Why Men Don't Talk, And How We All Contribute
When parents are asked how they raise their children, they mostly & strongly believe they treat boys and girls alike. Well, guess again. Research has proved this to be false - parents are almost always unaware of their biased approach to upbringing based on the gender of their child.
When for instance looking at the same video of a crying baby being exposed to various stimuli, when told that the baby was a girl, the respondents judged that "she" was frightened. But when told it was a boy, they would describe "him" as angry.
Now ask yourself: would you comfort someone who is frightened the same way as you'd treat someone who is angry?
This research demonstrated that parents interpret similar signals in different ways based on gender. Unconsciously we see what we expect to see. So we don't see the behaviour for what it is - we actually judge it. And the way we judge a child's behaviour determines our response, translating into behaviours being instilled in them. After all, since a child deeply depends on their parents for survival, they're very malleable to live up to those parents' expectations.
In this respect, we need to grow aware of 1 thing we all share: that all of us are ingrained with certain ideas and convictions from traditional socialization about gender, whether we like it or not. They are part of our social history, passed on from generation to generation, and as such, to a certain extent, they live inside every single one of us. You, me, everybody - even if you don't want it to.
Unknowingly & traditionally...
We tend to punish boys.
We tend to comfort girls.
We keep girls physically closer.
We push boys to be more independent.
We teach girls to connect, relate & express their emotions.
We discourage boys to do that, but rather be assertive & actionable.
Now, this might sound like I'm the poster boy of a conscious father. But let he who is without sin cast the first stone - the social conditioning is also present in me, even though I don't want it to be. And it takes over from time to time when I get triggered - when I react instead of respond.
I sometimes still invalidate my sons' emotional outbursts, trying to toughen them up, telling them to man up. I've sometimes said things out of frustration that find their roots in the beliefs of traditional socialization. I got too physical sometimes. I hate it, but still, I've done it. Even though I'm conscious of it.
Ingrained social conditioning can go a long way: it's not that long ago that fathers used their belts to discipline their sons. Pain as a tool of pedagogy. And this still happens, maybe not to the extent of whippings anymore, but definitely in other, less physical ways. We still try to 'make men' out of boys by forcing them to disconnect from parts of themselves. We start pushing them into personal disintegration from the age of 4 to 5. It's wrong.
And that's why I do the work that I do. I see the effects of it, all around me amongst my fellow men. How most of us have started disintegrating from an early age, resulting in a lot of discontent & impediments to living our lives fully. Why that happens is hard to pinpoint for most. To me, it's clear. We need to re-integrate the parts of our being, our totality, that were forced away from us. So we become fully integrated humans again, acknowledging and embracing the full experience of life. Because that's the life worth living.
In service of the betterment of men,
Erik, Mentor of Men