prehistory/early civilization/mythology

[josef k.]

A fair point... I've treated women like women. In some situations, it's the right thing to do.

 

[nomadthethird]

I hate the whole "return to chivalry" line of crap the market spits up every couple of months.

What women really want is romance and getting married, and someone to open the door for them.

 

[josef k.]

I hate the whole "return to chivalry" line of crap the market spits up every couple of months.

I meant something else.

 

[josef k.]

Men need role models, though. It's just a question of which ones they choose to construct their personas. Say, you can pick two out of three:

1) Peter Stringfellow.

2) Arnold Schwarzenegger.

3) Willy Wonka.

 

[four_five_one]

It's clear this friend of yours is sexually attracted to women physically. And this is causing him even more confusion, because it causes him to fetishize and essentialize the "femininity" of submission even further. So he thinks he can't be truly submissively hot unless he has a vagina. Bad idea.

Thanks. I've pasted that to him. Although he does say he has dreams where he's a woman all dressed up and stuff, and he does seem to be into men now (and women still I think). Plus some men have become transsexual lesbians haven't they?

 

[four_five_one]

My role model was Humphrey Bogart. He taught me a lot about life. How to deal with my emotions and stuff. Fake it 'til you make it...

 

[nomadthethird]

My role model was Humphrey Bogart. He taught me a lot about life. How to deal with my emotions and stuff. Fake it 'til you make it...

Classically butch!

What is all of this role model business about? As if women have excellent "role models"? I don't know. I think we all do what we need to do.

 

[josef k.]

Anna Karina? Holly Golightly? Marlene Dietrich?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Dietrich and Wonka would make the most breathtaking love any human couple has ever known.

 

[four_five_one]

What is all of this role model business about? As if women have excellent "role models"? I don't know. I think we all do what we need to do.

I think people try to do what they need to do. But then there's all the stuff we don't need to do, but do anyway. And that's where you need the guiding hand of a role model...

 

[nomadthethird]

I always thought that stuff about role models was conservative rhetoric that the media used to prop up racial-racist stereotypes.

You know, like the sort of thing that would be a featured story on 20/20. Columbine: why youth today need role models! or Compton: does hip-hop make kids violent?

When what they really mean is, Columbine: why gun control isn't working and our culture needs an overhaul! or Compton: why capitalism creates ghettos, widens income gaps, and necessitates violence.

 

[josef k.]

I always thought that stuff about role models was conservative rhetoric...

When many people say "role models" what they really mean is: authority figures. More broadly defined, the idea of role models is closer to the idea of masks. Or "ideal egos" to use the Lacanian term. The social field is a theater: it wants characters. The relationship between the sexes is performative, and on these grounds role models are opposed maybe to stereotypes. You're not some fool whose read the Game, you're Cary Grant. Or Jesus ("What would Jesus do?"). Or Blade (instrumental in the formation of black-Goth milieus). And so on. Nobody really knows how to be a man or a woman. So you can either imitate Father or find your own source of inspiration. So I think role models are progressive in this sense.

 

[nomadthethird]

When many people say "role models" what they really mean is: authority figures. More broadly defined, the idea of role models is closer to the idea of masks. Or "ideal egos" to use the Lacanian term. The social field is a theater: it wants characters. The relationship between the sexes is performative, and on these grounds role models are opposed maybe to stereotypes. You're not some fool whose read the Game, you're Cary Grant. Or Jesus ("What would Jesus do?"). Or Blade (instrumental in the formation of black-Goth milieus). And so on. Nobody really knows how to be a man or a woman. So you can either imitate Father or find your own source of inspiration. So I think role models are progressive in this sense.

Well, I think you make a good point here, but I don't know if role models are "progressive"...it seems that they prop up essentialized notions of sexual difference that do more harm than they do good. If it's all performative, and we are simply to perform gender however we like, then I don't know if going back to Cary Grant is a good idea, since from a deconstructionist perspective his persona is built on a lot of sexist cliches and ultimately on an intrusively masculinist top-heavy binary.

 

[josef k.]

Well, I think you make a good point here, but I don't know if role models are "progressive"...it seems that they prop up essentialized notions of sexual difference that do more harm than they do good. If it's all performative, and we are simply to perform gender however we like, then I don't know if going back to Cary Grant is a good idea, since from a deconstructionist perspective his persona is built on a lot of sexist cliches and ultimately on an intrusively masculinist top-heavy binary.

Very true... though I do like the way he interacts with people like Rosalind Russell in the screwball comedies, which seem quite egalitarian to me... far more so than a lot of more apparently contemporary models of sex/seduction.

In general, if you want to perform as a Man, or as a Woman (even if you "are" a Man) you basically need to fake it by imitating some character. There are circumstances in which this kind of role play is desirable... in these situations some contingent "sexism" is unavoidable. When I meet female colleagues I often treat them as if I was a eunuch - shaking their hands in a totally non-sexual and almost weird way. But I wouldn't act towards someone I was attracted to, in a social situation, in the same way. I'd act like a man... whatever that means.

 

[nomadthethird]

Very true... though I do like the way he interacts with people like Rosalind Russell in the screwball comedies, which seem quite egalitarian to me... far more so than a lot of more apparently contemporary models of sex/seduction.

In general, if you want to perform as a Man, or as a Woman (even if you "are" a Man) you basically need to fake it by imitating some character. There are circumstances in which this kind of role play is desirable... in these situations some contingent "sexism" is unavoidable. When I meet female colleagues I often treat them as if I was a eunuch - shaking their hands in a totally non-sexual and almost weird way. But I wouldn't act towards someone I was attracted to, in a social situation, in the same way. I'd act like a man... whatever that means.

Well isn't that just a sort of default impulse then? I don't know, I would never say you shouldn't do what seems to work for you, unless you feel conflicted about it. But I can say that having mostly male friends and listening to their relationship woes, it is clear to me that many men tend to overestimate how "manly"-- in the traditional sense-- females would prefer that they act.

When the males I know try to defend this assumption, they usually come up with some mystery archetype of the hot "girl" of today who exemplifies feminist hypocrisy, because she says she wants to be independent but then she marries a doctor/lawyer/professional. And then I explain it might not be about the money, or even the "security" (men love this idea, I've noticed), but that if a woman marries a professional maybe she actually likes him as a person? Enjoys his intelligence? It's probably not about how butch he is, either, but about the fact that he's secure in who he is, knows where he's going in life, is goal-oriented, has problem-solving skills, mature, etc. These are the same things that are attractive in a women, imo. I think part of the downside of the live-together-instead-of-getting-married thing (at least among younger people) is that the woman often ends up taking on a motherly role, or simply replacing mom-- and nobody wants that long-term.

Most of the guys I know who are luckiest in love are ambiguously straight. But this could be a demographic thing, too.

Edit: Also I would say that those screwball comedies present a model of decent and friendly cohabitation, but not really an egalitarian one. It's still based on outmoded sex-based roles.

 

[josef k.]

many men tend to overestimate how "manly"-- in the traditional sense-- females would prefer that they act.

There's a distinction between "manly" - in the sense of a traditional role - and "manly" - in the sense of "the form of the man" (whatever that is). Ultimately, everyone is compelled to decide for themselves what a man (or woman) is - the kind of man they want to be, the kind of man they want. And types of men also attract types of women...

I think women still want men to be men, in some sense, though I recognize that it isn't clear what that really means. I find my personality shifts in more-or-less subtle ways depending on my partner (as it does also generally) sometimes more macho, sometimes less macho... in general, it's a negotiation between partners ("You be him and I'll be her") which go back and forth to elaborate roles. The flows of power are interesting.

"Traditional" female roles are quite boring, though I don't come across them too often... actually, I wonder what they are. I find women who also like to be butch sometimes very attractive. It seems to me sustaining the question of "what is a man" and "what is a woman" is important. But ultimately, there is a distinction... not an essential distinction, but maybe a formal distinction.

 

[nomadthethird]

I think Baudrillard is good on these points. He says something about 'ego ideals' and the "opposite sex"...basically (I'm paraphrasing) that what a man thinks of as "feminine" is a set of his own qualities that he projects onto woman, and vice versa.

I think what it really means if a woman says she wants "a man to be man' is that she doesn't want to be her boyfriend's mother/parent. That would be my guess. Many males fall into this pattern in relationships where, as soon as they are comfortable with the woman, they start assigning her a role--she shops, makes the food, does the laundry, dusts, picks up after him, etc.-- all of the "taking care of" types of tasks that their mothers did when they were kids. Same is true of women with men; many women aren't looking for a partner they're replacing their father. In that sense, I think people are sort of blindly modeling roles, probably because they're not sure what they want. Guattari is good on these points.

 

[josef k.]

I wonder what you make of this statement from Baudrillard:

Feminism has never influenced me a great deal (except in an abreactive sense). It is truly one of the most advanced forms of ressentiment, which consists precisely in falling back on a demand for rights, 'legitimate' and legal recrimination, whereas what is really at stake is symbolic power. And women have never lacked symbolic power.

 

[zhao]

Anyway, this male = verbal, female = visual dichotomy doesn't even stand up to a cursory examination.

the jury's still out on whether these traits are entirely the result of endocrinological differences between men and women, or whether cultural conditioning plays a role. There's lots of evidence to suggest that cultural conditioning factors into what we can measure as "female" and "male" traits.

Conflating "verbal" with "rational" is also quite a leap.

these holistic faculties aren't associated with "parts" of the brain. Your entire brain is responsible for "rational" thought, but it's also at times imaginative or intuitive.

i agree with you guys on this. but despite the outdated and plainly false aspects of the book, i still think it worth reading, and might provide some interesting perspectives on our collective initiation into ritual and symbology, and the rise of patriarchy.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Of course it could be something as simple as written language forming a concomitant part of a societal organisation revolving around centralised authority - which is inextricable from some form of hierarchy, and the most primitive social dichotomy (edit: other than infant/adult, perhaps) is between the sexes.

And the most primitive way to exert authority over someone is by (threat of) brute force.

And men are generally bigger and stronger than women.