They say that if you “ride with horse thieves you will get “hung with them”. I wonder if the opposite might also be true: “if you ride with the meek and innocent you will get protected and pampered with them”. Of course, I am talking about chivalry (one of the prominent forms of anti-male sexism). When the media proclaims that 25 people are dead, and adds the sexist/irrelevant information that “many of the dead included women and children,” we can see how women are treated like special children by mere association while the deceased men are merely thankless “adults” who don’t deserve mention. It is ironic how the “white picket fences” symbolic of mostly male bread winning and earning look remarkably similar to the “white crosses” at Arlington cemetery that symbolize mostly male death and disposability. As they say, girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. Small wonder research shows that people like and care for women more than men (which was named by the researcher the “women are wonderful effect”. Some say this is progress. I say it is prejudice.
It is customary that a boyfriend must work hard to “impress” his girlfriend’s father by convincing him that he will “take good care of her” almost as if it is the father’s destiny to someday “pass the torch” of “fatherhood” to the husband so that he can continue to carry on the role of the “father figure” to the female (who is often expected to remain a child). The “adult husband” and “child wife” symbolism is evident when “overprotective” fathers (and some mothers) run a virtual background check on the boyfriend to make sure he is “suitable material” for his daughter in terms of what he can provide and care for his wife. Films like “Meet the Parents” reveal this anti-male expectation that males are often expected to be the protective and bread winning adults whose primary role is to accept the father’s torch and treat his wife as if she were a child.
By mere association, it doesn’t take long for the phrase “women and children” to become construed to mean “women ARE children”. As such, it is amazing how many examples there are that indicate how males are often expected to carry the torch of adulthood while females are often expected to be “given away” by her father only to be received by the welcoming hands of the new “surrogate father”….the husband. It is amazing how males seem to be socialized, manipulate, and brainwashed to “enjoy protecting women” just as much as females are socialized to “enjoy being protected by men”. There are a plethora of examples of how males are expected to be “responsible, heroic, disposable, protective, and bread winning adults” while females are expected to be helpless children or “damsels in distress”.
The examples of “husband as father” and “wife as child” are ubiquitous. I call them the five sexist “P’s” of manhood (which are actually somewhat similar to the 3 “p”s described earlier by Warren Farrell): Provide, protect, persist, pamper, and play-fair:
1. Fathers and husbands are each often socialized and manipulated to provide for others while wives and children are each often socialized to be provided for. This anti-male bias can be verified by the number of “stay at home” females compared to the number of “stay at home” males. The research by David Buss also sheds light on how males are objectified as success objects.
2. Fathers and husbands are each often socialized to protect others at their own expense while wives and children are each often socialized to receive the luxury of being protected, staying healthy, and being spared during threats of danger. This anti-male bias can be verified by the male-only draft, the work-fatality gap, suicide ratio, homelessness ratio, prison ratio, longevity gap, the greater number of war casualties, females being treated with kid gloves and receiving lesser sentences for the same crimes, and the greater emphasis in society placed on womens health compared to mens health. Warren Farrell’s “Myth of Male Power” covers many of these issues eloquently. In other manner of speaking, males seem to be socialized to “play the hero” while females are socialized to “play the victim”. It is telling that there is no phrase “take it like a woman” to guilt females into “knowing their place”. It is also telling that men are expected to feel “emasculated” if they step outside their restrictive gender role. It is also quite telling that “effemilated” isn’t even considered a word….which suggests that females face less pressure to “man up” and “suck it up”.
3. Fathers and husbands are each often socialized to persist and “take it like a man” and withhold their tears while wives and children often have the child-like permission to cry, complain, and demand attention. As they say: “big boys don’t cry.” Herb Goldberg’s “Hazards of Being Male” covers many of these issues eloquently.
4. Fathers and husbands are each often socialized and manipulated to pamper and bestow gifts unto others while wives and children are each often socialized to happily accept the gifts of comfort and pleasure. Bernice Kanner’s “Pocketbook Power” provides evidence of the female-dominated “spending gap”. Esther Vilar’s “Manipulated Man” is also an informative book about some of these disparities in “male giving” and “female getting”.
5. Fathers and husbands are each often socialized to play fair while sometimes “letting others win” while wives and children are each often socialized to accept special treatment, affirmative actions, handicaps, leeway, safety nets, and other perks of being “meek, helpless, and innocent”.
These are five examples of how I believe that husbands are expected to “carry the torch” of adult and fatherly responsibility. The phrase “daddy’s girl” is fraught with images of an innocuous and charming “tom boy”. The phrase “mamma’s boy,” on the other hand, is fraught with images of a dork who still lives with his parents and is a freeloader unworthy of receiving amorous affection from those with xx chromosomes. It is considered perfectly innocuous for a woman to say she wants to marry someone “just like her father”. If a guy said he wants to marry someone “just like his mother” he would probably be branded a pervert. There still seems to be a stigma about guys who want to feel nurtured, protected, and cared for.
I believe it is time for males and females to share equally the roles of responsibility and entitlement. Women are not children. And men are not “beasts of burden” (as symbolized by characters like “B.O.B. the Builder” whose first name coincidentally is an aptly spelled acronym). I call for a “new chivalry” where we pamper and protect men, women, and children equally in relation to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Gender roles hurt us all. And just because females, puppies, and children are supposedly more “cute,” “cuddly,” and “lovable” than men this does not mean things are morally correct. Everybody deserves to be loved.
It is a somewhat common image to see little girls dance on their fathers feet to emulate the “cute” persona of the proverbial “daddy’s girl”. It is interesting to note that in the film “Twilight” Edward (the boyfriend) allowed Bella to dance on his feet as if she were his child.
