LIVING LIFE: The Fine Line…

At the risk of being labeled chauvinistic, we have grown up with a certain message being shoved down our throats – men are supposed to think, not feel, women are supposed to feel but nobody said they should not think.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

At the risk of being labeled chauvinistic, we have grown up with a certain message being shoved down our throats – men are supposed to think, not feel, women are supposed to feel but nobody said they should not think.

Emotional men are closeted fellows because big boys don’t cry while women should have a talent at being mushy, being capable to always squeeze a tear or two for every emotional moment.

Women who have a knack for getting things done with a stern face, ordering men around are feared while men, who cannot get anything down, always whimpering with complaints, desperate to show emotion pass for sissies.

That and other things define the conundrum of today’s young men and women. Women want to be go-getters, have the brains to take them all the way to great achievement defeating those old chauvinistic house wife tendencies that have been nurtured by traditions and still have it all – a good man for a husband and a humble mother to his children.

Of course women can be anything they want, at least in this 21st century, the gender barriers having been slowly but systematically been smashed down in various ways from time to time.

The men, we are being taught to try to be more gender sensitive, limit our traditional role as the head of home, provider of the daily bread and protector to just that and avoid the masculine bullying, put a little empathy in things and treat their wives with a proper rose flower - candle lit dinner – stuff, once in a while at least.

One wonders where to draw the fine line. The feminists are quick to drown into the wild ire for the male race with the proper, raise the girl child cum woman above the boy-man operation, with a complete disregard for the boy child, who is bullied into a man and blackmailed at times quietly by the women in their life for the rest of it.

Fine, a man can be as metro-sexual as they want to be, wear make up, and compete for space in front of the mirror. But look, unless we want a role reversal of the sexes which I am sure nobody wants to dare try, is when many of the demands might come to be ‘honoured’.

We want our young boys to grow into fine responsible and respectful men who will take their role in their society and give due respect to their mothers, wives and daughters and our girls into assertive and graceful ladies who will draw from their fathers, guide their husbands and instil values of self-respect and a necessary balanced empathy to their sons.

The sexes can still be respectful about their battles without bashing each other off the scene. The biology of humans has specified various specific roles for a man and a woman, but those should not be drawn to exert undue domineering for men, nor should they be used to award dictatorial powers to the women. The problem is, just where do we draw that fine line?

I too have no idea!

Have a gender-sensitive Sunday.

kelviod@yahoo.com