Anabaptist/Episcopalian consistent-life blogger Hugo Schwyzer thoughtfully discusses the subject, which sadly tends to be addressed with unrealistic and counterproductive stereotypes by religious-right activists.
‘
I’m with Hugo on this one. Reclaiming “masculinity” and “manhood” as a positive thing can only help everyone, men and women, straight and gay. A key is making sure that our positive estimation of “manhood” is compatible with all sexual orientations. Real men include gay men. I think Hugo gets that.
I read Hugo’s piece. It struck me while reading it that Hugo has too much time on his hands.
what is an anabaptist episcopalian? There are so many episcopalians now a days, conservative, gay friendly, gay, high, low, drunk, sober, that I can’t keep em straight.
Tony,
Hugo has drifted back and forth between Anabaptist and Episcopal affiliation. He’s not both at the same time, though he’s sympathetic to both.
Hmm, I tend disagree with “essentialist” arguments regarding sex differences because these tend to overemphasize the differences while minimizing to completely ignoring the overwhelming similarities between males and females.
For example, regarding Tipper Gore’s comments about her children being remarkably different by the age of two based on their sex (mentioned in Hugo’s original post). Her reaction demonstrates how we as adults are unaware of our own behaviors that reinforce and inculcate gender roles. Research shows that such differences exist, but also shows that children are treated very differently by their adult caretakers from birth. For example, adults treat an infant differently based on what they think the sex of the child is, even if the child is NOT that sex. Thus, if adults think an infant is a boy, they tend to treat him/her more roughly and aggressively; if they think the infant is a girl they tend to treat her/him with more affection, etc. Obviously, this interplay between cultural norms and a newborn’s sensitive and growing body will impact how a child behaves by the age of two.
Likewise, yes, there are differences, probably based on biology, but these tend to be few: boys tend to be more active; girls tend to be more passive. This might be due to the fact that boys tend to have more muscle mass than girls (at least that is the theory). In addition, girls tend to be more verbal earlier than boys. Nonetheless, these differences are easily compensated for by older childhood so that boys are as verbal as girls and girls can be as active as boys.
Although I understand that such arguments are trying to get at an underlying, fundamental difference between males and females, these arguments tend to be either highly reductionistic or so abstract as to be of limited practical use in understanding sex differences. To repeat, this also tends to ignore how SIMILAR the sexes are, which far outweighs any differences that are there due to biology, psychology, sociology, or most likely a complicated and delicate balance of all three.