Alpha Beta Gamma of Masculinity -
(Part 1 of 2)
Part 1: Gender Roles and evolution
Times like we live in may be pretty confusing for some men to find their true purpose.
Men have been playing the role of providers and protectors since human civilizations have come into existence whereas the women have, of those that nurture and care.
The male in a family used to hunt animals for food, bring wood for fire, plough and till the farms, build house and protect his family from external dangers.
The female on the other hand would cook for the family, take care of the children and take care of the house, making it a home.
To put this into context with respect to more recent times- say the 1950's and on wards till the turn of century, the typical man goes to work to earn bread for family, he earns to give them a house and a secure financial future. The mother, takes care of the home, the children- she feeds them and nurtures them in the while the father is away.
It was the duty of the hunter-gatherer father to take the boys (and sometimes girls too) out and teach them hunting and survival in the wild. The mother would teach her daughters how to cook and take care of the family and make her ready to be able to one day start her own family.
Contrast to the hunter-gatherer father, the office going father plays with his children on weekends, maybe take his son to fishing or a game of bowling. This seems perfectly normal to anyone.
But there may be a major downside with this office-going culture. Due to the ever increasing number of hours that offices of today demand, the children may mostly grow up with the father being absent from their lives for most part of the day. The typical office going father is not able to spare much time to engage with the the children in quality activities that would show them what positive masculinity looks like.
So, it falls upon the mother to be able to render upon the children what masculinity is. The view of masculinity that the children learn may well be from a very feminine point of view. It could be prone to paint a wrong picture altogether.
It is like the spouse of the hunter gatherer talking to kids about how to hunt the animals but seldom taking them out to actually do it- or even worse to tell them that hunting is really not an activity to be engaged in at all. Food can be had in exchange of other things. With such a narrative, we wouldn’t have been where we are today.
Also, with this onset of industrialization and spurt in the office culture in urban demographics, the traditional roles of men and women are becoming more and more obsolete and as evolution progresses, may one day be completely erased from the human nature. Eventually we won’t know where we came from.
Plus, with the rise in global feminism since past few decades, there has been a strong push for bringing women into arenas where typically men contribute more.
So, If the modern feminists are to be believed, the stereotypical roles for each of the two conventional genders do not exist anymore and there is a strong push for egalitarianism in traditional roles for men and women (not be sounding misogynist- but more so in those assigned to men).
I’m not a misogynist, but neither am I a feminist. I’m all for fairness in work culture and day to day living. But it does worry me to see that with so rapidly changing dynamics, from where would an upcoming generation see first hand what a strong and positive masculine presence is like and how it can influence them?
So, an entire generation after the baby boomers is conditioned to believe in a certain narrative. It is not only harmful for the boys to be growing up without a sense of strong, positive masculinity, it is equally dramatically life altering for the girls too.
Guys like these tend to be termed 'Nice' or 'People pleasing’ or in general, who don’t know how to stand up for themselves, who for most part of their lives don’t know what’s their purpose of existence and never bother with it. The girls on the other hand don’t know what actual good masculinity looks like and don’t know how to distinguish it from toxic masculinity which they might have a tendency to fall prey to.
So how can we, an upcoming generation, set things straight for ourselves and our future generations? How can we identify true and positive masculinity? Can guys (or even girls) who have no idea about it, bring it into their life for better? Will it be better for them presently, and for the family that they will raise in future? And if yes, how ?
(To be continued in part 2)
