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Boys and Girls
3/12/09 10:30It seems that every year some very wrong man in the public eye will claim that women are invading and despoiling their male territory. It seems they believe that everyone is gagging for more of the ‘by claiming their feminist rights women are emasculating men with rusty scissors’ argument. Excuse me while I yawn in an ostentatiously rude manner.
I absolutely don’t agree that men should get dibs on any field they feel is traditionally manly, just because it has always been a male arena. If we let that go on then all women would end up back in the kitchen, or nursery – those being the two most ‘traditionally female’ areas. But these irrational arguments are miles away from the idea that some more sensible men express; that men need society to provide a space for culture and literature about issues that are specifically male, for example what it means to be a man, biological male stuff, or friendships between men. I tend to think that women need a specific cultural space which examines femaleness with all its variations and specific experiences, so, in my opinion, in an equal society men need the same kind of space.
I’m only twenty four, I’m still figuring things like this out and this issue especially brings up conflicting ideas in my head. For instance, how can these kind of spaces be created without accidentally building exclusionary, literary ghettos? Is it necessary for authors to write books that focus on one gender’s issues, or can a book successfully examine gender issues from both sides? Do genres that have been traditionally designated 'male' (eg. historical war fiction) and 'female' (eg. chick-lit) do a good job of addressing shifting definitions of what being a man, or a woman means, or are they repeating and reinforcing old cultural expectations about gender? Do these genres create the aforementioned ghettos, or are they in fact already the cultural space I'm thinking of?
I’d like to throw the discussion over to you guys and ask what you think about literature (and broader culture) that seeks to help a specific gender explore itself. Is it necesary, does it even exist and if it does how successful is it? I’d be so interested to hear what anyone has to say about this.
I absolutely don’t agree that men should get dibs on any field they feel is traditionally manly, just because it has always been a male arena. If we let that go on then all women would end up back in the kitchen, or nursery – those being the two most ‘traditionally female’ areas. But these irrational arguments are miles away from the idea that some more sensible men express; that men need society to provide a space for culture and literature about issues that are specifically male, for example what it means to be a man, biological male stuff, or friendships between men. I tend to think that women need a specific cultural space which examines femaleness with all its variations and specific experiences, so, in my opinion, in an equal society men need the same kind of space.
I’m only twenty four, I’m still figuring things like this out and this issue especially brings up conflicting ideas in my head. For instance, how can these kind of spaces be created without accidentally building exclusionary, literary ghettos? Is it necessary for authors to write books that focus on one gender’s issues, or can a book successfully examine gender issues from both sides? Do genres that have been traditionally designated 'male' (eg. historical war fiction) and 'female' (eg. chick-lit) do a good job of addressing shifting definitions of what being a man, or a woman means, or are they repeating and reinforcing old cultural expectations about gender? Do these genres create the aforementioned ghettos, or are they in fact already the cultural space I'm thinking of?
I’d like to throw the discussion over to you guys and ask what you think about literature (and broader culture) that seeks to help a specific gender explore itself. Is it necesary, does it even exist and if it does how successful is it? I’d be so interested to hear what anyone has to say about this.