female gender roles to “complement” their father’s behaviour, Schmader said.
“Girls may be looking at their father not as a model for who they could be, but as a model for who they could be with [as a spouse],” Schmader said.
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Traditional+dads+more+likely+raise+girlie+girls+says/7880401/story.html#ixzz2JIQYcO5h
Here we read that how Dad's behave matters to the perceptions of their daughters.
In other research, we learn that boys learn the "dominance" model of masculinities from a culture "dominated by male bullies" who shame their young boys into "manly" attitudes, behaviours and beliefs.
And one of the weapons those "dominating males" use in their undeclared warfare is ridicule, and the comparison they use is "girlie" whenever they witness or hear about a male exhibiting attitudes commonly associated with empathy, compassion, and "failure to stand up for yourself" as in the exhortation, "Hit him back when he hits you, so he will learn his lesson!"....
In both cases, the description of the negative, "girlie" is applied both to young girls who choose to play with barbies, and young boys who exhibit attitudes, actions and beliefs that run "counter" to a stereotype of healthy masculinity.
If ever we are to begin to transform the culture in which young boys are raised, we are going to have to confront the masculine culture that abhors anything smacking of "weakness" (physical, emotional, or mental) that it witnesses in young male children.
And only men are eligible as agents applying for that role.
Women need not apply! It is, after all, women who oversubscribe to the notion of telling their young boys, when injured or bullied, "Don't cry! Be a man!" in some kind of knee-jerk response to what they believe all men want to both hear and to witness in their offspring. And, when the father discovers his son has been bullied, he immediately directs his son to "go after the xxx-xx-x-xxxxx!"
In the last few decades, female identity has dominated the North American culture, premised on the notion that too many women are not earning wages for similar and identical work as their male peers.
Identity, however, has so many nuanced aspects, which include, of course, the rate of pay of men and women.
However, masculine identity, equally if not more complex, than that of females, merits at least equal time, attention, dollars and public debate as that dedicated to the healthy growth and development of women.
Young men compromise, too often, in order to comply with what they consider "binding rules" of what a healthy male looks like, does, thinks and believes. And both their mothers and their fathers, with differing words and looks, perhaps, but nevertheless both consciously and unconsciously, induce, embed, indoctrinate and acculturate their young boys into a pressurized kind of confusion.
In order to be a healthy male, both experience and research tell us, that support for authentic feelings expressed when felt, and supported by both parents, is conducive to the development of a healthy young man.
However, too many fathers, uncles, grandfathers and community leaders (male) suffer from something new to the vocabulary of studies in masculinities: "alexithymic," (stoic) literally "no words for feelings"
And, of course, unfortunately, they pass their condition on to their male children. Harry Brod, in the introduction to Brothers Keepers, New Perspectives on Jewish Masculinity, writes these words:
..."restrictive emotionality is one of the hallmarks, and one of the most damaging outcomes, of traditional masculinity, signifying a "not feminine" constraint that boys enforce mercilessly on each other throughout boyhood's playgrounds, school hallways, and locker rooms. Males adhere to this crippling standard to such an extent that they are typified as stoic or "alexithymic," literally "no words for feelings" (Levant, 1995) Lane and Pollerman (2002) have identified opportunities to encode emotional experiences with language, in actual communication, as fundamental to the development of emotional intelligence. In their view, alexithymia represents "a developmental deficit consisting of a relative absence of emotional experience" (Land and Pollerman, p. 284*) so that children fail to develop nuanced awareness of, or vocabulary for, their feelings. In this sense, boys' normative deprivation in the realm of emotional communication may be the most costly outcome of the dominant masculine paradigm.
*(Lane, R.D. & Pollerman, B.Z. (2002). Complexity of emotional representations. In L.F. Barrett & P. Salovey (eds.) The wisdom of feelings (pp.271-296). New York: Guilford Press
Friday, January 25, 2013
Male culture and models of dominance trump didactic curricula for boys: researchers
There is much work being done about the nature of masculinities; in fact, the research is starting to shape not a mere trickle of a stream, but the full flow of a substantial river.
Here are some notes from one of the essays in a new book entitled, Brothers Keepers, New Perspectives on Jewish Masculinities. The writers of the essay, Michael C. Reichert and Sharon M. Ravitch are conducting a review of the literature.
Methods and perspectives developed within men's studies--what Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) characterize as "ethnographic realism"--offered helpful tools and perspectives with which to explore boys' actual experience of boyhood. To grasp the actual nature of boys' lives and the day-to-day nature of their opportunities and pressures, researchers now understood that the masculine dimension of their experiences had to be discerned:the peer pressure and incitements, institutional norms, rewards and recognitional systems, family and school tacit man-making curricula, and structured world of opportunity as it is typically offered to boys. For too long, gendered developmental paths for boys had been imperceptible.
These tools and perspectives encouraged "voice centered" methodologies in work with boys, which have helped researchers to hear boys' stories about the costs of the masculine identity process. In particular, a worrisome picture of the restrictive force of the dominant form of masculinity has emerged: "It is exclusive, anxiety-provoking, internal and hierarchically differentiated, brutal and violent." (Donaldson, 1985, p.646) Our own and a great deal of other research on boys' lives has established that boys' encounters with this dominant form of masculinity are unavoidable and often painful (Connell, n1989; Martino, 1999,2008; Reichert, 2001; Reichert and Kuriloff, 2003: Reichert, Stoudy & Kuriloff, 2006, Stoudt, 2006).This dominant form of masculinity and its ideals are promoted through valorization and institutionalized endorsement--accompanied by potent reward and recognitional systems--and are enforced by violence, bullying, and even ongoing threat. For a boy not to make some accommodation or show at least public complicity with the privileged identity invites substantial reaction, usually in the form of admonishment, exclusion and peer policing. Ultimately, most boys and men square themselves with society's central ideas about manhood as much to realize their benefits, especially in terms of recognition and reward--the patriarchal dividend--as to avoid the punishments meted out to dissenters (Connell, 1995, p.79)
In many key developmental areas boys' accommodation to this masculine ideal reveals its distorting effect. For example, in terms of basic health outcomes, Waldron (1976),the U.S. Preventive Services Task Froce (1996), and Courtnay (2003) all found that boys' choices and lifestyle practices imperil them at far greater rates than those of females. Broks and Silverstein (1995), Pleck, Sonenstein, and Ku (1994) and Pleck (1995) determined that the greater the boy's conformity to narrow ideas about masculinity, the more likely he is to take risks related to alcohol use, drunk driving, and drug abuse. Similarly, in relation to mental health outcomes, O'Neil, Good and Holmes (1995) compiled stunning testimony over many years to the detrimental effects--in terms of self-esteem, depression, anxiety violence, and relationship success--of restrictive masculine norms. These damaging contrainsts take effect quite early in boys' lives, according to the work of Chu (2000), who studied elementary-age boys and found them to be sensitive to the cultural demands of masculinity, making deliberate compromises in personal authenticity to avoid going against the grain of masculine norms. The author felt that compromises were forced on her research subjects by the tacit and ever-present masculine pressures of school and community life, resulting in a loss of both voice and opportunity. Finally, and perhaps most problematic for societies, a strong relationship exists between these same male norms and uncivil behavior. Boys far more commonly than girls engage in behaviors that increase the risk of disease, injury, and death to themselves and others; they carry weapons more often, engage in pohysiucal fights more often, wear their seat belts less often, drive drunk more frequently, have more sexual partners as we as more unprotected sex, and use alcohol or drugs more often before sex (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006).(p.19-20)
Programs in schools and religious institutions that attempt to teach and inculcate healthy and positive traits in males, whether based on values or on skills come up against the acculturation of these young men.
Schools have struggled with their historic, embedded, "hidden" masculinity curricula, discovering that boys are learning from their experience of near-Darwinian school cultures much more effectively than they learn from any didactic programs (Berkowitz, 2002; Conell, 1996; Reichert, 2001; Reichert & Hawley, 2006; Swain, 2005). Poor school achievement, disciplinary problems, overdiagnosis and over -referral to special educational services, athletic over-injury, bullying, peer harassment, and school violence are some of the issues that raise concerns about the effectiveness of schooling for boys. Religions and cultures across society struggle with boys. Put simply, male adolescents in every religion included in a recent large study showed up less often and dropped out more dramatically (Smith & Denton, 2005)
Here are some notes from one of the essays in a new book entitled, Brothers Keepers, New Perspectives on Jewish Masculinities. The writers of the essay, Michael C. Reichert and Sharon M. Ravitch are conducting a review of the literature.
Methods and perspectives developed within men's studies--what Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) characterize as "ethnographic realism"--offered helpful tools and perspectives with which to explore boys' actual experience of boyhood. To grasp the actual nature of boys' lives and the day-to-day nature of their opportunities and pressures, researchers now understood that the masculine dimension of their experiences had to be discerned:the peer pressure and incitements, institutional norms, rewards and recognitional systems, family and school tacit man-making curricula, and structured world of opportunity as it is typically offered to boys. For too long, gendered developmental paths for boys had been imperceptible.
These tools and perspectives encouraged "voice centered" methodologies in work with boys, which have helped researchers to hear boys' stories about the costs of the masculine identity process. In particular, a worrisome picture of the restrictive force of the dominant form of masculinity has emerged: "It is exclusive, anxiety-provoking, internal and hierarchically differentiated, brutal and violent." (Donaldson, 1985, p.646) Our own and a great deal of other research on boys' lives has established that boys' encounters with this dominant form of masculinity are unavoidable and often painful (Connell, n1989; Martino, 1999,2008; Reichert, 2001; Reichert and Kuriloff, 2003: Reichert, Stoudy & Kuriloff, 2006, Stoudt, 2006).This dominant form of masculinity and its ideals are promoted through valorization and institutionalized endorsement--accompanied by potent reward and recognitional systems--and are enforced by violence, bullying, and even ongoing threat. For a boy not to make some accommodation or show at least public complicity with the privileged identity invites substantial reaction, usually in the form of admonishment, exclusion and peer policing. Ultimately, most boys and men square themselves with society's central ideas about manhood as much to realize their benefits, especially in terms of recognition and reward--the patriarchal dividend--as to avoid the punishments meted out to dissenters (Connell, 1995, p.79)
In many key developmental areas boys' accommodation to this masculine ideal reveals its distorting effect. For example, in terms of basic health outcomes, Waldron (1976),the U.S. Preventive Services Task Froce (1996), and Courtnay (2003) all found that boys' choices and lifestyle practices imperil them at far greater rates than those of females. Broks and Silverstein (1995), Pleck, Sonenstein, and Ku (1994) and Pleck (1995) determined that the greater the boy's conformity to narrow ideas about masculinity, the more likely he is to take risks related to alcohol use, drunk driving, and drug abuse. Similarly, in relation to mental health outcomes, O'Neil, Good and Holmes (1995) compiled stunning testimony over many years to the detrimental effects--in terms of self-esteem, depression, anxiety violence, and relationship success--of restrictive masculine norms. These damaging contrainsts take effect quite early in boys' lives, according to the work of Chu (2000), who studied elementary-age boys and found them to be sensitive to the cultural demands of masculinity, making deliberate compromises in personal authenticity to avoid going against the grain of masculine norms. The author felt that compromises were forced on her research subjects by the tacit and ever-present masculine pressures of school and community life, resulting in a loss of both voice and opportunity. Finally, and perhaps most problematic for societies, a strong relationship exists between these same male norms and uncivil behavior. Boys far more commonly than girls engage in behaviors that increase the risk of disease, injury, and death to themselves and others; they carry weapons more often, engage in pohysiucal fights more often, wear their seat belts less often, drive drunk more frequently, have more sexual partners as we as more unprotected sex, and use alcohol or drugs more often before sex (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006).(p.19-20)
Programs in schools and religious institutions that attempt to teach and inculcate healthy and positive traits in males, whether based on values or on skills come up against the acculturation of these young men.
Schools have struggled with their historic, embedded, "hidden" masculinity curricula, discovering that boys are learning from their experience of near-Darwinian school cultures much more effectively than they learn from any didactic programs (Berkowitz, 2002; Conell, 1996; Reichert, 2001; Reichert & Hawley, 2006; Swain, 2005). Poor school achievement, disciplinary problems, overdiagnosis and over -referral to special educational services, athletic over-injury, bullying, peer harassment, and school violence are some of the issues that raise concerns about the effectiveness of schooling for boys. Religions and cultures across society struggle with boys. Put simply, male adolescents in every religion included in a recent large study showed up less often and dropped out more dramatically (Smith & Denton, 2005)
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
US20 something's make dating obsolete...tragically
The End of Courtship
By Alex Williams, New York Times, January 11, 2013
Instead of dinner-and-a-movie, which seems as obsolete as a rotary phone, they rendezvous over phone texts, Facebook posts, instant messages and other “non-dates” that are leaving a generation confused about how to land a boyfriend or girlfriend.
“The new date is ‘hanging out,’ ” said Denise Hewett, 24, an associate television producer in Manhattan, who is currently developing a show about this frustrating new romantic landscape. As one male friend recently told her: “I don’t like to take girls out. I like to have them join in on what I’m doing — going to an event, a concert.” ...
Blame the much-documented rise of the “hookup culture” among young people, characterized by spontaneous, commitment-free (and often, alcohol-fueled) romantic flings. Many students today have never been on a traditional date, said Donna Freitas, who has taught religion and gender studies at Boston University and Hofstra and is the author of the forthcoming book, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.”
Hookups may be fine for college students, but what about after, when they start to build an adult life? The problem is that “young people today don’t know how to get out of hookup culture,” Ms. Freitas said. In interviews with students, many graduating seniors did not know the first thing about the basic mechanics of a traditional date. “They’re wondering, ‘If you like someone, how would you walk up to them? What would you say? What words would you use?’ ” Ms. Freitas said....
Relationship experts point to technology as another factor in the upending of dating culture.
Traditional courtship — picking up the telephone and asking someone on a date — required courage, strategic planning and a considerable investment of ego (by telephone, rejection stings). Not so with texting, e-mail, Twitter or other forms of “asynchronous communication,” as techies call it. In the context of dating, it removes much of the need for charm; it’s more like dropping a line in the water and hoping for a nibble.
“I’ve seen men put more effort into finding a movie to watch on Netflix Instant than composing a coherent message to ask a woman out,” said Anna Goldfarb, 34, an author and blogger in Moorestown, N.J. A typical, annoying query is the last-minute: “Is anything fun going on tonight?” More annoying still are the men who simply ping, “Hey” or “ ’sup.”
“What does he think I’m doing?” she said. “I’m going to my friend’s house to drink cheap white wine and watch episodes of ‘Dance Moms’ on demand.”
Online dating services, which have gained mainstream acceptance, reinforce the hyper-casual approach by greatly expanding the number of potential dates. Faced with a never-ending stream of singles to choose from, many feel a sense of “FOMO” (fear of missing out), so they opt for a speed-dating approach — cycle through lots of suitors quickly.
That also means that suitors need to keep dates cheap and casual. A fancy dinner? You’re lucky to get a drink.
“It’s like online job applications, you can target many people simultaneously — it’s like darts on a dart board, eventually one will stick,” said Joshua Sky, 26, a branding coordinator in Manhattan, describing the attitudes of many singles in their 20s. The mass-mailer approach necessitates “cost-cutting, going to bars, meeting for coffee the first time,” he added, “because you only want to invest in a mate you’re going to get more out of.”
If we needed more evidence that we live in a transactional culture, here is a truckload.
"Asynchronous communications" remove most of the risk, both of the person wishing to invite another out, and of the recipient of such an invite. Neither has to "commit" even so much as a couple of hours of conversation face-to-face over a table in a restaurant, for example. As one young woman quoted later in the Williams piece puts it to this effect, I will not accept an invitation, unless he is prepared to make a formal request, a formal commitment and a formal expression of interest in spending time with me.
Economic insecurity, job security, hook-up's in college, and of course, the ubiquitous twitter, facebook etc....rationalizes a refusal to "relate"....and if this is a twenty-something phenomenon, one hopes that, if and when this generation finally decides to "commit" to a life partner, they will find either the appropriate dating service, or a mutual friend who takes the stop of making the introductions.
Trawling for a nibble on a fishing line, when one hopes to land another human being to spend quality time with is about as realistic as planting a quarter in the backyard and expecting a tree of gold leaves that can be converted to gold bars to blossom on that spot. It's never going to happen.
And the men who are participating in this charade are insulting their own confidence and capacity to relate, and the women whose company they seek. To be sure, there will be awkward moments, awkward expressions, and even awkward and inexplicable emotions and that is an important part of the getting-to-know both the self and the other that is essential preparation for a life with a partner.
Refusing to risk those awkward moments is to refuse to risk making mistakes, mistakes that could and would serve as a kind of informal learning curve for these young men.
And women, too, will not escape similar awkward moments should they dip their "toes" into the water of one-to-one conversation, as a integral component in their maturing.
And where are the parents?
Have they left the playing field exclusively to these young men and women whose canvas is still uncluttered with the colours of embarrassment, vulnerability, intimacy and rejection in a private and potentially life-giving and/or crushing experience.
By Alex Williams, New York Times, January 11, 2013
Instead of dinner-and-a-movie, which seems as obsolete as a rotary phone, they rendezvous over phone texts, Facebook posts, instant messages and other “non-dates” that are leaving a generation confused about how to land a boyfriend or girlfriend.
“The new date is ‘hanging out,’ ” said Denise Hewett, 24, an associate television producer in Manhattan, who is currently developing a show about this frustrating new romantic landscape. As one male friend recently told her: “I don’t like to take girls out. I like to have them join in on what I’m doing — going to an event, a concert.” ...
Blame the much-documented rise of the “hookup culture” among young people, characterized by spontaneous, commitment-free (and often, alcohol-fueled) romantic flings. Many students today have never been on a traditional date, said Donna Freitas, who has taught religion and gender studies at Boston University and Hofstra and is the author of the forthcoming book, “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.”
Hookups may be fine for college students, but what about after, when they start to build an adult life? The problem is that “young people today don’t know how to get out of hookup culture,” Ms. Freitas said. In interviews with students, many graduating seniors did not know the first thing about the basic mechanics of a traditional date. “They’re wondering, ‘If you like someone, how would you walk up to them? What would you say? What words would you use?’ ” Ms. Freitas said....
Relationship experts point to technology as another factor in the upending of dating culture.
Traditional courtship — picking up the telephone and asking someone on a date — required courage, strategic planning and a considerable investment of ego (by telephone, rejection stings). Not so with texting, e-mail, Twitter or other forms of “asynchronous communication,” as techies call it. In the context of dating, it removes much of the need for charm; it’s more like dropping a line in the water and hoping for a nibble.
“I’ve seen men put more effort into finding a movie to watch on Netflix Instant than composing a coherent message to ask a woman out,” said Anna Goldfarb, 34, an author and blogger in Moorestown, N.J. A typical, annoying query is the last-minute: “Is anything fun going on tonight?” More annoying still are the men who simply ping, “Hey” or “ ’sup.”
“What does he think I’m doing?” she said. “I’m going to my friend’s house to drink cheap white wine and watch episodes of ‘Dance Moms’ on demand.”
Online dating services, which have gained mainstream acceptance, reinforce the hyper-casual approach by greatly expanding the number of potential dates. Faced with a never-ending stream of singles to choose from, many feel a sense of “FOMO” (fear of missing out), so they opt for a speed-dating approach — cycle through lots of suitors quickly.
That also means that suitors need to keep dates cheap and casual. A fancy dinner? You’re lucky to get a drink.
“It’s like online job applications, you can target many people simultaneously — it’s like darts on a dart board, eventually one will stick,” said Joshua Sky, 26, a branding coordinator in Manhattan, describing the attitudes of many singles in their 20s. The mass-mailer approach necessitates “cost-cutting, going to bars, meeting for coffee the first time,” he added, “because you only want to invest in a mate you’re going to get more out of.”
If we needed more evidence that we live in a transactional culture, here is a truckload.
"Asynchronous communications" remove most of the risk, both of the person wishing to invite another out, and of the recipient of such an invite. Neither has to "commit" even so much as a couple of hours of conversation face-to-face over a table in a restaurant, for example. As one young woman quoted later in the Williams piece puts it to this effect, I will not accept an invitation, unless he is prepared to make a formal request, a formal commitment and a formal expression of interest in spending time with me.
Economic insecurity, job security, hook-up's in college, and of course, the ubiquitous twitter, facebook etc....rationalizes a refusal to "relate"....and if this is a twenty-something phenomenon, one hopes that, if and when this generation finally decides to "commit" to a life partner, they will find either the appropriate dating service, or a mutual friend who takes the stop of making the introductions.
Trawling for a nibble on a fishing line, when one hopes to land another human being to spend quality time with is about as realistic as planting a quarter in the backyard and expecting a tree of gold leaves that can be converted to gold bars to blossom on that spot. It's never going to happen.
And the men who are participating in this charade are insulting their own confidence and capacity to relate, and the women whose company they seek. To be sure, there will be awkward moments, awkward expressions, and even awkward and inexplicable emotions and that is an important part of the getting-to-know both the self and the other that is essential preparation for a life with a partner.
Refusing to risk those awkward moments is to refuse to risk making mistakes, mistakes that could and would serve as a kind of informal learning curve for these young men.
And women, too, will not escape similar awkward moments should they dip their "toes" into the water of one-to-one conversation, as a integral component in their maturing.
And where are the parents?
Have they left the playing field exclusively to these young men and women whose canvas is still uncluttered with the colours of embarrassment, vulnerability, intimacy and rejection in a private and potentially life-giving and/or crushing experience.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Unlikely New Year's Wishes
Seems some pipe-dream wishes might be in order on this, the last day of 2012, for the upcoming 2013!
So here goes:
I wish that Gary Bettman would find a nursing home, plant himself deeply and permanently in one of its suites and leave the administration of the NHL to someone who really knows the purpose, meaning and promise of the game of hockey...and it is not "just about the money"!!
I wish that David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, would receive an invitation from Barack Obama, to conduct a three-day seminar, with weekly follow-ups for one full year, with the president, the four leaders of Congress and all of their spouses, on the long-term health of the United States, including the need to build trust between and among all political leaders, as a model of leadership for the rest of Congress, the states and even for the rest of the world.
I wish that Ban Ki Moon would host a visioning conference, for leaders from the 190 countries who are members of the United Nations, on how to re-structure the UN to better meet the complex and overlapping issues of the world's poverty, disease, terrorism, religious extremes, the environment, and the world's impending food shortages...with a view to specific actions being promised and committed by all participants, in the model of the Clinton Global Initiative, with a firm date for public reporting in one, five, ten and twenty years, so the world can once again have confidence that leaders are interested in more than their careers.
I wish that every newspaper in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, France, Germany, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, China would send fully trained reporters to all world capitals, and begin reporting every day from their perspectives, in digital format that would be accessible to all intenet subscribers...so that we could easily and readily begin to comprehend the facts and the multiple perspectives in a world increasingly complex and inter-dependent.
I wish that Mayor Bloomberg would host an assault weapons amnesty/buy-back in New York city, and encourage all mayors across the United States to do a similar event, with full public disclosure on the recovery of these weapons, their melt-down and the significance of the move.
I wish that all elementary and secondary teachers would be required, prior to certification, to spend a minimum of two semesters in courses designed to discover the history, motivations, learning needs and potential of all male students whom they will face in their classrooms. This initiative would also require the public advertisement from all faculties of education, in all media outlets, as a way to encourage the recruitment of an army of committed male educators to enter the schools, classrooms, principals offices, and administration offices.
I wish that all universities in North America and in Europe would develop and institute courses in male studies, as a complement and a supplement to the multiple female studies courses and departments that have already been established.
I wish that all national and city editors of all daily newspapers would pay more attention to the arts communities in their coverage areas, with a view to reviewing the events offered not merely the dates and times, so that we begin to develop a balance between the deadening parade of economic information with the important creative and prophetic voices in every community.
I wish that all countries and their leaders would learn that an open internet accessible to all, freely, is in the best interests of a global community, through sponsorsed on-line learning opportunities, and that censorship be exercised only on those sites promoting violence, hatred, abuse and political unrest.
I wish that all christian church leaders would re-think all of their institutional claims to be the "only" or the "best" or the "first" or the "primary" faith, in an overt initiative to remove much of the marketing/evangelizing from their self-promotion efforts and begin to lead creative projects that help to integrate all human vulnerabilities into their perspectives...in the manner of a Jedd Apatow in movies.
I wish that all television commercials would declare a war on dumb men and women, in an effort to talk "up" to an educated and enlightened audience, and eliminate all references to comedic insults to their competitors, and to individual human beings.
I wish that Aaron Sorkin would write a docu-drama series about the complexities of religious organizations, the abuse of power by those organizations, and the potential of those organizations to open the eyes, hearts, minds and spirits of people, without infantilizing those people.
I wish that Stephen Harper would call a meeting of all Canadian political leaders, with all First Nations chiefs and leaders, and re-think and re-work the relationship between First Nations people and the rest of the country, using the perspectives, recommendations and urgings of the aboriginal communities.
Happy New Year!
So here goes:
I wish that Gary Bettman would find a nursing home, plant himself deeply and permanently in one of its suites and leave the administration of the NHL to someone who really knows the purpose, meaning and promise of the game of hockey...and it is not "just about the money"!!
I wish that David Brooks, columnist for the New York Times, would receive an invitation from Barack Obama, to conduct a three-day seminar, with weekly follow-ups for one full year, with the president, the four leaders of Congress and all of their spouses, on the long-term health of the United States, including the need to build trust between and among all political leaders, as a model of leadership for the rest of Congress, the states and even for the rest of the world.
I wish that Ban Ki Moon would host a visioning conference, for leaders from the 190 countries who are members of the United Nations, on how to re-structure the UN to better meet the complex and overlapping issues of the world's poverty, disease, terrorism, religious extremes, the environment, and the world's impending food shortages...with a view to specific actions being promised and committed by all participants, in the model of the Clinton Global Initiative, with a firm date for public reporting in one, five, ten and twenty years, so the world can once again have confidence that leaders are interested in more than their careers.
I wish that every newspaper in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, France, Germany, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, China would send fully trained reporters to all world capitals, and begin reporting every day from their perspectives, in digital format that would be accessible to all intenet subscribers...so that we could easily and readily begin to comprehend the facts and the multiple perspectives in a world increasingly complex and inter-dependent.
I wish that Mayor Bloomberg would host an assault weapons amnesty/buy-back in New York city, and encourage all mayors across the United States to do a similar event, with full public disclosure on the recovery of these weapons, their melt-down and the significance of the move.
I wish that all elementary and secondary teachers would be required, prior to certification, to spend a minimum of two semesters in courses designed to discover the history, motivations, learning needs and potential of all male students whom they will face in their classrooms. This initiative would also require the public advertisement from all faculties of education, in all media outlets, as a way to encourage the recruitment of an army of committed male educators to enter the schools, classrooms, principals offices, and administration offices.
I wish that all universities in North America and in Europe would develop and institute courses in male studies, as a complement and a supplement to the multiple female studies courses and departments that have already been established.
I wish that all national and city editors of all daily newspapers would pay more attention to the arts communities in their coverage areas, with a view to reviewing the events offered not merely the dates and times, so that we begin to develop a balance between the deadening parade of economic information with the important creative and prophetic voices in every community.
I wish that all countries and their leaders would learn that an open internet accessible to all, freely, is in the best interests of a global community, through sponsorsed on-line learning opportunities, and that censorship be exercised only on those sites promoting violence, hatred, abuse and political unrest.
I wish that all christian church leaders would re-think all of their institutional claims to be the "only" or the "best" or the "first" or the "primary" faith, in an overt initiative to remove much of the marketing/evangelizing from their self-promotion efforts and begin to lead creative projects that help to integrate all human vulnerabilities into their perspectives...in the manner of a Jedd Apatow in movies.
I wish that all television commercials would declare a war on dumb men and women, in an effort to talk "up" to an educated and enlightened audience, and eliminate all references to comedic insults to their competitors, and to individual human beings.
I wish that Aaron Sorkin would write a docu-drama series about the complexities of religious organizations, the abuse of power by those organizations, and the potential of those organizations to open the eyes, hearts, minds and spirits of people, without infantilizing those people.
I wish that Stephen Harper would call a meeting of all Canadian political leaders, with all First Nations chiefs and leaders, and re-think and re-work the relationship between First Nations people and the rest of the country, using the perspectives, recommendations and urgings of the aboriginal communities.
Happy New Year!
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