How the Male Brain Cant See the Laundry
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- Date Submitted: 09/10/2011 11:16 PM
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How the male brain can't see the laundry pile up
Naomi Wolf June 6, 2009 (Well-known American feminist writer)
1 North Americans of my generation grew up with the 1970s children's record Free to Be ... You and Me, on which Rosey Grier, an immense former gridiron star, sang It's All Right to Cry. The message: girls could be tough, and boys were allowed not to be.
2 For almost 40 years, that era's Western feminist critique of rigid sex-role stereotyping has prevailed. In many ways, it has eroded constraints that turned peaceable boys into aggressive men and stuck ambitious girls in low-paying jobs.
3 Feminists understandably have often shied away from scientific evidence that challenges this critique of sex roles. Because biology-based arguments have been used to justify women's subjugation, women have been reluctant to concede any innate difference. But, in view of recent scientific discoveries, has feminist resistance to accepting any signs of innate gender difference only created new biases?
4 The feminist critique, for example, has totally remade elementary-level education, where female decision-makers prevail: the construction of male hierarchies in the schoolyard is often redirected for fear of "bullying", with boys and girls alike expected to "share" and "process" their emotions. But many educators have begun to argue that such intervention in what may be a hard-wired aspect of "boy-ness" can lead to boys' academic underperformance relative to girls and to more frequent diagnoses of behavioural problems.
5 And education is just the beginning. An entire academic discipline emerged out of the wholesale critique of the male tendency to create hierarchy, engage in territoriality and be drawn to conflict.
6 This critique of "masculinity" dramatically affected intimate relationships: women were encouraged to express their dissatisfaction with men's refusal to "share" their inner lives. Women complained of not being heard, of men disappearing after work to...
Naomi Wolf June 6, 2009 (Well-known American feminist writer)
1 North Americans of my generation grew up with the 1970s children's record Free to Be ... You and Me, on which Rosey Grier, an immense former gridiron star, sang It's All Right to Cry. The message: girls could be tough, and boys were allowed not to be.
2 For almost 40 years, that era's Western feminist critique of rigid sex-role stereotyping has prevailed. In many ways, it has eroded constraints that turned peaceable boys into aggressive men and stuck ambitious girls in low-paying jobs.
3 Feminists understandably have often shied away from scientific evidence that challenges this critique of sex roles. Because biology-based arguments have been used to justify women's subjugation, women have been reluctant to concede any innate difference. But, in view of recent scientific discoveries, has feminist resistance to accepting any signs of innate gender difference only created new biases?
4 The feminist critique, for example, has totally remade elementary-level education, where female decision-makers prevail: the construction of male hierarchies in the schoolyard is often redirected for fear of "bullying", with boys and girls alike expected to "share" and "process" their emotions. But many educators have begun to argue that such intervention in what may be a hard-wired aspect of "boy-ness" can lead to boys' academic underperformance relative to girls and to more frequent diagnoses of behavioural problems.
5 And education is just the beginning. An entire academic discipline emerged out of the wholesale critique of the male tendency to create hierarchy, engage in territoriality and be drawn to conflict.
6 This critique of "masculinity" dramatically affected intimate relationships: women were encouraged to express their dissatisfaction with men's refusal to "share" their inner lives. Women complained of not being heard, of men disappearing after work to...