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The Confused Male: Do women really want what they say they want?

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For many men the rapidly shifting landscape of gender roles and expectations can feel like a minefield. Here couple’s counsellor and insideMAN reader, Jennie Cummings-Knight, reflects both on the conflicted feelings she has about the new gender order and the mixed messages some women seem to be sending men.

In January of this year, I both witnessed and played a part in what was perhaps a typical incident of male confusion with regard to how to behave towards women in 21st century Britain.

I was on the station platform at Norwich after a football match, when the train came in after a long wait and a points’ failure. All the football supporters got on in a body, and I was left on the platform with one foot in the doorway. I asked the tightly-packed fans to let me on and they replied “there is no room”, so I called out to my husband who, already on the train, had not realised that I was still on the platform, and he pulled me on to the train through the crowd.

I was very annoyed at having nearly been stranded on the platform for the evening and I said in a loud voice, “I see the days of ladies first have long gone past!”  Suddenly there was a sheepish shift in attitude from the (mostly male) crowd of supporters. They looked around and found me a small jump seat to sit on.

It seemed that I had effectively reminded them of the manners of a bygone age and they had responded by instinct to a phrase that 30 years ago, everyone knew off by heart. It was an interesting moment!

Simpler times, clearer rules?

There was a time when men in the UK knew how society expected them to behave around women that they had personal relationships with — the rules were much clearer: They were supposed to be providers – to protect, to be good earners.

Men did not need to be good looking but they needed to be fit, active and in gainful employment. There was a tacit understanding that they probably knew more about sexual matters than most women and this was welcomed as long as the sexual experimentation stayed in the past once a commitment to a woman was made.

Women were considered to be the “weaker vessel”, and as objectionable as this is to contemporary sensibilities, they were nonetheless treated with a particular kind of care and respect, (in the majority of cases).

Women liked to be admired and noticed, but not usually for their successful careers, but more for their companionship, and their ability to provide a nurturing home environment and it did not hurt if their good looks were a factor too.

Things have changed… or have they?

Women apparently liked the fantasy of being “swept off their feet” by the confident and successful male — as long as he brought home a good wage and did not “play the field” that was pretty much all that was required. Children were welcomed as built-in likely by-products of the relationship, and a woman would be expected to look after the home and take the major share of responsibility in child care.

Now things have changed – or have they?

Women say they want to be equal with men – we say we want to be treated as strong and independent people – we no longer “need” the old fashioned “knight in shining armour” image – but is this true in your experience?

I personally remember the days of being “looked after” by men – (when they were viewed as emotionally tougher, physically stronger, and responsible for shouldering the main financial burden of the homestead) – with nostalgia.

Women say that they want to be admired for what they can achieve – not for how they look. But that’s not true for me, and therefore I suspect not for all women either. Yes, I want to be admired for what I can achieve, but that does not mean that how I look no longer matters. Far from it!

We women have also often complained that men take advantage of positions of power – but do we make the same mistakes?

Double standards

We want equal status in the workplace, but we like to run things the way we want in the home.

We complain that women are under-represented in high prestige jobs, but we stay quiet about the fact that it’s mostly men who do the most dangerous (e.g. tasks in the forces) dirty, (refuse collecting, for example) and low status (farm labourers, brick layers, etc.) jobs.

With regard to sexual advances, I have seen a certain hypocrisy at work, where men are increasingly accused of inappropriate behaviour, but where women think it’s OK to behave in exactly the same way themselves, and yet there tends to be a very different reaction than if a man were to accuse a woman of doing the same — the result for him would far more likely to be ridicule.

I saw a young lady one evening (it all happens at the train station, it seems!) offer her train ticket to the guard by sticking it in her cleavage and asking him to take it from there. He did so, but he was at risk (in my view) in this response because she could have accused him of being inappropriate later.

How is a man supposed to navigate his way through the complex maze of what women say they want, and what they appear to really want?

Let me know your thoughts!

By Jennie Cummings-Knight

Counsellor/Lecturer/Writer www.goldenleafcounselling.com

Photo: Colin Kinner/Flickr

Wanted: Stupid male writers to say why women are more intelligent than them. Paid.

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At the end of last week, as I skimmed through a few of the people I follow in twitter, I came across a tweet from a glossy women’s fashion magazine — it was a RT, honest — asking for single male writers for an article on what it’s like as a man navigating the desolate wastes of the dating scene. I added the bit about desolate wastes.

Anyway. Not only do I happen to fit very neatly into that demographic — and when I say neatly, that’s in the sense that a noose fits neatly around a condemned man’s neck – the 140 characters included the only four that matter: Paid.

What’s more, I optimistically thought to myself, as an editor for a men’s issues magazine, this might even be a great opportunity to reach out to a new audience of women and offer them an insight into what it’s like when the Nike Air Classic is on the other foot, so to speak.

So, I cheerily fired off a quick email: “Totes. Can do. Wotchuafta? How much you payin?” (Or words to that effect).

Clooney and Amal

This came the reply:

“So basically I need to find a single guy to write an opinion piece about deliberately dating women who are cleverer than him – hooked off George Clooney’s comments about Amal being smarter than him, and some new statistics also saying that men deliberately date women who are cleverer than them too.

“If this sounds like something you can relate to, and you’re interested, could you write me a few quick sentences about what you think on the subject and wing over a headshot, and I’ll pitch you to my editors this afternoon!”

Having read and carefully considered this offer, my first impulse was to “wing over” a couple of other four-letter words, connected with a couple of three-letter ones.

Instead, I decided to ask if I could see the research she was referring to, and having noticed they were also looking for a single woman to describe her experiences of dating, I asked what angle they’d be looking for in her dating story.

Teachers now mark down boys

For some reason they ignored my questions and said they’d found someone else.

Now, I know it’s a stretch to try and base some kind of devastating social commentary on this squalid little exchange, but let’s face it, it wouldn’t be the first time and it’s way too much fun for it to be the last, so just bear with me on this.

You see, I couldn’t help but notice that just the day before the magazine’s interest in smart women and stupid men, there was a major news story that addressed exactly the same stereotypes.

According to the BBC, an international report found that not only are boys falling behind girls in education across the globe, there is evidence of widespread prejudice against boys by teachers, who are marking down boys in comparison to girls, even if they are of the same ability.

Woman rolls eyes. Cut.

In another study in 2010, this prejudice was found to start very young, with both girls and boys believing girls are more intelligent than boys by the time they are seven or eight years old.

Meanwhile, there is the near-universal media trope in adverts, TV and film, of smart women and stupid men. (It’s so pervasive in fact, that there’s now a visual shorthand that tells us everything we need to know in a split second: woman rolls eyes. Cut.)

So why I wonder, would the editors of a women’s magazine think their readers would be interested in reading about men who fancy women who are more intelligent than them?

Could it be that the magazine’s readers now believe men in general are less intelligent than women, and despairing of finding a partner, want to be told there are men out there who don’t mind this intellectual power imbalance? Or perhaps, less charitably, these women like the idea of a nice-but-dim hunk, who looks pretty but won’t answer back?

Who knows. Whatever the reasons, none of them seem very pleasant for either women or men.

By Dan Bell

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How I became one of the UK’s top dad bloggers

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John Adams is one of the UK’s leading dad bloggers, here in his first post for insideMAN he describes how the casual sexism he faced as a newly stay-at-home dad inspired him to blog about fatherhood and why more dads should start to speak out.

This is an exciting moment; writing my first ever post for InsideMAN. I’ve been asked to make this a regular thing, which is fantastic news. On this occasion, the focus will be on my blogging activities and what it’s like to be a dad blogger.

Many people don’t really understand blogging. When I tell someone I write a parenting blog the reaction is often “oh, is it like Mumsnet?” There are incredible similarities between what I do and what mum bloggers do but, no, my activities are not comparable to the Internet juggernaut that is Mumsnet. I wish it were but I must concede I’m a long way off those dizzy heights.

Here’s some background about my blog, Dadbloguk.com. In 2010 I left my old job (and basically my career) to become the main carer for my eldest daughter, Helen. My wife continued to work full time and, with home life in my capable hands, her career has subsequently taken off.

As soon as I became the main carer, I noticed just how sexist the parenting world can be. I began to get very sensitive to the way people reacted to me as a father. I’ve had medical professionals inform me that I am “babysitting,” while on two memorable occasions I accompanied my wife to pre-natal appointments only to be completely ignored.

‘Nothing more than sperm donors’

I noticed a local childcare provider gave a lengthy interview to a newspaper in which she repeatedly stated her service was for “mums” and made no mention of fathers whatsoever. I also read a best-selling book from a certain education specialist that treated men as nothing more than sperm donors.

I could take no more of this. I launched Dadbloguk.com in October 2012, just a couple of weeks before my youngest daughter was born. Initially my aim was to write solely about my experiences as a man who is the homemaker and main childcare provider.

I wrote posts about the casual sexism I faced. I also called on men to rally to this cause as, ultimately, only we can change the parenting world. There is no reason for a man to feel out of place in a school playground and there is no reason why men should not work in childcare. I’ve written about both subjects and had great responses when I have tackled them.

Just to expand on that point, the early years childcare workforce in the UK is only 2% male. We hear a lot from Government ministers and other commentators about the glass ceilings women face in the workforce.

Shining a light

I don’t wish to make light of the barriers women face. Unfortunately, however, we don’t hear much from the same commentators about getting men to work in childcare, nursing or primary education. There is a big inconsistency in the way society considers these issues and being a dad blogger gives me an opportunity to shine a light on such things.

Over time my blog has evolved. I’ve learned more about blogging and the skills required to make my small corner of the Internet popular with search engines. These days I blog about all types of things; education, pregnancy, birth, looking after my daughters’ hair, how to ensure the children lead an active lifestyle and so on. Having invested in camera equipment, I also post photographic-focused blog articles and I will write product reviews and run the occasional competition.

One of my great loves is clothes and style. When I launched the blog I purposefully chose not to write about this as I thought it might be considered lightweight. Over time, however, I realised that mum bloggers have no issues whatsoever with writing about feminism one day and floral print dresses the next. I wanted to gate crash the party and so I added a men’s style section to the blog, plus sections dedicated to family days out and family finances.

‘Our numbers are growing’

The enlightened product and service providers are keen to work with bloggers such as myself. They recognise that a father’s perspective is very useful when marketing to families. Men are increasingly involved with raising their children so including dads in the marketing mix is the smart thing to do.

With a couple of years experience behind me and a broadened focus, I recently took the blog professional. It is now a source of income to me and one that I run at home from my dining table. It’s not bringing in millions so I shan’t be retiring and buying a condo in Miami any time soon, but it is great for fitting round the kids and makes a profit. Essentially this is a second career for me and I’m making a real go of it.

Quite a few mum bloggers have been running profitable, appealing websites for some time now. I think it’s fantastic, they write great, popular material and fit it round their family commitments.

Rather like nursing, childcare and primary education, the number of dads writing professional parenting blogs is tiny. That said, we do exist and our numbers our growing. Who knows, one of these days my blog might grow to the same size as Mumsnet. Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition.

Are you a new mum or dad who recognises the attitudes John describes? Are you a dad who’s got lots to say about their experiences? What do you think needs to change to change for mums and dads to be seen on equal footing by parenting and childcare professionals? Please tell us in a comment or a tweet.

More about the author:

John Adams is a married stay at home dad with two young daughters. He was previously a journalist and PR / communications professional but gave this up in 2010 to be a homemaker and look after the children.

In 2012 he launched a parenting blog focused on his experiences as a “man that holds the babies” called Dadbloguk.com. It was a success and he now writes for a variety of different publications in addition to his own blog.

Cision media monitoring database cites him as one of the UK’s five-most influential dad bloggers and he was shortlisted in the Commentary and Campaigns category of the 2014 Brilliance in Blogging awards.

If you want to read some fantastic dad blogs, we thoroughly suggest you take a look at http://lovealldads.co.uk which is essentially a show-case of fatherhood blogs. Run as a collective, there is also a weekly podcast during which fatherhood and parenting issues are discussed.

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Teenage boy tells Yvette Cooper why she has no right to re-educate young men as feminists

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Last week Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote in the Independent that boys should be taught in schools to “grow up as confident feminists”.

She said there should be compulsory education in schools to teach boys not to be abusers, in order to tackle what she described as widespread violence against women.

Her article is the latest in ongoing commentary and concern by leading political figures about a perceived culture of misogyny among Britain’s young men.

What has been missing from the discussion, however, is how boys themselves feel about being cast as potential abusers, who need to be re-educated about their masculinity.

We asked YouTube broadcaster Josh O’Brien, a 17-year-old sociology and politics student, to respond to Yvette Cooper’s statement.

‘Lad Culture’

The Shadow Home Secretary’s article, follows last year’s high-profile speech by Labour MP Diane Abbott in which she said Britain’s boys are growing up in a culture of “hyper-masculinity”, which she said is fuelling misogyny and homophobia.

Then in February 2014, following the banning of controversial pop song “Blurred Lines” by numerous student unions on the basis that it promoted “rape culture” on campus; the NUS held a summit calling for universities to tackle what it says is an endemic “lad culture” which normalises sexual assault of female students.

Meanwhile, the “Great Men Value Women” initiative has been launched as a pilot workshop for boys in London schools, to ensure that young men take an “active role in promoting gender equality”.

The workshops aim to “improve the experience of boys and girls at school and challenge negative gender stereotypes affect which a boys’ behavior, mental health and academic performance, as well as the ways in which they interact with young women”.

What do you think? Should schools be teaching boys to be “confident feminists”? Do you recognise a widespread culture of misogyny among Britain’s young men? What do you think is the impact on boys and young men of teaching them that they are potential abusers in need of re-education?

Josh O’Brien writes and makes youtube videos from an anti-feminist, pro MRM perspective. He has one novel currently released, Supercenaries, and is working on a gender issues book called “On Gynocentrism and Patriarchy” in his spare time. Watch his other videos on his channel and follow him on twitter @fruitbatob

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