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Uncomfortable Scene to Witness

  • 10-09-2014 9:43pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 80 ✭✭


    I witnessed a scene today which made me uncomfortable: a little boy in the supermarket was upset, he started crying, I think because his mom wouldn't buy him some sweets, anyway there was a meltdown and this older woman came up to him and said 'only girls cry'.
    Not that this remark was just sexist but it disregarded the boy's feelings.
    Am I reading too much into this? Can all this male suicide and bottling up of feelings be seen as a cultural construct?


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Jimmy Bottlehead


    MiloDublin wrote: »
    I witnessed a scene today which made me uncomfortable: a little boy in the supermarket was upset, he started crying, I think because his mom wouldn't buy him some sweets, anyway there was a meltdown and this older woman came up to him and said 'only girls cry'.
    Not that this remark was just sexist but it disregarded the boy's feelings.
    Am I reading too much into this? Can all this male suicide and bottling up of feelings be seen as a cultural construct?

    It's an ignorant attitude that is more prelavent among older generations, but still persists to present day.
    And I do believe it has a hugely negative impact on males who feel they cannot express themselves emotionally or let themselves feel, be or show vunerability.

    I have to say, if I were that boy's parent, I'd have firmly told that woman where to go and to take her backward, outdated opinions with her.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 746 ✭✭✭diveout


    It's an ignorant attitude that is more prelavent among older generations, but still persists to present day.
    And I do believe it has a hugely negative impact on males who feel they cannot express themselves emotionally or let themselves feel, be or show vunerability.

    I have to say, if I were that boy's parent, I'd have firmly told that woman where to go and to take her backward, outdated opinions with her.

    Current generations do it too,it's just more subtle.

    There have been studies that show that caretakers do not respond to even male infants negative feelings the way they do to girls and they are not invited to seek comfort in the way that girls are.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,831 ✭✭✭Torakx


    Possibly deeply rooted in our media culture. Look at all the "heros" in hollywood movies.
    Men are good for making babies and dying as a sacrifice apparently.
    It's ok for men to go to war and get killed, only recently are women getting the same privilege and I would guess that even now it is not at the same level still.
    This is possibly why boys shouldn't cry. To prepare to be a man, who is good for taking hits and "sucking it up".

    I remember crying as a kid and a friends mother (minding us) told me not to be a cry baby. I was being told to watch a film I knew I wasn't allowed.
    That stuck with me always. I was only around 5 or 6 and I still remember it clearly.
    I don't think the same attitude would have been applied to a 5 -6 year old girl.


  • Moderators Posts: 3,554 ✭✭✭Wise Old Elf


    This is still very much around. My 6 year old got a thump of a swing a few weeks ago and was crying (admittedly, he can be a bit of a drama llama as well and lets things get to him more than other kids). One of his friend's grandfather made some comment about boys don't cry. I was kind of shocked to be honest and didn't think to pull him up on it.
    I just don't get it though when younger people come up with this whole boys don't cry nonsense. As others have said, it's like there's an expectation of boys either not having emotions, or being required to hold it in.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,639 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    Instead of immediately seeking to label and apply de-constructive labels, I'd applaud the older women. Society has been built by not throwing essential a hissy fit and expect the world to care when one's emotive balance is upset, it instead has been created on the notion that life is hard: deal.
    Once the masculine emulation of society was the Spartan and the Fox, now instead it is that notion of the male has been eviscerated and replaced with a caricature of helplessness. So in that scenario, at least one person still harkens back to the traditional mode.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,080 ✭✭✭ireland.man


    Manach wrote: »
    Instead of immediately seeking to label and apply de-constructive labels, I'd applaud the older women. Society has been built by not throwing essential a hissy fit and expect the world to care when one's emotive balance is upset, it instead has been created on the notion that life is hard: deal.
    Once the masculine emulation of society was the Spartan and the Fox, now instead it is that notion of the male has been eviscerated and replaced with a caricature of helplessness. So in that scenario, at least one person still harkens back to the traditional mode.

    That's odd. Ancient Greece was awash with strong heroes crying over every little thing, including beautiful singing. The same goes for Japanese and Korean warriors, Celtic heroes, in fact every society I can think of up until our period of time (in the last two hundred years or less). Society wasn't built on our very modern conception of manliness as constructed in Van Damme movies!


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,554 ✭✭✭Pat Mustard


    That's odd. Ancient Greece was awash with strong heroes crying over every little thing, including beautiful singing.

    There were differences between the Spartan way of life and the ancient Greek way of life, in general.

    Link
    [FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Soldiers took the boys from their mothers at age 7, housed them in a dormitory with other boys and trained them as soldiers. The mother's softening influence was considered detrimental to a boy's education. The boys endured harsh physical discipline and deprivation to make them strong. The marched without shoes and went without food. They learned to fight, endure pain and survive through their wits. The older boys willingly participated in beating the younger boys to toughen them. Self-denial, simplicity, the warrior code, and loyalty to the city-state governed their lives.[/FONT]
    [FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
    [/FONT]
    [FONT=Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Spartan children were taught stories of courage and fortitude. One favorite story was about a boy who followed the Spartan code. He captured a live fox and intended to eat it. Although boys were encouraged to scrounge for food, they were punished if caught. The boy noticed some Spartan soldiers coming, and hid the fox beneath his shirt. When the soldiers confronted him, he allowed the fox to chew into his stomach rather than confess, and showed no sign of pain in his body or face. This was the Spartan way.[/FONT]

    Sounds like a tough regime.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,361 ✭✭✭Boskowski


    While technically speaking in today's world this is no longer deemed acceptable ;) what with gender equality bladiblaetc I think it's not too bad. It's better than some story about how the monsters get to crying boys. The little fella was having a 'want it' fit no more.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,616 ✭✭✭masculinist


    The equality way is either both girls/other genders and boys become drama queens, both sexes/all genders start to harden up or else people are free to be who they want to be without judgements. I have always been empathic, kind and protective of people who were bullied etc growing up but I never cried when I got hit by a swing or anything else. I was never brutalised either. I just never had the urge to cry even when I got kicked in the nether regions. Practically nothing ever happened to me to make me cry apart from a death in the family , break up of a relationship etc. Serious things. I have a feeling that if everyone becomes crying whining drama queens then this will weaken society and it is a backward step evolutionarywise . Sometimes you have to accept that life is hard and work to solve your problems instead of collapsing into an emotional heap. if we are unlucky enough to suffer a World War 3 , do we really think the Chinese/Russians/whatever will go away if the western world starts crying and whining ?

    A feminist on my Facebook told a story about how she witnessed a man giving out to his son calling him a ''girl'' for crying after hitting him. And she wrote it must have been traumatic for the observing safe sister to witness being called a 'girl' as an insult. This has some validity which I acknowledged but it sort of backfired on her when I pointed out how much more traumatic it must have been for the boy since he was the one crying in emotional distress having his feelings invalidated [misandry?]. My point was dismissed. The point is we all have a long way to go before people can take understanding each other for granted.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    MiloDublin wrote: »
    Can all this male suicide and bottling up of feelings be seen as a cultural construct?
    Maybe, though rates of mental illness and suicide among men are increasing, yet men have more opportunities and acceptance of expressing their feelings than they did two generations ago. Indeed it's almost expected that men should be more "sensitive", or they're seen as "old fashioned". Now of course mental illness and suicide is multifactorial in nature, but I don't quite buy the connection.

    As for expressing male emotions? Yes, throughout history and various cultures men did express emotions and were seen to cry and it wasn't seen as "unmanly", but when you look at what they where crying about there are consistencies. They cried at the deaths of friends and family, they cried at poetry, music, even beautiful landscapes, yes, but it wasn't even close to hissy fit tears. So "I broke my heart", therefore tears are fine and understandable. "I broke a nail", therefore GTF.. That kind of narcissism was considered beyond the Pale for men(and women). Those same archetype heros were expected to control emotions and apply them when appropriate. That went for rage, fear, as well as tears. The let it all hang out vibe is quite a recent phenomenon.

    The part of the OP's experience that would get me ticked of is the "only girls cry" bit.
    Sounds like a tough regime.
    Oh it was, but a lot of it is Greek propaganda, propaganda the Spartans were only too happy to go along with and exaggerate for effect. Interestingly for all the macho elements of Spartan culture, what confused and freaked the rest of the Greeks out was how Spartan women were regarded and treated in the culture. Athenian women were neither seen nor heard for the most part. Think Saudi Arabia, if not worse. It was a very patriarchal society. Spartan women on the other hand owned property, competed alongside men in games, were the head of the household(particularly in times of war) and could divorce and not forfeit their wealth in the process. Athenians eevn commented and were freaked out about Spartan women's more open sexuality and very short skirts. Outraged they were. :) It was a much more equal society compared to Athens.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,777 ✭✭✭✭The Corinthian


    Controlling your emotions is important when you need to keep control of your wits, think logically, not make stupid decisions and the like, which is important when life is more dangerous than it is in our rather pampered modern, Western existence. As such, given men's roles as protectors and providers, it made sense that we were trained from a young age to control our emotions.

    I'd postulate another reason too. Emotion is often hormonally driven and men have one hormone in spades that women don't have much of in comparison; testosterone. It makes our hair fall out, screws with our immune system and it makes us aggressive. Very aggressive.

    So I'd imagine that for a society to function smoothly, getting men to control those aggressive tendencies would be kind of important.

    As to the cry-baby stuff, I suspect that men could afford to be more emotional nowadays, but I also feel women could be less so. By that I mean that there appears to be a lot of talk about the former and not much of the latter, and hyper-emotional behaviour in women is even considered acceptable or 'normal'.

    So if we really want to stop hearing things like "don't cry like a girl" in the future, we probably should also stop accepting hyper-emotional behaviour due to PMS, jealosy or a range of other scenarios as somewhat 'normal' or 'understandable' that appear to be still judged on the basis of gender.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,616 ✭✭✭masculinist


    So if we really want to stop hearing things like "don't cry like a girl" in the future, we probably should also stop accepting hyper-emotional behaviour due to PMS, jealosy or a range of other scenarios as somewhat 'normal' or 'understandable' that appear to be still judged on the basis of gender.

    That is an excellent point, very articulately made.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    I'd postulate another reason too. Emotion is often hormonally driven and men have one hormone in spades that women don't have much of in comparison; testosterone. It makes our hair fall out, screws with our immune system and it makes us aggressive. Very aggressive.
    Actually TC the jury is still out on testosterone and aggression. Much of it is "accepted wisdom" and/or bro science and the media and culture. There was a Canadian study that involved giving a dose of testosterone to a number of women in a group, the rest got a placebo. Some had been told that they were in the testosterone group though they were in the placebo group, the rest who had actually received the testosterone weren't informed at all. The upshot was that the group who had the actual testosterone in their bloodstream became calmer and more social than normal and the ones who thought they had the real deal became more aggressive and less social. The perception was more than the hormonal effect. Indeed testosterone may even be a calming agent in some circumstances.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,831 ✭✭✭Torakx


    Maybe testosterone and possibly estrogen help to push our primal drives.
    Those drives may be different in men and women. Possibly related to the amount of estrogen available during development in either sex?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,616 ✭✭✭masculinist


    Torakx wrote: »
    Maybe testosterone and possibly estrogen help to push our primal drives.

    Primal drives are selfish and Darwinist. Aggression has been needed by both men and women in order to survive


    Female rulers have been as likely to go to war OR rule a brutal regime as male leaders: Margaret Thatcher, Sammuramat, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Isabella I of Castile, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, Amina, Mbande Nzinga, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria, Liliuokalani, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi.

    Lesbian relationships have higher, rates of domestic violence to heterosexual relationships:
    Lesbians report higher rates of sexual assault/rape committed against them by other women than what feminists claim men do to women.
    https://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml


    According to Dr. Suzana Rose, Ph.D.University of Missouri at St. Louis, National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center http://www.pandys.org/articles/lesbiandomesticviolence.html

    "Perhaps surprisingly, statistics have shown that lesbian people experience domestic violence at a very similar rate to that of heterosexual women (Waldner-Haygrud, 1997; AVP, 1992). It has been estimated that between 17-45% of lesbians have been the victim of at least one act of violence perpetrated by a female partner (Burke et al, 1999; Lie et al, 1991), and that 30% of lesbians have reported sexual assault / rape by another woman (Renzetti, 1992). Considering the lack of discussion that takes place regarding lesbian domestic violence and sexual assault, I find these figures staggering."

    http://lesbianlife.about.com/.../lesbi.../a/DVFactsMyths.htm

    Relationships: Same-Sex Battering Statistics, Facts and Myths. Written by Kathy Belge "Lesbian Life Expert" states the following: "The typical image of a battered woman is a heterosexual woman attempting to hide a black eye in the grocery store. But domestic violence does not just happen to straight couples. Domestic violence statistics show that violence is just as prevalent in gay and lesbian relationships as it is in heterosexual couples. In fact, 30% of couples struggle with domestic violence of some sort."

    Therefore the ultimate Irony: Lesbians reporting that they'd been sexually assaulted/raped by other women - occur at a higher level than women in general reporting that they'd been raped by a man. 1-3 Lesbians will be raped or sexually assaulted by a woman. Meanwhile the greater macrocosm of women: even the most misandric nonsense of studies falsified by Rad Fems says that 1-4 women will be raped or sexually assaulted by a man. This indicates in a world without men - there's MORE RAPE and MORE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

    The narrative that women are somehow less violent because of estrogen doesn't stack up. Testosterone cant be exclusively responsible for aggression and violence. That would be a nonsense. Females just do it their way like Swedish feminists in the clip below...



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,027 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    TBH I'd buy the 1 in 3 stat for lesbian assaults as much as I would the 1 in 4 for heterosexual assaults. Id est I wouldn't. As you noted the 1 in 4 stat is extremely bogus, so I'd apply the same to the 1 in 3 stat. Judging by the criteria used which was almost identical, the "researchers" - and I use that description with great reserve - have already decided the levels and bend the game to get the results they want. I'd bet the farm that the reality for both is significantly less than these "studies" suggest.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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