Huh? Your saying fact that you use keys means its cerebral? I used to suffer panic attacks when alone and quite often I would find myself driving half way to the pet store (try had a lovely marine display) before I ever made a conscious choice. I had grabbed keys, phone an wallet, got in car and driven to shop without ANY cerebral choices being made Bells I think your missing the point, I'm not saying he's a "hero" for leaving, those your talking about get nominated for bravery awards for a reason, because they are out of the normal and they have done something brave and worthy, it's not a binary choice you know, it's not 1% are heros and 99% are pathetic. What I'm saying is that your calling him pathetic for ending up in a situation which compleatly overwhelmed him and his basic flight instinct kicked in and he flees, that's NOMAL. He's not a hero, hes just a person. The pathetic one is the gunman who started shooting up the place in the first place. Oh and one last thing, just because he fled in this situation doesn't mean he would in another, say if they were drowning or if the building was on fire he might well be the first into the water or into the flames.
With all due respect to both Asguard and Bells, the OP was about whether or not men are being feminized. Not whether one individual who made a decision which was unpopular at the very least was a coward or not. Can we please get back on the topic?
This actually does come into the topic. Trooper made a very interesting point, which led us to discuss this part of it. Are we being harsher on this individual because he is male and therefore, the stereotype is that he should be the protector of his family? I don't think that is the case. In discussing this man's decision and actions with some male friends of mine in the last 24 hours, the response was unanimous. "What a pussy", being the predominant theme. Not, "what a bad father".. Which I found quite interesting and somewhat disturbing. Because when I read about it, the first thing that came to my mind is "what kind of parent does this in such a situation". Whereas my male acquaintances saw it as a sign of manly weakness. So you have to wonder where the stereotypes come from...
Well, I think string’s essay nipped in the butt. Why can’t we discuss other issues pertaining to men being called pussies? Asguard does have a few good points. Defining a hero is harder than defining a coward. Some people may have stress hormones that run cooler in dangerous situations. Testosterone has been shown to increase egocentric choices and makes men selfish. It’s a given, females do have a stronger tendency to guard their offspring. The “tend to befriend” vs. “fight/flight” response is also more prominent in females. We are known to be aggressive. However, the same male hormones are unlikely to be the mediating factors that evoke a female fight/flight response as they do in males. This fight/flight response may be inhibited in women. Some research suggests that the estrogen-enhanced anxiolytic properties of oxytocin could explain the sex differences found in fight/flight responses. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. ~Mark Twain “Researchers think activity in the sgACC acts to suppress the psychological response to fear, and thus allow people to act courageously." Brain’s Courage Center Located He was heavily criticized publicly and even in here we had...a pathetic excuse for a parent, cold and calculating, has lost one of the basic instincts that defines him as human, and why, because he did not sacrifice his life for his child. I do find it a little odd that transplant laws don’t allow you to sacrifice your life for your child because taking one life, to save another life is considered immoral. You can’t use people as means. Yet, we have always romanticized heroism. Every human life should be equally valuable, no privileged persons, right? I know that socioeconomically the value decreases with age but does the moral worth of someone's life decrease with age, as well?
Didn't you just contradict yourself, your saying that people aren't being harsher on him because he's male while at the same time saying that your experience shows your hypothethis is wrong
If you ever do any medical training from basic first aid up (this may not be aplicable for those in defense) the first thing they teach you is to be a coward. If there is danger don't aproach and the order of danger is "danger to self, danger to partner (as in ambo partner, not sexual partner), danger to any trainees, danger to bystanders, THEN danger to patient. Your patient is the very last concern. Only after eliminating any danger at all to everyone do you even check to see if the patient is even breathing
Bells, I appreciate your explanation of how the debate you and Asguard are having can be returned to the topic. Such as, rather than judging the guy himself, looking at how we initially reacted and how he was described. Considering your small survey showed that more men called him a pussy than women may be very telling. But, IMO, it suggests that men are holding him to a higher standard of manliness than women do. So does that mean we are feminizing men? Are we making them weak by not demanding a higher standard of strength and bravery? Or are women simply expecting the same level of bravery from women as well? If it were the woman who left the baby on the stairwell and ran would we (women) have reacted as negatively towards her as we have the man? While I share the initial reaction to the video that Bells had, I feel that Asguard made points that were equally valid to Bells. Asgaurd has expressed a perspective that none of the rest of us have expressed. He has been in a terrifying situation that caused him to run which afterward he regretted. IMO, the guy in the video seemed to be displaying extreme remorse. He didn't seem to be making excuses but instead was trying to figure out and explain what happened. He still seems less than coherent or stable, while his girlfriend seems on the verge of being catatonic. They are reliving what happened every time they talk about it. I wish a psychiatrist would give an assessment of what exactly may have been happening in his mind at the time. But as Trooper suggested, it does seem we could cover other aspects of the perceived "feminization of men" if it is a real phenomenon. I have always been told there is more to being a man than being brave. I remember old tv show reruns I used to watch as a kid such as Bonanza, and Father Knows Best. Any thoughts?
Just one quick point, so I don't look quite so bad. The guy I fled from was pronounced dead at the scene a min latter by a pulse check aloneness the ambos didnt even try treatment. If I HAD got to him there was nothing I could have done, he was dead second he hit the pole. Did I know that when I saw him? *shrug* all I can say was I knew there was nothing I could do for him
You will get no judgement from me. I have heard similar stories from war vets trying to recover from ptsd. And many war films based on true stories have reflected this possible reaction as being more common than anyone would want to admit. I don't think the guy is as bad as the too often reported teen mother giving birth in an ally and leaving the baby in a dumpster out of fear that their parents would find out or that they would lose popularity in school. While clearly not the same situation, both were a case of fear begetting bad behavior. It's also somewhat cliche to show a woman crying to a firefighter that her baby is still in their burning home. Some may question how she could have run out without the baby, but I don't ever remember seeing scenes depicted like that on tv and hearing reactions that it was absurd or that the woman was less than human. I don't recall any negative reaction to her at all. It always seemed it was acceptable to put the responsibility on the firefighter, who was usually a man.
I don't see how men are being "feminised" though. What does it mean for them to be feminised? In what sense? And how are women to blame? Is it the shifting of roles and men sharing the care and upbringing of their children? Doing the housework? Cooking? A friend of mine, who is in the US armed forces, is one of those guys who says quite openly, that the husband supports the wife, etc. He follows that kind of stereotype. But he comes home, he changes his baby's nappies, feeds the kids, cooks, cleans, does the laundry if it needs to be done. As he says, "you do the shit that needs to be done". The male friends I discussed the individual Trooper brought up, are of the similar sort. They will come home and clean, care for their children, etc.. And yet, they view this guy as being a "pussy". That was the first reaction. Mine when I read it and responded to Trooper initially, went to his parenting - in that parents are meant to protect their children. Not run and leave them in a theater with a crazed gunman and leave them in plain site in said theater. I get Asguard's point, that he may have panicked. What I do not understand is how he went to his car, got in it and drove off and then waited for a phone call. That to me is surreal. So why do some men view him as a "pussy", a coward or weak and somehow akin to a woman's sexual organs? Why go straight for his manliness? By saying that men are somehow becoming feminised, we are trying to hold onto the image of the manly male, the tough, men don't cry types, while expecting men to be men - which is to be father's, spouses/partners, friends.. To exhibit the caring nature they possess as human beings. So it creates an interesting conflict. We are trying to fix them into a box while expecting them to belong in another box as well. I think before we get to that though, we need to determine how men are becoming feminised.
I agree with you. The author of the article I posted in the op was on a rant that if a man cooks or cleans or anythign like that, he is less of a man. I don't believe women are feminizing men anymore than men are machoing up women. I think men and women are just learning how to meet each other half way while not denying the true differences. Few people would deny that men are usually stronger than women and women, generally make better nurse maids. But it seems society is evolving with technology. Once upon a time it was more practical for the woman to stay home and raise the kids while teh man weathered the elements and supported the family. Obviously, technological progress has brought our society to a point in time when these stringent gender roles are simply obsolete. Having a penis doesn't mean you are incapable of doing dishes and having a vagina does not mean you are incapable of providing for your family. I think that is what the author of the article is conveniently overlooking. Even by his own standards he is reducing a man to less that what men historically were required to be. He depicts men as sex crazed goons that care for nothing but sex and beer. But the male role models of the past where men of substance who stood for justice, were wise, brave, and work minded. Not obsessed with sex or beer. The only men I saw like that in old tv shows were usually the scoundrels in the saloon who had no families and were likely to be outlaws.
I wonder if he's ever said that to a man who has been in the army. They clean their own barracks, including the toilets. And until recently, with the upsurge in female enlistment, all the cooks were men. Besides, all of the world's greatest "Five-Star" chefs have always been male. I wonder if even today there's a woman in those elite ranks. Without going very far back in history, you arrive in an era when there was no contraception and women were baby-making machines. They were always pregnant, nursing, or simply raising a couple of toddlers--usually all at the same time. This was necessary for the survival of our species, since only about 20% of babies lived long enough to procreate. Of course until the Industrial Revolution, 99% of the human race were farmers (or had other occupations in the food production and distribution industry such as building the delivery wagons) and women worked out in the fields like everyone else. Even when pregnant, nursing, and/or raising a couple of toddlers. There are tales (which I'm sure are not much exaggerated) of women stopping in the middle of hoeing a row and giving birth in the field. Being able to stay indoors and care for the children without also having to earn income was probably considered a great step forward. You have to be careful to analyze history from the perspective of the people who were living it. The Post-Industrial Revolution has changed the nature of "work." Today we sit comfortably in chairs typing on a keyboard and reading a monitor. Anybody of any gender can do that work, and even of any age and any state of health. We can all work until we drop dead on our keyboards--I'm 68 and still working without any plans to retire. What am I gonna do? Sit at home in a comfortable chair typing on a keyboard and reading a monitor like I'm doing right now? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! In the late 1960s when I entered the IT field, there were a lot of female programmers. They joked about the fact that it was easy work for them because they had all been required to learn to touch-type in high school. Men were really slow at keypunching! I was one of the few men who could touch-type (my mother insisted on it so I'd be able to keep up with my assignments in college) and the other men looked up to me. I don't think most men in those days lived up to the standards of their role models. Prostitution was rampant and the taverns were well attended. In Victorian London there was actually a street named Cunt Alley (I may not have that quite right, but it's in Wikipedia somewhere) because that's where all the brothels were. There was even an unwritten rule that you shouldn't patronize a prostitute who is young enough to be your daughter, because she might actually be your daughter. I hope you're not relying on old TV shows for your history lessons. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Today, shows like "Mad Men" are a little more historically accurate, and even the last generation of comedies like "Roseanne" and "The Jeffersons" weren't too bad with their representation of the culture of their eras. But back in my day with our six-inch black-and-white TVs, their depictions of the Wild West and other bygone eras were pretty fanciful. There were still a few old cowboys around (I lived in Arizona) and they laughed at shows like "Range Rider" and "The Cisco Kid."
Feminizing? Not sure about that one. Then again there is this 'metrosexual' phenomenon, the root of which I suppose I really couldn't be bothered to guess at. There is kind of a movement to make males look stupid these days - dumb ol' dad - but then again there are also many representations of women as airheads, whether scripted or unscripted. I'd be interested to see such statistics broken down by network, sex, age group, target and writer, but such an analysis would never be done.
“So here is the question: are men less masculine or more liberated? Are they being feminized, or humanized?” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/are-men-what-they-used-to_b_901590.html I think that most of the articles compare the best of women to the worst of men, which isn’t really fair, and always in opposition, when we actually compliment each other. Nevertheless, there is a concern about men falling behind. One of the girls in this video feels that it's the peer pressure that boys feel to drink and sex up, as string points out with his "The dumbification of men." What if the boys are falling behind because of the other male stereotype that I listed…the pedophile. Most elementary teachers are female and teach from the female perspective. We had a male teacher that was forced teach at a different grade level because parents were concerned, not due to his behavior, but simply because he was a male. It’s a difficult bias to overcome. After all, pedophiles are predominately males. Virgin Australia Rethinks Seating Policy after Man Asked To Move Away From Children The Lack of Male Teachers in the Elementary Schools
Well that is why I called them role models. The author of the article is using tv pop culture as his "evidence" so I responded with the same source of evidence. absolutely not, but as I said before he is referring to tv as evidence of social norms. I was thinking more along the lines of "Bonanza" or "Father knows Best" I'm only 36 but I watched these as reruns on PBS, my mom wouldn't get cable Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Even in its day (the entire decade of the 1960s) "Bonanza" was acknowledged as a parable of contemporary values superimposed over a historical era. Anti-war sentiment, rejection of racism, domestic violence, drug addiction, unwed mothers... I guarantee that the conversation at the dinner table in a real ranch house in Nevada at that time would not have resembled the scripts on "Bonanza." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So when you watch the show, what you see is the 1860s, but what you hear is the 1960s. Too bad about not having cable TV. You missed "Fraggle Rock" on HBO, the best show in history. But you can still get the DVDs. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It may not have been true to 1860 but I was referring to the more recent history. 1950s-1970s when gender roles were defined in a way that women today consider sexist and chauvanistic. because these are the time periods in which the tv shows were aired in. We have tv shows set in the future now but they reflect our values today not what we will value in the future. I especially like the tv show and movie Serenity. Wild west themes in outer space. Pisses me off that it is no longer running. but it reflects values that influence our culture today. A lot of political correctness vs those who prefer a bit more social honesty. I did get to see fraggle rock. My grandmother had cable and all my friends did. Loved the show Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
By the 70s we began to see shows where these issues were being argued and sorted out, like "All in the Family." The difference between the way the elders Archie and Edith related to each other, versus the kids Mike and Gloria, was a major dynamic throughout its run. It was the first TV show to be #1 five years in a row. Of course "Sesame Street" was subversively exposing children to these issues, preparing them for... well I guess the future is now. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! We've learned that everybody is an individual and we vary from one another in myriad ways. Just as all women don't want to be leaders any more than they all want to be dishrags, neither do all men. Some of us are proud to know how to fold a fitted sheet and quite happy to have very strong wives who know how to work the stock market. On behalf of all the Fraggles, I thank you. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Jerry Nelson (b. 1934), who played Gobo Fraggle, just died a couple of days ago. He was also The Count on Sesame Street, various other Muppets, and Emmet Otter, if you happened to catch that wonderful special "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas." In his later years he lost the strength to operate the puppets but he still did the voices. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...fc9a96-ee3e-11e1-b624-99dee49d8d67_story.html Someone wrote the lovely epitaph: "He taught us all to count."
