Wednesday, September 21, 2005

I could just cry

Entry by Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon:

...there does seem to be a huge disconnect between a good deal of men and women. To put it not-so-politely, the famous alienation and ennui of modern people seems to affect men far more often than women, which is creating a sexual gap where there's a lot of really fantastic women and not enough fantastic men to love them. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but it certainly seems true.


Another big factor in all of this is that historically speaking, men really have been encouraged to seek identity through being superior to other people and this is an option that's just not realistic anymore for your everyday man. In the past, men could count on being superior to women, being both the boss of and the protector of the women in his life. Women's financial independence has basically pissed that away for a lot of men. The other option offered to men in our society is to Be Somebody--an athlete or rock star or something--and that's just not within most people's reach. Getting involved in your everyday life and finding meaning from that is sort of disdained in our culture. Taken altogeher, it's easy to see why there's a lot of ennui and alienation in American men.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.