A Convo on Gender Roles, Dating & other stuff 2 : The two issues we aren’t dealing with

When Last we Left ….

Today, men are given confusing and contradictory advice. Socially, they are expected to be “compliant” (i.e. cooperative) partners to women. However, they are also urged by women’s sexual interest to maintain an “attractive personality” (i.e. assertive and ambitious). Unfortunately, men sometimes report that attempting to balance these notions does not result in satisfaction, happiness, or women’s appreciation and respect.

… men lament about being in a “no win situation” in modern dating. If they follow what society tells them to do, they often end up “good guys” who are taken advantage of, mistreated, and disrespected. In contrast, if they follow more “assertive” biological imperatives, they are labeled “jerks” and “players”—who may get sexual gratification, but not love or respect from what they would consider a “good woman”. Overall, they report that there is often little incentive for men to date and even less for them to consider long-term commitments.

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If for a second, I believed anything society told me I would have killed myself a long time ago. Society has a vested interest in you working to maintain its biases, inherent power structures, and lies. Every time some one talks about peace, coming together, free thought, they get killed! Killed !!!

I believe that there is a direct relationship between how much you benefit from society and how much you believe the nonsense it wants you to ingest. It’s been clear to me that society doesn’t value my life so I don’t drink the Kool Aid offered. Society by it’s very nature cannot promote individuality. It has to treat people as pieces of meat that act a specific set of ways under a handful of conditions. Furthermore, unless you are a Caucasian of a certain class society has never cared for you.

We can agree that our society is a going through changes. I feel as many others do that we are put at odd with who and what we are. Or in other words, we are facing a conflict between social demands and biological motivations. A psychologists advises that: “until something changes, the best we can all do is adapt and find our own, unique way.”

I am going to offer you my thoughts: THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.

I will be saying more on this later.

The Reality

I try to be as realistic as possible. I have no allegiance to Men’s or Women’s Right’s movements. My allegiance is to self-respect, common sense and humanism. What I do know well is myself. I spent a lot of time getting to know my self (that’s actually not a masturbation joke). I push myself, learn new things, engage people etc. I’ve come to a point where I can identify my voice from the multitudes of voices telling me: what I should aspire to, what I should look for, how I should behave, etc. I have settled on three rules for myself:

1. My happiness is paramount I like everyone else is search for meaning and something real help us move forward to the vision of how we want to live.
2. I never do something because I am supposed to, rather I do things because I want to do it.
3. Be sincere. What I feel internally should match what I say externally. I should never repress or silence what I feel

Looking at Sex & Gender Roles

I have been informed that that there are many “strategies” guys use to deal with the frustrating dating scene. Some dudes opt out of the dating game completely. This is actually a movement called Men Going Their Own Way Movement. Other dudes get into the whole pick up artist scene, etc. To be honest with you, I was dumbfounded reading about all this stuff. To me these “strategies” are only momentary patches on a larger problem in my opinion. The problem is two fold:

1. Coming to terms with the advances and collateral damage of feminism.
2. Suppression and demonization of the expression of masculinity.

Until we deal with both issues, we will not make any real progress I feel. I am going to leave this here and go one from this place.

MrMary