From the time of my early childhood I have seen the view on gender and sex certainly change. Initially, it was the natural order of things that Papa was out to work, and Mama was home taking care of the house and children.
Then came the ‘sexual revolution’ which changed all that. All was turned upside down and put together in a different way. Somehow I ended up with the deep rooted opinion that it is very, very bad to act in a way that could be considered sexist. Only the inner values, which are independent of gender, were considered to be relevant. You were supposed to be sex-blind.
That naturally created some discrepancy between what I could observe and what I was supposed to observe. Let’s take the example of a very pretty girl. One guy who, like me, was drilled to see only the inner values – even though that was rather difficult to do – started a conversation about philosophical questions of life, the universe and everything to engage the intellectual being inside that pretty exterior, and got nowhere.
The other guy just locked his eyes onto her body, drooling noticeable, only able to utter such intelligent thoughts as “Wow, you are so beautiful, can I have your number?” Not a single note about the inner qualities. He usually got the number.
Often the purely sexual aspect is exhibited – oozing sexuality instead of displaying a master’s degree or a doctorate title. And, funny enough, this is mostly done by the female, who officially works on being appreciated for her intellect and not her cleavage. Let’s take a normal business setting. Men are usually totally a-sexual in such an environment, in a buttoned-up shirt with a tie. But the female executives often show off their non-intellectual qualities. What would happen if men did that?
All these thought, I have to admit, never really surface totally within me, until very recently, when I ran into a picture of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Ms. Merkel is probably a very intelligent person, at least in a limited political way, so why in the world is she sexualizing her appearance so much? There is no beauty in this as she is not a particularly beautiful person, and whom is she trying to arouse? Or is this just a sport to see how long it takes that male until he finally looks at her boobs? There certainly are other options to dress as you notice when you look at the person in the background behind Ms. Merkel.
When I though about how this would look like if the male part of the political world would give up its boring non-sexuality and let it all hang out as well, I became curious. So I went out to find if it did indeed exist, and to my total surprise, I found it.
Wouldn’t that put a completely new face on politics? Please don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to bash either Bush nor Merkel. It is just that here we are offered by these very public figures a way to understand just how much of a double talk exists in the arena of emancipation. We could use any setting in business as well, we would, most likely, find a similar situation.
Hopefully, after draining my brain of inner conflict, I will now be able to just compliment a woman on her looks without the idea of violating the emancipation law. Because, quite honestly, I appreciate female beauty just as any other male. Just as I am sure women appreciate male beauty. Just as a side note, a co-worker of my wife once called me ‘ruggedly handsome!’ I still dearly love Sharon!
What do you think, should men start fighting for sexual equality in politics and business and dress more like George in the above picture?
Interesting thoughts and perspective. I think that a lot of this, like how a person dresses, what makes them attractive, etc is so subjective. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it is that there is someone for everyone! (Meaning that what you or I find attractive or ‘appropriate’ may be completely different.) And there are an infinite number of opinions…or nearly so because of the number of persons that exist on the earth.
I think that’s an aside from your main point, philosophically which is (if I’m reading it right) that if women can ‘let it all hang out’, why can’t men?
I think it goes back to how men and women interact at a fundamental level. Interesting thoughts, though.
haha, yes, that was the right expression – letting it all hang out 🙂
Yes, I was observing the hypocrisy that on the one hand there is the drive to be valued for the accomplishments but on the other hand purely sexual attractors are used to get ahead.
I just noticed that if men would do that they would be chauvinistic pigs.
But then again, I am not really striving to gain that type of emancipation – I really don’t want want to let it all hang out 🙂
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Thats what we did in our 20’s
Society is allowing for the idea more than ever before.
I do have a son, he is now five years old and I am his Mother. Often In my days i do see men and boys who are getting pushed into rolles that limit them. It hurts me, bad! I do not see how on earth i could empower him for Society has all this bright new Rules for girls and seems to hold, in my eyes, only Limitation for boys. He for example sometimes sees all the beautifull princesses in the kids movies and wishes nothing so much as to be just like them. Here the “Opinions” start rolling in: a boy can not wear a dress, a boy can not have a doll. But my boy sitts there and nearly cries when his sister gets a new skirt in wich she can swirl and turn and he can not. Because of the fear he might turn out gay, or at least that was what i got from giving him a beautiful skirt, too. I do think that is utter crap. It is not ok anymore to tell a girl you can not be a soccerplayer, you can not dress a an action hero, you can not cut your hair, you can not wear pants, or as in your example you can not flaunt your Body. But for boys all these things are true and more so a part of their upbringing. I very strongly feel that being Gay is something you are born with and therfore can not be endorced by letting your boy wear a skirt. Or by telling them its ok to swirl in it. Or that you “make them a Macho” By letting them look at beautiful Women and tell them to be the men who has the right to court them, to woo them with whatever they got. I would not want that for my daughter, to allways place her in Bounderies, Bounderies i see are applied on my Son every single day of his life. I mean he will figure that damn skirt thing out in a year or so.
But he will have also have figured out that he is bound, where his sister and his Mother are not.
The Education is another thing, in pre-school and elementary-school in my country there are nearly only women as Teachers- no men, so rambunctios little boys often are shut down right from the start. That is sooo soo sad. SO what can i do as a Mother to empower my Son?
I do not think this topic is about “letting it all hang out” but about how we can give our little boys and our Men the right to be empowered and strong and whatever they feel they need to be, the topic is about double Standards for Men and Women, wich are as i think not OK neihter for Girls nor for boys. I want to make a world for both to be free.
Equality, the only thing we CAN do is being straight with our kids while allowing them to express themselves. I have, from very early on, made it very clear to my son, that there are different standards that we have to deal with. You might find examples that your son can understand that shows how strange and closed-minded people can be. That they will frown – or laugh – when they see a boy in a skirt, but that is utterly their problem. He might actually learn a very valuable lesson early on – don’t care what others think!
As for gender equality, I recently learned just HOW bad men fare in that department. There was a conference about men-issues and that venue was bombarded with female protest, even extreme threats of violence. Imagine the opposite! Male groups doing this to a female conference would be crucified for behavior like that in the press, but as this happened to a men’s group, there was no mention in the main stream press.
Good info and philosophical background info you might find on freedomainradio.com