Relating with men!.. & apology to TL

First I want to apologise to Travelling Lady for not realising that continuing with my questions would get her interesting thread closed down. Sincere apologies TL!!! I am new here and still learning, but didn't listen well enough to you caution.

Secondly, for me that thread was making me think hard about how I do and don't relate regarding conventional gender roles between men and women.

It was odd to realise that despite engagement in all of the women's liberation movements my relations to men have STILL been conditioned by whether I am cute enough and whether I can perform domestic services.

I was employed successfully in a male-dominated industry without being aware of discrimination - but listening to women here talking about their personal relations with men, or in some of our cases personal non-relations with men...

I realise that my somewhat questioning, wild-minded personality has partly been conditioned STILL by the fact that I wasn't born as beautiful as my father expected me to be, and growing up I wasn't as beautiful as my best friend, and my mother wasn't as beautiful as my best friend's mum.

I thought that I'd rejected those roles - because I couldn't be best at them - and made my way in the world otherwise. But retiring from work has made me realise that socially... I still play out the role of dressing up and cooking for men and I long to be seen instead as "ME".

Please feel free to ignore me, or whatever. I am genuinely sorry for my responsibility in getting an interesting thead shut down.

I don't at all disrespect women who stay at home and bring up children. I am simply reflecting that odd circumstances - like the male gender's general expectations about looks and cooking - might determine the whole course of our lives STILL.

Is this a gross generalisation? I'm dying to hear about exceptions. Is it possible to be valued by the male population as "ME" rather than as some …. standard or non-standard female icon?

How do you see your identity as a woman?
Did your form that identity through agreeing or through resistance?

Was your acceptance of/ or resistance to gender type-casting a choice, or a reaction to what was on offer to you at the time?

How do you be YOU in your relations with me ? Or is this only my personal issue as a result of childhood wounding?

I added my responses in the quotes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by saidso It was odd to realise that despite engagement in all of the women's liberation movements my relations to men have STILL been conditioned by whether I am cute enough and whether I can perform domestic services.

For years and years I was like this, still am a little. I tend to handle the "homemaker" duties but part of that is because I do not work so it makes sense that I would. One thing that helped me with my identity was college. I got married when I was 20 and a sophomore in college. I had my son and went back to school the following fall when I was 21.5. I worked and finished my degree in Literature. I have no idea how I did it because I hardly slept but I was young. Being educated with a degree helped me not feel so dependent on my husband-even though I am. It made me feel like I had the ability to do something if I had to. I have three kids and stopped working when I turned 26 # for the bipolar and adhd and 2# because I couldn't afford daycare for three kids. I am glad I was there for them and I did qualify for disability. I am faced with a predicament now though. My youngest is 15 and the older two are doing their own thing and I am revaluating what my purpose is. She will graduate in 2 years and probably go to school and then what? I havent much of an identify beyond mom and wife. But I am 43, not to old to do something meaningful. I did take an intro to teaching course this fall but I had to drop it because my 22 year old son had a stroke. Now I need to decide if I can do it all over again.

Quote:

I realise that my somewhat questioning, wild-minded personality has partly been conditioned STILL by the fact that I wasn't born as beautiful as my father expected me to be, and growing up I wasn't as beautiful as my best friend, and my mother wasn't as beautiful as my best friend's mum.

I hope you realize that cute and beautiful is subjective and you are probably gorgeous but can't see it. How old are you?

Quote:

I thought that I'd rejected those roles - because I couldn't be best at them - and made my way in the world otherwise. But retiring from work has made me realise that socially... I still play out the role of dressing up and cooking for men and I long to be seen instead as "ME".

Are you of retirement age or did you just stop working? What did you do?

Quote:

I don't at all disrespect women who stay at home and bring up children. I am simply reflecting that odd circumstances - like the male gender's general expectations about looks and cooking - might determine the whole course of our lives STILL. Is this a gross generalisation? I'm dying to hear about exceptions. Is it possible to be valued by the male population as "ME" rather than as some …. standard or non-standard female icon?

Until I got sober I didn't completely know myself. I was hiding it and destroying it with alcohol. Getting sober helped me to see my own value better. I still have days where I feel like "just" a housewife but those days are few now. I am at a point where I need to pick a path. Stay home and improve my housewife skills and continue volunteering or try for a career. That's the other thing I wanted to mention-volunteering. Its so rewarding. And nothing helps build your sense of self better than finding a need and filling it expecting only personal growth in return. Because of AA I do a lot of work with the women's prisons and those girls are really grateful because someone is actually giving 2 sh*ts about them.

Yes, we're talking about roles and gender in general and nothing about sexist possibilities on internet sites.

My mom and dad had a reasonable idea of roles for their day and time. My mom cooked and cleaned, but she also did some physical things like mow the lawn with a riding mower (she enjoyed that), painting things around the house, etc. My dad was a farmer but he also helped take care of my sister and me. And he helped my mother in other ways when she needed it. And my mother helped him on the farm.

I'm not great cook, and I just did it to play a role in our house. My husband sometimes helped cook, too. And I liked to mow the lawn, etc.--and my husband changed many a diaper, tended the children sometimes, etc. And I tried to support him in his work.

And, as I mentioned before, I moved to part-time work after our first child was born. I think someone needs to help keep the home fires burning. Some men are fine with being house husbands, but I'm not sure many of them are.

If something happened to my husband, I couldn't remarry a man with traditional expectations about the "little woman" at home. Yuck!

Yes definitely prefer open minded man who accepts that wome want to work and be independent. Recently I’ve been trying to date some and just feel frustrated at the lack of respect I’m getting from men I’ve been meeting. Hope I can meet someone who shows me respect and who I have some things in common with such as funny movies, staying fit and watching cooking shows. Ok realistically two people can’t have everything in common, but I meet guys online who are so disrespectful and it’s very discouraging.

I have a hard time with men who think they are superior to women. I think I'd turn such men off, though, because I have a Ph.D. and was a college professor. I still miss teaching. I had to give it up because of the side effects of the meds I take for bipolar.

Hi everyone THANK YOU!
I've been digesting the first two responses while more seem to have arrived. Loved Healing4Me's account of having a "hippie dad" . Thought about SarahSweets volunteer work in prison with AA and about her question re my work - sigh - mentally listed the zillion jobs that I did between 16 yrs old and 29 when I started my degree... but realised that I was side-tracking because for me what I did at work was earn money for rent and food, and not really about me as a woman at all.

I grew up with a workaholic and became a workaholic is probably the sum of it. Now for the first time since I was 16, I'm not working so I need to face who I "really" am.

Do you think that having a family at the centre of you life makes you more secure as a woman? Or perhaps there are, like me, bits of security and edges of insecurity when you come up to them. I've been lonely since I stopped work: not alone but lonely for being valued in some alternative way to working!!!

I did see a young couple today where the woman was wearing jeans and jeans jacket and the guy was wearing spangled tights!!! They looked so happy hand in hand. Sorry, but that seems like the world I would like to live in - freedom for both genders to choose to act tough or to act soft. Like the 60's but more real this time.

I did live in that kind of world for a short while in my twenties, but those people coupled up had kids and fell into the routines of school and commuting. Now most of my male contemporaries are hugely overweight and drink themselves silly all the time.

I really would like to be valued by men for some personal characteristics: courage, integrity, innovativeness, humour, caring, laughter... to do creative things together. I want to find joy in gendered relationships?

funny movies, keeping fit and watching cooking shows together sounds like a good start Zapatoes!!!

What would you like men to value you for???

my mind, my sense of humor, and I do hope, my overall physical attractiveness (I know, boo on that)

This is a great thread. I want to reply, but forgive me for doing it in pieces here and there. Too much to say...

It’s completely understandable where the root of your feelings comes from. It sounds like you are dealing with feeling your father felt you weren’t beautiful enough (for him?).

“ the women's liberation movements my relations to men have STILL been conditioned by whether I am cute enough and whether I can perform domestic services. “

Many downright unattractive people have romantic relationships. One can always hire help. It’s not about the domestic services, either.

I also have father issues from childhood as mine was MI and died young.

It’s that Electra stage of development where this all went awry perhaps?

As for traditional roles and romantic relationships, it was encouraged by my mother in me from as young as I remember. Plus, I took to the whole femme fatale thing really naturally. I really had crushes and romantic feelings for the boys; wanted to kiss and hug, cuddle with them. I loved being one of the boys, too, and would get into mischief with them.

By the time I was serious enough to be cooking and cleaning with a romantic partner, the cooking was merely a necessity. Who else was going to do it? I took the initiative. They never even attempted to cook. There was never even a discussion about it. It all just fell traditionally into place.

As for feeling all those things from men like being appreciated, I have had many moments where something wonderful like that has happened. They are scattered moments, randomly through life. I’ve had a whole lot of being unappreciated too.

It’s been no bed of roses. That’s why I’m here.

Not everybody is going to do everything others do in life. The important feeling to give ourselves is the satisfaction we pushed ourselves to be our best in whatever we want to do.

My husband is what I needed and wanted in a man, and I feel blessed to have him. He's not perfect, but neither am I. I try to be a good wife, and yes, I compliment him and admire his body, because he needs and wants that. It's not an act on my part. And I don't downplay my smarts, and I think he appreciates having a wife who's not as dumb as a post.

I am distressed by women who are the man hating, anatomy busting types. I know some of them have been abused, but I don't think all men deserve mistreatment.

My mom was not comfortable with my dad complimenting my sister's and my looks and that type of thing.

Hi Saidso. I appreciate your insights and openness to various opinions.

Some people have stated that women who go into resistance movements present a victim mentality.

But some of these women were victims (of abuse, harassment, discrimination, etc.) in reality, and not in their minds. So how can they say that they have a victim "mentality"?

When I confided in my fellow woman about a real discrimination, she dismissed my concern saying, "Well, we don't want to have a victim mentality."

My identity as woman is unique. I don't want or need to be a man, or be like a man, because I have special traits and qualities that they don't have.

I also don't want men to expect me to be like them. I want to be accepted for who I am.

I felt valued in all the ways one would want to feel. Yet I had a series of relationships that ended for other reasons. I told myself they just were not the right one.

Then I got into a long term marriage that had one major struggle that became my downfall. Yes, this struggle made me feel I was not truly loved and valued. I’ve since been diagnosed with MI/disorders due to my reaction and obsession with this problem.

Maybe the problem with men really lies with me.

Thanks for all these thought-provoking replies. It's very valuable to me to see how diverse our choices are as women, yet we can be supportive to each other.

I wondered whether anyone would react to my "young man in spangled tights" comment, lol, as in "yeah, great for the young but not older than 30", or "no way!"

Please keep comments coming. I'm going to be off the net for a few days, but "watching" my reactions to men around me as I visit with friends.

Ennie, I wasn't commenting about resistance movements. I was observing that as much as I've lived women's lib. I still have a lot of conservative gender stereotypes stuck in my brain some place.

I agree that woman have special characteristics as women - we are wired differently - but I also think that women could be way more individual in everything if only.... if only something...

TishaBuv - I don't know what is Electra, but I've read most of the theories and don't find them helpful in intimate things. Relating seems so much like ping pong - he pings, I pong - I mean it's what one person puts out and how another person reacts with their stuff. So I believe in reflecting on how I behave as a woman and what I put out there - and acknowledging that a lot is totally irrational.

I'm happy to know that you have felt valued at a collection of random moments!

TL - lovely to hear your reflections!

SarahSweets - Your visiting women in prison is very special! I would like to hear more about that. People on the edge of our societies often have insights and offer particular challenges: methinks you have something special to offer going on from there.

Best wishes to you all! I will be following this thread with my inner consciousness if not actively with my computer.

BIG HUGS to those who take them!

I agree with you. I’m tired of all the man-hating. And I’m also tired of women feeling they have to be cute or they’re “less than” for staying home. That comes from advertising and media in my opinion. It’s all about selling something and making money and I don’t think it’s just men driving that. Most men I know love their wives for who they are and don’t pressure them about their appearance and quite frankly I want nothing to do with the kind of men who would do otherwise. I have a friend who makes more than twice as much money as her husband and she wouldn’t put his name on their home loan for that reason. She freely admits she has a double standard because if roles were reversed and he made twice as much as her, she would expect to have her name on the home loan. I think there’s just too much hate going on these days and it’s not my cup of tea.

People tell me that it takes two incomes to have a reasonable lifestyle these days. That's something that a couple needs to talk about before marriage. I just couldn't handle working at home all the time. I did feel I had something else I needed to do--teach. And I still miss teaching, now that I'm disabled and can't.

Yes, the media put down women who choose the "housewife" occupation, but as I said, I think it's a good job. Yet, when little girls are asked what they want to be when they grow up now, they aren't expected to say "housewife" and will probably get flak if they do.

There were the so-called bra burners back in the day. Women can or can not wear bras as they so choose now. There's even a thread about it here currently I just don't like the male attitude that women are stupid and not smart enough to work outside the home. Baloney!

“Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, by Frederic Leighton, c.1869
In Neo-Freudian psychology, the Electra complex, as proposed by Carl Jung in his Theory of Psychoanalysis[1][2], is a girl's psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father. In the course of her psychosexual development, the complex is the girl's phallic stage; a boy's analogous experience is the Oedipus complex. The Electra complex occurs in the third—phallic stage (ages 3–6)—of five psychosexual development stages: “

Much develops at this stage, and when messages formed at this age messed with our perceptions of self, it explains a lot of issues we continue with through life.