Books about Men's Issues

[AMM]

Over the past few days, I've been reading some books by Terrence Real, a psychotherapist specializing in family therapy:

1. I Don't Want to Talk About It
2. How Can I Get Through to You

His central idea is that both men and women suffer under the Procrustean gender roles imposed upon them by society, but it is harder for men to give up their role because they are led to believe that their role benefits them, even when it doesn't. By "benefits" I mean that (a) they get what they want -- as long as what they want is what they are supposed to want, and (b) if they work hard, they get to be the one who does the beating up rather than the one who gets beaten up.

There are a lot of stories there that remind me of my own growing up -- getting picked on and teased and beaten up all the time, and the grown-ups telling me it was my own fault for not being tough enough to stop them. Basically, a pretty "normal" growing up.

There's one story that he tells in both books, about his son who as a small boy loved dressing up as "Barbie," until one day some of his (his brother's?) friends were over and he came out dressed up. Nobody said anything, but he saw the look in their eyes, and never dressed up again.

There's a lot more in these books, but one thing in them made me think of SkirtCafe:

He explains that women who reject their social role as underdogs are not as threatening to this social structure as men who reject their role are. If women want to be stronger, they're at least affirming society's basic value system: that being Top Dog in a dog-eat-dog world is what you should strive for. Men who reject this -- like the Hippies in the '60's, or men who wear skirts -- are saying that being Top Dog isn't worth anything, or at least not worth crippling yourself emotionally for. They're effectively saying that the Tough Guys have suffered for nothing.

To me, this explains why men in skirts make so many people nervous, especially men.

(Text in blue added on Jan 8 at around 13:00 EST)

[r1g0r]

well found, amm!

a simple & elegantly fitting (pardon the pun-ish reference to procrustes) analysis.

the only unfortunate thing about this idea is that it will only make sense to people who probably won't have a HUGE problem with dismissing gender stereotypes anyways.

the person who will hold on to the traditional "male dominant (good) / female submissive (less good)" ideals will NEVER understand or accept it.

ah, well. a perfect world would be boring, wouldn't it?

[JRMILLER]

AMM,
Good find!

Which of two would you recommend to start with?

[AMM]

Which of two would you recommend to start with?

It depends upon what you want.

I Don't Want to Talk About It is focused on men and men's gender roles and how it causes what he calls "covert depression," which is depression that manifests itself in defensive behavior rather than "feeling blue."

How Can I Get Through to You is about how gender roles damage marriages and similar relationships. He talks about both men and women, but it seemed to me that he spent more time on men's experiences and problems. One theme is that men rarely want to look at their problems or how they are affecting those closest to them until a crisis -- such as their wives wanting to leave -- makes not doing anything even more painful than doing something.

There is one scene in the second book that's interesting because it sort of reverses the usual male-female roles: a couple is with the (male) marriage counselor, and the counselor for the first time agrees with the husband and disagrees with the wife. She gets extremely offended, accuses them of ganging up and abusing her, and storms out, never to return to the counselling. It really struck me because it's almost a verbatim description of what happened with me and my (now) ex-wife one time.