Sex and Sensibility

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The cartoon above is one of a series drawn by the great American humorist James Thurber called The War Between Men and Women.  The idea of such a War has been around for quite some time, of course, whether in fantasy or as an actuality, but it seemed to take on a more virulent character in the 20th century as women acquired and exercised the right to vote and with the advent of feminism.

More recently, disputes regarding gender and its relation to sex and sexuality have further complicated matters.  Complicated them to such an extent that they may be beyond the understanding of an aged fellow like me, alas.  But, being shameless, I'll expound on them nonetheless.

Our endless fascination with sex has generated what seem to be significant and perhaps disturbing concerns regarding masculinity--what it is to be a man, how men should act, how they should behave, particularly where women are concerned.  In some cases, these concerns have had results I think peculiar.  The so-called "incels" strike me as particularly odd.  As I understand it, they're young men who've made a kind of lifestyle out of resentment against women for not satisfying their emotional expectations and physical needs.  It's a sadly unworthy to blame others for your perceived failures; sadder still to take a kind of perverse pride in doing so.

In addition, it seems that there's a new psychological or social condition called 'bigorexia" which is supposed to be taking over the lives of young men.  It's an obsession regarding muscularity, which apparently compels them to attend gymnasiums and workout constantly in order to develop as many muscles as possible, and so become more "manly."

Perhaps as part of the unfortunate resurgence of the Abrahamic religions, there's an increasing demand that women conform to "traditional" female roles.  One sect in particular champions "family voting."  The wife and mother, it's proposed, shouldn't vote.  Her role is that of homemaker and mother. The father and husband should vote on her behalf, and apparently on behalf of the children.   It seems to resurrect, as it were, the ideal of the pater familias.

As may be expected, those who think their masculinity and the masculinity of others are threatened, or being diminished, find disputes regarding gender roles and the existence of transgenders especially alarming; almost as alarming as the existence of gay people.  As a result, they actually fear that they may be exposed to them.  They especially fear that children will be.  They evidently think that it stands to reason that if they are exposed, they'll 

"turn."

Misogyny thrives in such a climate.  So does outrage.  So does pandering, particularly by politicians and pundits.  

Kipling wrote a curious poem titled If which it seems he meant to express what Victorians thought it was to be a man. If it does, a man was, to them, so extraordinary as not to exist, except perhaps as a Medieval knight and hero in fairy tales.  I wonder if he really thought he was a man as described in the poem. 

In our Great Republic, we have a love/hate relationship with the sexual act--more accurately with sexual conduct of any kind.  We love to have sex (or most of us do, in any case).  But we hate having to acknowledge it, or address it, except in limited circumstances, and most of all seek to judge the sexuality of others.  If we had any sense, though, when it comes to sex we wouldn't care what consenting adults do, or how they look or act, or what others may think about our sexuality and sexual conduct.  

Reflections on the Glass Ceiling

It's been some time since I posted here.  Much has happened worthy of comment, but I've felt no real desire to do so.  Call it a kind of disgust at worst, resignation at best.  Despite the fact that the presidential contest has become more interesting, I remain baffled by the fact that the Republican candidate remains popular with many of the voters here in God's Favorite Country.  It's a testament to the fact that a liar--not just any liar but a kind of titan or demi-god of lying, though the argument can be made that he's simply vastly deluded--can capture the hearts and minds of people who are citizens of our Great Republic. It doesn't speak well for us.

But I feel inclined to comment on the metaphor of the "Glass Ceiling" normally used to refer to a sort of invisible barrier which, wrongly, prevents certain people from achieving a higher place in the hierarchy in question.  More specifically, it refers to that barrier which will, presumably, be demolished if a woman is elected president of our Glorious Union.

The fabled Glass Ceiling figured in an earlier presidential election, as we all recall.  If I remember correctly a representation of it was on display, ready to be broken, at the campaign headquarters of Hilary Clinton on election night in 2016.  But while it seems her victory was anticipated, it remained unbroken.  Too much was taken for granted.

We males have historically been confused in our understanding of women generally, but especially in particular where politics and positions or events of importance are concerned.  It's interesting to consider whether our conception of them is most unrealistic and inaccurate when we become consumed by the belief that they are either inferior or superior to men; either better or worse than men.

If a Glass Ceiling exists preventing them from obtaining positions of power or importance, one would think it does because they're considered inferior in certain respects; or at least lacking in certain respects or by nature unable to be adequately concerned with certain matters.  But a Glass Ceiling also may be a barrier even when they're considered superior to men.

They have been considered superior to or better than men throughout our history in specific ways.  Most obviously they've been so thought of with respect to raising children and minding a home.  For a very long time that was considered to be their place in life, an obvious inference some thought from the fact that women, not men, bear children.  That view in itself would be sufficient to create a Glass Ceiling.

They've also been considered superior throughout our history, again in other specific ways.

Sometimes, this conception of superiority is expressed by implication, sometimes expressly.  Boethius, for example, portrayed Philosophy (capital "p") as a woman, come to chide him for his weakness when a captive of Theodoric the Great.  She recalled him to Philosophy, and the knowledge that success, fame, fortune, persecution and death were trivial things, like life on Earth in general.  She was the incarnation of Philosophy, the best of us, in his Consolation of Philosophy which he wrote while imprisoned.  It's to be hoped she provided him some consolation while he was bludgeoned to death by his captors.

Dante in his Divine Comedy was guided by the pagan Virgil through Hell and Purgatory, but of course a pagan could not enter the kingdom of heaven and so the woman, or spirit of a woman, named Beatrice was his guide in Paradise.  Beatrice may or may not have been based on the woman, also named Beatrice, Dante loved in a courtly fashion--which is to say not physically.  In any event she served to represent religious faith, grace, enlightenment and love as portrayed in this work, a higher being than Dante himself, and men in general.

Then there is Goethe, who ended his Faust with an idealized woman redeeming the protagonist, and the words "Eternal Woman (or the Eternal Feminine) draws us upward." (Das Ewig-Weibliche ziet uns hinan).  Woman is in a sense nobler, more attuned to God, wiser, more spiritual than man; a kind of goddess.  This is Goethe's Faust; Christopher Marlow in his Doctor Faustus ended his play by having him dragged down to Hell where he damn well belonged.

But this perception of women as better...sometimes much better...then men also serves to bar her from earthly affairs such as politics and business and the professions because she's JUST TOO GOOD.  A woman cannot bear with or make decisions regarding the matters and people which and who must be dealt with, let alone serve as a commander in war.  Hence women are precious, to be protected, put on the proverbial pedestal.

So the Glass Ceiling where women are concerned is the result of conceiving of them as both superior and inferior to men.  Kipling of course took a different approach.  He famously wrote that the female of the species is more deadly than the male.  This interesting view seems to be based on a portrayal of women as reckless and even fanatic in some respects and in some manner, related primarily to the protection of the family.  But again, this would disqualify women from reasonably making decisions that must be made in the world of affairs.

Perhaps we're just too enamored with categorizing in our thinking.  Perhaps this tendency is a kind of bequest to posterity by Aristotle, that Relentless Categorizer.  That hinders us in our acceptance of possibilities.  The Glass Ceiling may be broken if we can recognize each other as humans, far more alike than different.