Few movies have been made that are more touching and thoroughly wholesome than The Bells of St. Mary’s starring Bing Crosby as Roman Catholic priest Father O’Malley and Ingrid Bergman as Sister Benedict. If anyone has missed this beautiful 1945 classic, you’ve got to treat yourself and soon.
In this movie, a little boy comes up with a black eye because the Sister advises him to “turn the other cheek.†Fr. O’Malley tells her “it’s a man’s world†and that he ought to learn to duke it out to some extent. The Sister fears she may be turning him into a “sissy†and teaches the lad some basic rules of fighting.
“It’s a man’s world†really means that it’s a world in which men are expected to take physical risks, a world in which men must learn to suppress fears and to ignore feelings of pain, both their own and those of other men, in order to protect women. “It’s a man’s world†really means the opposite: that it’s a world unforgiving of men who don’t want to take risks while permitting women the privilege of remaining as far outside the fray as possible.
Saying that men are socialized to violence is not quite accurate. What they are really socialized into is taking physical risks. Boys who are reluctant to risk their skins are often taunted as “sissies.†They have traditionally been razzed as “you girl†or “what a woman†by other boys. The implication is that boys must “prove†that they are “better†than girls – yet the ultimate purpose is to make them into men who will rush into danger, treating themselves as expendable, so women will not have to.
The same society that demands men be willing to accept violence against themselves and perpetrate it against other men in military combat has no patience for men whose violence spills over onto women. The famously flamboyant General George S. Patton, a traditionally masculine man if ever there was one, wrote in War As I Knew It, “I told him that in spite of my best efforts to keep it to a minimum, there would unquestionably be some raping and that he should let me know the details of all such incidents as soon as possible so that I could have the offenders properly hanged.†This statement is truly remarkable, especially coming from the General who went into a fury when soldiers said they were in the infirmary because of “nerves,†slapping them, deriding them as “cowards†and demanding they be “sent to the front lines.†Unbeknownst to Patton, one of the men he slapped was, at the time of incident, suffering from both dysentery and malaria and running a temperature of over 101. However extreme Patton’s actions, he reflected his society’s demand that men be violent and equally strong demand that they not turn their violence against women.
Japan is often thought of a far more solidly patriarchal country that just about any nation in the West. This is not without reason as women have historically been expected to walk behind men and make displays of deference and subservience to them. However, a Japanese man aboard the Titanic disobeyed the rule that he was supposed to stay on the ship to allow women and children first dibs on the lifeboats. He forced his way onto a lifeboat, perhaps taking a seat that would have otherwise gone to a woman. For refusing to get his lungs filled with water so a woman could survive, this man received hate mail from his fellow Japanese and was shunned by them.
The very idea of the “patriarchy†and it’s more prosaic formulation of the “man’s world†should be retired. No group that was truly dominant would demand that its members die so their subordinates could live.
