What Should It Mean to be a Man
While listening to this podcast, my thoughts percolated to past conversations about how impossible it can feel being a woman today, with the pressure to be fashionable and beautiful (perfect skin/body), be financially independent & accomplished, and to, all the same, quarterback the household (housework/kids). These days, you also have to care about the world!
In this world that continually demands more from our women, where traditional gender roles have blurred or are nonexistent, how are things changing for men? How are men coping with those changes?
I’ve been seeing the #MeToo movement as the declaration from women that they are truly the man’s equal. To stop just talking about how things are changing, but a statement that things have already changed.
In the book, Modern Romance, Aziz talks about how dating has changed because of the financial independence that women have gained. How the incentive behind marriage changed from finding someone that can take care of them, into more of a partnership. A partnership that more and more asks both parties to contribute to the finances, household duties, and increasingly, emotional support.
It may seem overly simplistic to correlate the #MeToo movement to changing marital patterns, but if you think about it, it does make sense that these two move in lock-step with one another.
Modern Dilemma Case Study: Heart Signal 2
The ideas around these marital patterns stuck out to me recently while watching this show, Heart Signal 2. Heart Signal is a show where 4 guys and 4 girls live together in a house for a month, for the express purpose of seeing if romance will develop. The most popular guy, Kim Hyun Woo (김현우) was deciding between two girls: Oh Young Ju (오영주) and Im Hyun Ju (임현주).
*SPOILER ALERT*
There were obviously multiple differences between the two girls, but the thing that stuck out to me from his exit interview was in how he described the girl he chose, Im Hyun Ju: “I know that she’ll do things well on her own, but (I like) that I can take care of her…and her laughter”
The other girl, Young Ju, is the modern-day it girl archetype: independent, physically attractive, and works at a good company. In response, he talked about how at first, it was a bit odd, but that he did grow to like that he didn’t have to take the lead all the time. Though in past relationships, it was the polar opposite, where he was always taking care of his girlfriend.
That statement from his exit interview, though, gives the impression that part of the reason why he was so drawn to the effeminate Hyun Ju was because he felt that she needed him more. But his inner-conflict was so apparent throughout the show, cause he talked about how he really wanted this next relationship to lead to marriage and that he felt that Young Ju was the right person to marry.
In a way, I saw his quandary as his brain on one side saying that she’s the right partner, but his heart on the other side still being more innately attracted to the girl that he could lead and consequently, feel more comfortable with.
The transformation of what it means to be a man
What Kim Hyun Woo embodied for me, is that struggle for men between these changing roles. Back in the day, men were the breadwinners and women the CEO of the home. But now in modern times, women have steadily taken on more and more & are now asking guys to do the same, to share the load in multiple facets.
What if the woman has a really bright future ahead of her? Do you still try to dominate the way in which she develops her world view? Limit where she could move in pursuit of her goals?
Society keeps asking men to lay down more and more of the role they grew up thinking they were going to have (and the consequences that come with that). Through the podcast, I felt them heading towards the question: how’re guys handling this change?
This partnership model is developing and men’s expectations are in turn, evolving. It can be shown by something as simple as this generational gap on who pays for the date:
But the more interesting statistic for me had to due with the concerns that men had:
I would be curious to see what these survey results would’ve looked like 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago, particularly on physical appearance. How much have these concerns changed over time?
If we correlate this with the concerns for the modern woman from the start, it’s interesting to me that physical appearance is so high on this list. The point being that for many, it seems you can’t just strive to be good at one aspect of your life…but you have to have it all.
An aside, but this statistic hits a little too close to home for me. As I look to re-enter the dating battleground 🔫 🔪 soon, my weight and physical appearance have become of paramount concern to me. There’s just that nagging part of me that attributes my lack of success in this realm to my excessive weight…but I love food too much 😢.
What does this mean for us all?
One perhaps unintended (or from another perspective: foreseeable) consequence of these changes is that there is more pressure to ‘perform’ on us, on both genders.
This hypothesis may seem out of left field, but I feel that the added stress in our society today (a good chunk perhaps from these changing gender roles) is leading to more mental health issues.
Not to say this movement can’t be good, but is this movement negatively affecting men? Is there an understandable underlying reason that some men are hating on women? Are we all striving for an unattainable state?
Think about how you’ve responded to change (particularly the negative variety). Change can be good, but sometimes it’s just as important to take care of those negatively affected and not just celebrate those who were justified and/or positively affected. To have an understanding that very few changes are completely win-win.
I’m not saying that this and other progressive movements can’t do immense good for our society, but it’s best to try and address the consequences from them, before there’s an equally strong movement against it.
From one perspective, one can say that it’s getting harder for us guys, but the case can also be made that it’s just bringing us into parity with the difficult women have had. Is more equality always the answer? Are gender roles bad? As times change, we need to be more vigilant about this kind of self-reflection.
