Thursday, February 28, 2008

Atavistic Regression

I think being a man in today’s world is a challenge. A challenge that is relished by men who can stand up and get counted and something that is dreaded by men who belong to a different century! Plenty has been written about how the brains are wired differently and how men and women differ. Going by these articles one is tempted to accept traditional roles and think that men go out to bring food and women stay back to procreate, rear children and socialize within the community.

But think of it this way, this is true as long as you stick to the roles. But the issue starts when women are increasingly expected to don male roles outside and also the women role inside the house. It has always been difficult for people who had power in their hands to relinquish that. Very few men in history have demonstrated that capability when it comes to greater good. Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Empire when he pretty well knew that he himself would be a victim of his action. But then he knew that it was mandatory for things to move forward. So it doesn’t surprise me when men who want women to earn do not want to give up the traditional role as the figure head of the family.

But some men take it to extremes. At this point of time the only difference between men and women is that men can’t bear children. So actually it is one up on women in reality. They can do everything men can do, but men can’t. Maybe that’s what is hitting the men hard. So, they are tempted to keep women in perspective ( according to them ) by primarily seeing them as sex objects. And that thinking transcends various levels. From a highly educated senior management person to the lewd men on the streets pawing on women at new-year revelries! Men talking to subordinates about their experiences in nude bars and be shameless to ask whether they own a bikini to men who wet themselves up and down by looking at women.

They can’t bear the fact that women could be equals. If their wives can’t stand in front of them with bated breath and whispering humbleness, serving food and finding undergarments for them when they return drunk, men find it difficult to accept. But they want the money they earn for improving lifestyles. And worse is that some men still believe that women can’t survive single. True that more men will hit on women when they know they are single, but I have the theory for that. Women become single by divorce are best suited to handle the situation. First because they have experienced how bad men can be, otherwise they would have managed to stay in the marriage, second they would have survived a mean man for a long period and handling other mean guys outside when nothing at stake will be cakewalk to them.

It all boils down to Atavistic Regression. The tendency to revert to ancestral type! Whatever you are, you tend to revert to being archaic and hold on to the views fashioned by your ancestors. But strangely, I don’t think women suffer from this. They look forward. Maybe repression is an antidote to regression.

Going back to the challenge men face today, it is nothing but, about being civilized. But then it was always men who waged war and raped women of the enemies, and for them civilization is a tough ask.

2 comments:

sidwho? said...

Wife liked the post - by default I do too :)

supersubra said...

//men still believe that women can’t survive single//

women on their own can survive alone. only we dont allow them to do so because we cant survive without them.