pc@hplabsb.UUCP (06/14/83)
I recently had the opportunity to read an article from the May 1982 issue of New Age magazine. There was a very interesting article (interview with a poet) about masculinity and a vision of male liberation. In my discussions with men who read this article I realized that I had gotten something quite different out of the poet's message than they. Still, the man was a poet and I think he had some interesting things to say. (I guess posting it would be an infringement of copyright laws and I'm hesitant to paraphrase since my interpretation was so different from others'.) Anyway, about "male superiority": Our culture seems to push a notion of competition on its males. "Personal Best" means pushing until you beat everyone else. I am so non-competitive that I don't feel I really understand competition very well, but I do think men have been schooled to be more competitive. In fact, socially, women are taught to defer to men (or any authority figure). My experience has been that egos are pretty fragile things--men's and women's. During the past decade, women have been encouraged to stand up for themselves, to be strong and assertive. As a result, I THINK their egos are less vulnerable than they used to be. Men, on the other hand, have been encouraged to get in touch with their "gentle" side (or feminine side, to use the stereotype). Male strength has been equated with aggression, which is out of fashion right now. Now, what I think the poet in New Age was saying (I think it was Robert Bly) was that men need to feel good about their strength-- not a simplistic aggressiveness, but a richer gut-level strength. He claims, and I would agree, that male strength and female strength are different. Some of this may be cultural (which is okay) and the rest may be inherent. In physical arenas, men seem to have strength for bursts of activities where women are better for endurance. (After my 20 hours of labor with the recent birth of our son, my husband was TOTALLY exhausted, but I was fine. Yet he can run circles around me [literally].) I don't believe there needs to be anything deferential about "looking up to" someone. I NEED to be able to "look up" to my husband in some ways, just as I want him to be able to look up to me in the same/other ways. Perhaps the better use of terminology is "respect." If people do their personal best, I respect that. I'm sure that a shakey ego will be bolstered best by compliments which are neither condescending nor deferential. I do believe that as long as our culture pushes competition, those who buy into that cultural value are going to find it difficult to be happy with themselves (unless they are among the chosen few who always win). Patricia Collins hplabs