A Gender Hypnosis ...
Yesterday I watched Sunny Bergman's docu "Man Made. And of course, as a man, I think something of that. But the question is, "What is 'man' and what is 'woman'? That's an interesting question I thought and that's why I watched it.
When you have small children, you are very quick to say to little girls, 'How beautiful you look, just like a princess,' and to little boys, 'Show off your muscles? Strong!
Conversely, I've honestly never said that to a girl 'Show your muscle...'
And that's where it starts - the question, of course, is "Is it bad?" or "How different?
I myself struggle with the male image. You have to be strong, don't cry, devour women, because that's tough. In the locker room at soccer it was all about that. Tough strong guys were the role model. Strong leaders, men who knew where they were going. Powerful muscular beings adored by women.
That's how you want to be as a guy, then, and you have to leave something behind. If you are sensitive, then you put that away. If you love embroidery, you do it secretly. Very difficult.
And the women keep it going, too. Who want a manly man. You see that on TV, but you also see that when you're young who the girls fall for. Strong big guys. Again, that image is then reinforced.
And then calling men wrong or bad. Well, if you fall for that "kind" what does that make you? Also a victim of the image you are given as a girl of what a man should be.
Great hypnosis, of course, is what starts with the parents. Who create little boys and girls. Who make a person a boy or a girl by looking at gender. Those push the hypnosis into it.
They too were raised that way, and so were those parents, and so on. Just my unvarnished opinion. The man would like to feel that he is in control. That he is in control. Then he feels like a man. Women who increasingly take that away from him and then he feels like he is in a kind of no man's land.
The solution in my opinion? Until we can all truly be who we want to be I think the quote from a former colleague in construction is still the most beautiful I think:
'Ed, the husband is the head of the family and the wife is the neck. When the neck turns, the head goes with it...'
