As someone who was REALLY into her Catholicism for a hot minute...I totally concur. The literal church building couldn't open unless one of us female office workers was present. It was nuts.
Leaving the Church felt like leaving a the prospect of social connection. But the truth was, they didn't want my abilities beyond bearing kids (but FFS DON'T BREASTFEED IN CHURCH) and supplying said kids to their CCD classes. To be fair, they weren't that much into my husband either.
Unpaid labor from women is not okay. We are saying it is not okay and if society breaks down as a result, welp, it's good that I make a mean casserole and will feed my own damn family.
Preach!! I’m Jewish and I agree lol. I’m also am introvert who hates hosting and feels residual patriarchal guilt about it despite being a rad feminist who totally knows better. It’s the Kool-aid. It lingers long after you stop drinking. But I’m happy to read your words and I say, hear hear!
"Men need to figure themselves out" is the truest truth that any Substacker has truthed. Men also need to support each other in figuring themselves out, and not mock, demean, or shame them at the slightest sign of introspection and vulnerability. The Act Like a Man box is tiny and constricting, and we have to stop cramming and keeping ourselves and each other in it.
Here’s the thing--patriarchy has also mistreated men by creating that box and leaving them fewer sources of identity than power. Bad systems are bad for everyone whether they know it or not.
I want to put in a good word for some of the older men at my Quaker meeting. There’s one guy in particular who comes in early to set up the tea things every Sunday and he’s the guy who knows how to operate the laptop and sometimes he does door duty and he’s on a bunch of committees and...
There’s another guy on the Centre and Premises committee with me who just about hoards the odd jobs. He literally looked a bit worried about the working bee in case he might run out of jobs to do! I’ve walked in on him polishing the wood on the front doors with oil just for the sake of it. He will not stop!
These men are outnumbered by an army of older women, but they are there and they show up and I love them. Nor are they the only men who contribute. The male role models are out there!
Also, I have been attending for a year and a bit, and I know lots of people already. It’s a good community, I was lucky to find them.
I wonder if that is something particular to different meetings or if there is something about the equality and service stressed in Quaker belief overall that makes a difference.
It’s true! I was just run out on a rail from my conservative church, for not conforming. Yup. Got voted out by the elders. I thought it was for my affirming view of the LGBTQ community, but maybe it was because I quit serving the pancake breakfasts!
I moved 5 years ago. Took me over a year before I finally decided to join a church. It's a dicey proposition these days. I don't want to go to one of those churches that's light on doctrine. On the other hand, I don't want to go to the First Church of MAGA (as one of my friends so eloquently put it.) I like my pastor. I like the choir. Everyone I've met has been very nice. I decided to try and be more involved because as you note here, this is your community. And you can't really be a part of it just by sitting in a pew on Sundays. So, I went to one of those ladies' dinner things. You know the ones: bring a side dish, meet in the fellowship hall, we'll break you up into groups and you'll have dinner at someone's house. Sounded great. I got my assignment, and knew several people from choir. Dinner was lovely. I was slightly concerned when I mentioned a bout of Covid and was told "Oh, you should have made your doctor give you Ivermectin!" But I just smiled and let it slide. Dinner was pleasant. Conversation was normal. Then someone made a comment about her many years of teaching and how "none of the kids were ever confused about whether they were a boy or a girl!" Which of course led to a whole discussion on transgenders. I politely made my excuses and left. I didn't even disagree with what anyone said, I just didn't think that was an appropriate conversation for a church dinner. And I know if they're all that worked up about it where they've been getting their news from, and what their general political views are. Now, I'm scared to talk to anyone. What if they find out I voted for Biden? Will I be excommunicated? Our pastor has preached that what unites us is greater than what divides us. I agree with that - in theory. It's just hard to put into practice.
This is my Xennial perspective but agree with the author and I think it stems from male relationships in general. I feel like male friendships are more based around events and activities (sports games, DIY projects). I can ask my friends to just come over and chat and they may say no but tell them that I want to build a shed, chop down a tree or watch the game and everybody shows up. Heck even playing video games can get people over faster. I think men are not comfortable just being with other men. We are taught not to share our feelings so it leaves little to talk about. Having an activity makes things less awkward.
Honestly, that's fine! I mean ideally that kind of thing overtime would create more room for emotional support but --hey, this is still community. It also still takes initiative and some effort. And it can benefit larger community--chopping wood for one's family, doing yard work for the church, selling xmas trees with the Rotary club etc--The problem is--according to data--men are doing less of that, too, and especially after they partner up. Sustaining these kinds of relationships over time seems to be the issue.
My anecdotal evidence is that of my 15-year-old son and his buddies. They seem to have moved beyond the traditional gender roles in regards to their friendships. They call and talk to each other, get together to just chat and hang out, they hug and are affectionate with each other, and they even do some thoughtful things for each other. Now, they don't spend as much time in the kitchen* as my daughter and her friends do, but they DO love to make cookies for each other (it's kind of their 'thing'). And these are athletic, popular boys. They play soccer and mountain bike and play video games online when they can't get together in person. They wear hoodies and track pants everywhere. So, from my perspective as a current mom of teens, there is some hope for future generations.
*all the kids, regardless of gender, turn the kitchen into a total disaster area and rarely, if ever, clean it up before being asked at least 14 times, so that hasn't changed 😆
"And not surprisingly more men are lonely and sad. And when they lose their partners to death or divorce, they get really lonely and sad." My wife died last February after 55 years of marriage. I'm sad but not lonely; I have good relationships with my daughters and I have many friends. But you are righut about Christmas. My wife did everything except cut down the Christmas tree and put up the Christmas tree. This December I sometimes feel a bit clueless, but I'm managing. I'm going to get presents for family members. But I'm not going to send out Christmas cards with letters in them. I can't handle that.
I'm so sorry about your wife. Wow, after so long, that must be very hard. But you are very blessed to have a community around you. Statistically, many men do not. I hope your Christmas still brings some light for you. I know you will miss her in many ways. Sending you love.
Thanks for your note, Holly. My wife--Eva--was an awesome person whose conversation I enjoyed for 57 years--55 of them married. She was immensely energetic until she came down with brain cancer last fall. I am lucky to be close to my two daughters; I'm also lucky to have several close friends. I keep busy by playing a lot of tennis and writing. Nevertheless, Christmas without her will be hard. I have completed a memoir about our marriage called "Budapest and the Bronx:: Portrait of an Intermarriage." I'm looking for a publisher but I'll probably end up self-publishing it.
My small church is definitely a community. Women do most of the work, but it's mostly women, mostly old, anyway. If it weren't for the church, we would hardly know anyone in the state. We have a small group of ladies who go out to lunch most Sundays after the service, and we also do a potluck dinner every other Thursday. I must say though, it's mostly me who organizes it.
It made more sense when women were full-time housewives for them to do the social work -- not because they had more time, but because their time was more flexible. Now that women work outside the home too, there's not much time for anything. If I had the energy and health I had 20 years ago, it wouldn't be a problem, but I am much more limited now. our church is Unitarian Universalist, so not much conformity is expected. I sometimes preach too, and my sermons are largely about our morals and spirituality are based on Oneness, and therefore equality.
I don't disagree with any of this. But I'm seeing a fair bit of the word "lazy" in comments, regarding men, and I don't think that's accurate, or fair.
Just lately I've happened to witness several situations in public where there was suddenly physical work to be done - a car needing to be pushed, some furniture needing to be moved, some boxes needing to be shifted, that kind of thing - and noticed that immediately, men walking by would just pitch in, not waiting to be asked. I teach lip reading classes in seniors' residences, which usually involves some shifting of tables, and the minute I start to move things around, I've suddenly got a bunch of men doing it for me.
So I don't think it's laziness. I think it's men, especially older men, having been taught that moving the furniture is their job, and that inviting people that the furniture needs to be moved to accommodate is women's job. We've done a lot of work over the past fifty years or so about how we raise girls, and what we raise them to see as possible. I don't think we've done the same for boys, as much.
Sorry, this is likely to be a long, rambling comment, but I'm not really sure how to write what I want to say in a concise manner.
I'm Jewish, and I grew up in a Modern Orthodox family, although more Conservative practicing these days. My family was a bit unusual in that while I did go for religious instruction, I was also public schooled; most of the other kids in my neighborhood were either home-schooled or just fully went to religious private academies. And that gave me a very odd and I think interesting perspective. Because Orthodox Judaism, or at least the Orthodox Judaism as practiced by the community I was in, is VERY gender-segregated. Women did not do most of the organizational or social maintenance work for the very simple reason that they were banished to their own hall of the shul, and only ever came into the men's section on certain holidays. When I was an adult and got more involved in the day to day affairs, I even found we had two completely separate treasuries for the organization(s). However, the public school I went to, I think of all the teachers I had from K-6, I had two men, and they were a shop teacher and a gym coach, so none of the main academic subjects. There were a few more guys as I got older, but I don't think it ever rose to more than 30% of the faculty I interacted with.
So I grew up with two separate social/educational systems which were extremely different, one entirely staffed by men, and another that was almost but not entirely staffed by women. And they had hugely different social expectations. In fact, I remember one unfortunate incident that got me in trouble twice over for trying to apply the lessons of one to another. I got into a big argument with another kid because the globe in our classroom was in error and listed Sydney, not Canberra, as the capital of Australia. My home room teacher dressed me down for 'always having to be right' and not taking into account how the other kid felt; yes, you should strive to be accurate, but not at the expense of making other people feel bad, and it's more important to invest in that kind of emotional relationship. Stinging, when I went to my after-school religious classes at my synagogue, I got chewed out by a Rabbi for not vigorously defending my point when he could tell I wasn't convinced by my Talmud study partner's argument; you're not really doing your friend any favors if you're not striving to find the truth, pushing him to go as far as he can.
I still do maintain a robust friend group of guys; I have few female friends apart from my wife and a few family members who are all family first, friends second. And those friendships are very, very different. My male friendships tend to be far more hierarchical, with someone leading a given group or activity and others following; they also tend to be much more observational as opposed to directly interactive, and inner motivation tends to take a huge backseat to observable action. One of the silly, good natured 'arguments' I have with my wife will go something like she wants to change a plan we made, I say okay, she asks if I want to know why she's doing it, and I say 'not really'. That Harriet wants to do something different is good enough for me in 99% of circumstances, so the reasoning behind her changing her mind isn't really important. Of course, it's important to her, so now the 'not really' usually comes with a tongue stuck out or other sign I'm not serious, but I will confess to siloing away her reasoning for the decision in a separate and somewhat more abstract box as it's not connected to any decision I'm going to immediately make. "Harriet wants to do X" is still the primary motivator as far as I'm concerned.
And this is an extremely verbose introduction to what is really my main point. Male friendship with other men and male platonic friendship with women, at least in my experience, are very, very different from each other. And I suspect but cannot directly observe that most male-female friendships operate far closer to female-female friendship norms than male-male friendship norms. And I worry that we as a society try to cram square pegs into round holes, so to speak; that there is an attempt to force male social bonding by rules that are foreign to a lot of men. I don't think it's an accident that some of the worst functioning men in society, especially at making social connections, are men raised by single mothers, although I will concede that the weak economic situation that most of those families go through are also big contributing factors.
Now I don't know how much of this is innate to biology and how much is socially developed. Probably a little of column A and a little of column B. But I do think that you're overlooking some of the male social friendship maintenance work, because it doesn't look like that outside of a specific set of patterns that don't get exposed much. When I tell some of my friends that they're being stupid and I have a better idea, that really is an act to maintain the social bond, even if it's couched with an insult and one that is honestly meant at the time.
Thank you for sharing, this is a culture I know pretty much nothing about! I did have a liberal Jewish friend tell me that she felt envious of Orthodox Jews' stronger community, which she attributed to a greater insistence on conformity (much like with conservative Christianity). I don't think male engagement with each other or society writ large has to looks like female engagement--the issue is, according the data, they just aren't engaging very much at all. I'd say this particular sub culture that you describe is unusual by American standards or even compared to conservative Christianity. In my upbringing, men would engage when it brought them greater authority or visibility but otherwise, women tended to the social bonds of the community.
"I don't think it's an accident that some of the worst functioning men in society, especially at making social connections, are men raised by single mothers" I wasn't aware of this - do you have some sources for this?
I just want to defend we good for nothing men. And I will share this from the perspective of a man who has worked on loading docks 40 years ago (so no women there). And most recently I was part of a team at work that from 2012 to 2022 had no women. It was a small team - just 4, and were are all very experienced. When I left the youngest was 61. So.... we never ever celebrated a birth day, never had lunch as a team. Never decorated our cubicles. And no one ever brought in a cake or cookies to share. So if you leave men to their own devices .... well it is not clear that we would even wash. But bring in women.... and it gets so complicated.
Um, why can’t men do the work?! There’s nothing stopping them but low expectations. Any time I read a piece like this, I’m left wondering why everything, always, falls on women to do and/or is the fault of women doing x instead of y. Men are just as capable of buying gifts and maintaining social networks and organizing birthday parties. I know a lot of guys who are actually better at this than I am! But so long as we maintain the socio-cultural stereotype of the ‘dufus dad’ or ‘barstool sports bro’ men will be able to keep shifting these responsibilities off to others.
I am very late to this party, but I just have to say that you are exactly right. And God help those of us women who are not capable of participating in those “community-building events”. I was raised in that culture, and I can’t do it. The most personal thing I do is donate blood- seems very personal to me. But it isn’t a *community* event. I donate money to a lot of causes, but I don’t spend the time that seems to be pre-requisite. I spend a lot of time alone- and that really works for me. But that does not work for those who think I should do more…
I have sisters who bought into the culture, and they are exhausted.
My thought is that, pre-historically, while the men were out hunting and the womens were sitting around; after birthing the kids, making all the clothing, making all the necessary home implements, gathering all the necessary green goods, sweeping out the caves, and cleaning up after all the mens; they would get bored and say, “What should we do with all this free time? Oh, wait… look at that pile of leftovers! Let’s make a casserole!”
Dec 11, 2023·edited Dec 11, 2023Liked by Holly Berkley Fletcher
I’ve never been comfortable around other men, because of my experiences in school. The typical male practice of “ball-busting” feels like aggression to me. When I was younger, plenty of men subscribed to what I call homophobic McCarthyism, meaning gay until proven straight. Encapsulated in the movie Heathers - if you don’t have a brewski in your hand, you might as well be wearing a dress. And these days, my GenX demographic seems to be dominated by MAGA men (they may have been fans of Red Dawn and Rambo in their youth) and I’ve refused to grow a beard or goatee so I don’t get confused for one of them.
There’s another reason many married men may outsource their relationships to their wives. Men who grew up in controlling families often lack the interpersonal tools to balancing the competing requirements of his various relationships. Especially if his parents imply, or outright demand, that he put them first over his wife. Conflict-averse husbands might take the easy way out and scale back his outside relationships. That isn’t fair to their wives, not just because it throws the burden onto them of maintaining relationships with their husbands’ families, but also because it wrongly treats her as just as controlling.
“Especially if his parents imply, or outright demand, that he put them first over his wife.”
Oh, this one hits me hard. My husband’s mother passed away six months ago and not only is he feeling the freedom of not having to do many, many things for her (which I refused or passive aggressively ignored when she tried to get me to take them over) but he does so many more house chores despite having switched to a more time-consuming job. So many of our severe discussions (husband does not argue, not ever) early on revolved around me insisting that his first responsibility once we had a kid was to our little family, and if that meant Mom had to drive herself or pay for a service, that was going to have to happen. And I’m seeing him really bloom in being part of our town as well. I thought his whole thing with being taught to place her needs before his own or anyone else’s was unusual but I really appreciate your perspective here that it is not.
Im sure there are lots of individual reasons and variations. The male culture you describe is certainly not conducive to building healthy supportive relationships.
As someone who was REALLY into her Catholicism for a hot minute...I totally concur. The literal church building couldn't open unless one of us female office workers was present. It was nuts.
Leaving the Church felt like leaving a the prospect of social connection. But the truth was, they didn't want my abilities beyond bearing kids (but FFS DON'T BREASTFEED IN CHURCH) and supplying said kids to their CCD classes. To be fair, they weren't that much into my husband either.
Unpaid labor from women is not okay. We are saying it is not okay and if society breaks down as a result, welp, it's good that I make a mean casserole and will feed my own damn family.
Preach!! I’m Jewish and I agree lol. I’m also am introvert who hates hosting and feels residual patriarchal guilt about it despite being a rad feminist who totally knows better. It’s the Kool-aid. It lingers long after you stop drinking. But I’m happy to read your words and I say, hear hear!
"Men need to figure themselves out" is the truest truth that any Substacker has truthed. Men also need to support each other in figuring themselves out, and not mock, demean, or shame them at the slightest sign of introspection and vulnerability. The Act Like a Man box is tiny and constricting, and we have to stop cramming and keeping ourselves and each other in it.
Here’s the thing--patriarchy has also mistreated men by creating that box and leaving them fewer sources of identity than power. Bad systems are bad for everyone whether they know it or not.
AMEN!!!
I want to put in a good word for some of the older men at my Quaker meeting. There’s one guy in particular who comes in early to set up the tea things every Sunday and he’s the guy who knows how to operate the laptop and sometimes he does door duty and he’s on a bunch of committees and...
There’s another guy on the Centre and Premises committee with me who just about hoards the odd jobs. He literally looked a bit worried about the working bee in case he might run out of jobs to do! I’ve walked in on him polishing the wood on the front doors with oil just for the sake of it. He will not stop!
These men are outnumbered by an army of older women, but they are there and they show up and I love them. Nor are they the only men who contribute. The male role models are out there!
Also, I have been attending for a year and a bit, and I know lots of people already. It’s a good community, I was lucky to find them.
There’s so many great men!
I wonder if that is something particular to different meetings or if there is something about the equality and service stressed in Quaker belief overall that makes a difference.
It’s true! I was just run out on a rail from my conservative church, for not conforming. Yup. Got voted out by the elders. I thought it was for my affirming view of the LGBTQ community, but maybe it was because I quit serving the pancake breakfasts!
Same thing...uppity women
Good for you! Better churches are out there; don’t give up!
You are so right! I’m in an affirming church right now and loving it. It’s like breathing fresh air!
I moved 5 years ago. Took me over a year before I finally decided to join a church. It's a dicey proposition these days. I don't want to go to one of those churches that's light on doctrine. On the other hand, I don't want to go to the First Church of MAGA (as one of my friends so eloquently put it.) I like my pastor. I like the choir. Everyone I've met has been very nice. I decided to try and be more involved because as you note here, this is your community. And you can't really be a part of it just by sitting in a pew on Sundays. So, I went to one of those ladies' dinner things. You know the ones: bring a side dish, meet in the fellowship hall, we'll break you up into groups and you'll have dinner at someone's house. Sounded great. I got my assignment, and knew several people from choir. Dinner was lovely. I was slightly concerned when I mentioned a bout of Covid and was told "Oh, you should have made your doctor give you Ivermectin!" But I just smiled and let it slide. Dinner was pleasant. Conversation was normal. Then someone made a comment about her many years of teaching and how "none of the kids were ever confused about whether they were a boy or a girl!" Which of course led to a whole discussion on transgenders. I politely made my excuses and left. I didn't even disagree with what anyone said, I just didn't think that was an appropriate conversation for a church dinner. And I know if they're all that worked up about it where they've been getting their news from, and what their general political views are. Now, I'm scared to talk to anyone. What if they find out I voted for Biden? Will I be excommunicated? Our pastor has preached that what unites us is greater than what divides us. I agree with that - in theory. It's just hard to put into practice.
Ugh so sorry. Ugh.
This is my Xennial perspective but agree with the author and I think it stems from male relationships in general. I feel like male friendships are more based around events and activities (sports games, DIY projects). I can ask my friends to just come over and chat and they may say no but tell them that I want to build a shed, chop down a tree or watch the game and everybody shows up. Heck even playing video games can get people over faster. I think men are not comfortable just being with other men. We are taught not to share our feelings so it leaves little to talk about. Having an activity makes things less awkward.
Honestly, that's fine! I mean ideally that kind of thing overtime would create more room for emotional support but --hey, this is still community. It also still takes initiative and some effort. And it can benefit larger community--chopping wood for one's family, doing yard work for the church, selling xmas trees with the Rotary club etc--The problem is--according to data--men are doing less of that, too, and especially after they partner up. Sustaining these kinds of relationships over time seems to be the issue.
My anecdotal evidence is that of my 15-year-old son and his buddies. They seem to have moved beyond the traditional gender roles in regards to their friendships. They call and talk to each other, get together to just chat and hang out, they hug and are affectionate with each other, and they even do some thoughtful things for each other. Now, they don't spend as much time in the kitchen* as my daughter and her friends do, but they DO love to make cookies for each other (it's kind of their 'thing'). And these are athletic, popular boys. They play soccer and mountain bike and play video games online when they can't get together in person. They wear hoodies and track pants everywhere. So, from my perspective as a current mom of teens, there is some hope for future generations.
*all the kids, regardless of gender, turn the kitchen into a total disaster area and rarely, if ever, clean it up before being asked at least 14 times, so that hasn't changed 😆
I love this! I also see a long of good signs in general z
"And not surprisingly more men are lonely and sad. And when they lose their partners to death or divorce, they get really lonely and sad." My wife died last February after 55 years of marriage. I'm sad but not lonely; I have good relationships with my daughters and I have many friends. But you are righut about Christmas. My wife did everything except cut down the Christmas tree and put up the Christmas tree. This December I sometimes feel a bit clueless, but I'm managing. I'm going to get presents for family members. But I'm not going to send out Christmas cards with letters in them. I can't handle that.
I'm so sorry about your wife. Wow, after so long, that must be very hard. But you are very blessed to have a community around you. Statistically, many men do not. I hope your Christmas still brings some light for you. I know you will miss her in many ways. Sending you love.
Thanks for your note, Holly. My wife--Eva--was an awesome person whose conversation I enjoyed for 57 years--55 of them married. She was immensely energetic until she came down with brain cancer last fall. I am lucky to be close to my two daughters; I'm also lucky to have several close friends. I keep busy by playing a lot of tennis and writing. Nevertheless, Christmas without her will be hard. I have completed a memoir about our marriage called "Budapest and the Bronx:: Portrait of an Intermarriage." I'm looking for a publisher but I'll probably end up self-publishing it.
How lovely. That is such a wonderful record for your daughters and family to have.
My small church is definitely a community. Women do most of the work, but it's mostly women, mostly old, anyway. If it weren't for the church, we would hardly know anyone in the state. We have a small group of ladies who go out to lunch most Sundays after the service, and we also do a potluck dinner every other Thursday. I must say though, it's mostly me who organizes it.
It made more sense when women were full-time housewives for them to do the social work -- not because they had more time, but because their time was more flexible. Now that women work outside the home too, there's not much time for anything. If I had the energy and health I had 20 years ago, it wouldn't be a problem, but I am much more limited now. our church is Unitarian Universalist, so not much conformity is expected. I sometimes preach too, and my sermons are largely about our morals and spirituality are based on Oneness, and therefore equality.
I don't disagree with any of this. But I'm seeing a fair bit of the word "lazy" in comments, regarding men, and I don't think that's accurate, or fair.
Just lately I've happened to witness several situations in public where there was suddenly physical work to be done - a car needing to be pushed, some furniture needing to be moved, some boxes needing to be shifted, that kind of thing - and noticed that immediately, men walking by would just pitch in, not waiting to be asked. I teach lip reading classes in seniors' residences, which usually involves some shifting of tables, and the minute I start to move things around, I've suddenly got a bunch of men doing it for me.
So I don't think it's laziness. I think it's men, especially older men, having been taught that moving the furniture is their job, and that inviting people that the furniture needs to be moved to accommodate is women's job. We've done a lot of work over the past fifty years or so about how we raise girls, and what we raise them to see as possible. I don't think we've done the same for boys, as much.
Boom. you have cracked it. It's conditioning and a hangover from history.
(But some men are lazy, just saying)
some women are also lazy
Sorry, this is likely to be a long, rambling comment, but I'm not really sure how to write what I want to say in a concise manner.
I'm Jewish, and I grew up in a Modern Orthodox family, although more Conservative practicing these days. My family was a bit unusual in that while I did go for religious instruction, I was also public schooled; most of the other kids in my neighborhood were either home-schooled or just fully went to religious private academies. And that gave me a very odd and I think interesting perspective. Because Orthodox Judaism, or at least the Orthodox Judaism as practiced by the community I was in, is VERY gender-segregated. Women did not do most of the organizational or social maintenance work for the very simple reason that they were banished to their own hall of the shul, and only ever came into the men's section on certain holidays. When I was an adult and got more involved in the day to day affairs, I even found we had two completely separate treasuries for the organization(s). However, the public school I went to, I think of all the teachers I had from K-6, I had two men, and they were a shop teacher and a gym coach, so none of the main academic subjects. There were a few more guys as I got older, but I don't think it ever rose to more than 30% of the faculty I interacted with.
So I grew up with two separate social/educational systems which were extremely different, one entirely staffed by men, and another that was almost but not entirely staffed by women. And they had hugely different social expectations. In fact, I remember one unfortunate incident that got me in trouble twice over for trying to apply the lessons of one to another. I got into a big argument with another kid because the globe in our classroom was in error and listed Sydney, not Canberra, as the capital of Australia. My home room teacher dressed me down for 'always having to be right' and not taking into account how the other kid felt; yes, you should strive to be accurate, but not at the expense of making other people feel bad, and it's more important to invest in that kind of emotional relationship. Stinging, when I went to my after-school religious classes at my synagogue, I got chewed out by a Rabbi for not vigorously defending my point when he could tell I wasn't convinced by my Talmud study partner's argument; you're not really doing your friend any favors if you're not striving to find the truth, pushing him to go as far as he can.
I still do maintain a robust friend group of guys; I have few female friends apart from my wife and a few family members who are all family first, friends second. And those friendships are very, very different. My male friendships tend to be far more hierarchical, with someone leading a given group or activity and others following; they also tend to be much more observational as opposed to directly interactive, and inner motivation tends to take a huge backseat to observable action. One of the silly, good natured 'arguments' I have with my wife will go something like she wants to change a plan we made, I say okay, she asks if I want to know why she's doing it, and I say 'not really'. That Harriet wants to do something different is good enough for me in 99% of circumstances, so the reasoning behind her changing her mind isn't really important. Of course, it's important to her, so now the 'not really' usually comes with a tongue stuck out or other sign I'm not serious, but I will confess to siloing away her reasoning for the decision in a separate and somewhat more abstract box as it's not connected to any decision I'm going to immediately make. "Harriet wants to do X" is still the primary motivator as far as I'm concerned.
And this is an extremely verbose introduction to what is really my main point. Male friendship with other men and male platonic friendship with women, at least in my experience, are very, very different from each other. And I suspect but cannot directly observe that most male-female friendships operate far closer to female-female friendship norms than male-male friendship norms. And I worry that we as a society try to cram square pegs into round holes, so to speak; that there is an attempt to force male social bonding by rules that are foreign to a lot of men. I don't think it's an accident that some of the worst functioning men in society, especially at making social connections, are men raised by single mothers, although I will concede that the weak economic situation that most of those families go through are also big contributing factors.
Now I don't know how much of this is innate to biology and how much is socially developed. Probably a little of column A and a little of column B. But I do think that you're overlooking some of the male social friendship maintenance work, because it doesn't look like that outside of a specific set of patterns that don't get exposed much. When I tell some of my friends that they're being stupid and I have a better idea, that really is an act to maintain the social bond, even if it's couched with an insult and one that is honestly meant at the time.
Thank you for sharing, this is a culture I know pretty much nothing about! I did have a liberal Jewish friend tell me that she felt envious of Orthodox Jews' stronger community, which she attributed to a greater insistence on conformity (much like with conservative Christianity). I don't think male engagement with each other or society writ large has to looks like female engagement--the issue is, according the data, they just aren't engaging very much at all. I'd say this particular sub culture that you describe is unusual by American standards or even compared to conservative Christianity. In my upbringing, men would engage when it brought them greater authority or visibility but otherwise, women tended to the social bonds of the community.
"I don't think it's an accident that some of the worst functioning men in society, especially at making social connections, are men raised by single mothers" I wasn't aware of this - do you have some sources for this?
Im also skeptical here.
I just want to defend we good for nothing men. And I will share this from the perspective of a man who has worked on loading docks 40 years ago (so no women there). And most recently I was part of a team at work that from 2012 to 2022 had no women. It was a small team - just 4, and were are all very experienced. When I left the youngest was 61. So.... we never ever celebrated a birth day, never had lunch as a team. Never decorated our cubicles. And no one ever brought in a cake or cookies to share. So if you leave men to their own devices .... well it is not clear that we would even wash. But bring in women.... and it gets so complicated.
LOL! thanks for the guffaw!
Um, why can’t men do the work?! There’s nothing stopping them but low expectations. Any time I read a piece like this, I’m left wondering why everything, always, falls on women to do and/or is the fault of women doing x instead of y. Men are just as capable of buying gifts and maintaining social networks and organizing birthday parties. I know a lot of guys who are actually better at this than I am! But so long as we maintain the socio-cultural stereotype of the ‘dufus dad’ or ‘barstool sports bro’ men will be able to keep shifting these responsibilities off to others.
I am very late to this party, but I just have to say that you are exactly right. And God help those of us women who are not capable of participating in those “community-building events”. I was raised in that culture, and I can’t do it. The most personal thing I do is donate blood- seems very personal to me. But it isn’t a *community* event. I donate money to a lot of causes, but I don’t spend the time that seems to be pre-requisite. I spend a lot of time alone- and that really works for me. But that does not work for those who think I should do more…
I have sisters who bought into the culture, and they are exhausted.
Making casseroles IS fun.
My thought is that, pre-historically, while the men were out hunting and the womens were sitting around; after birthing the kids, making all the clothing, making all the necessary home implements, gathering all the necessary green goods, sweeping out the caves, and cleaning up after all the mens; they would get bored and say, “What should we do with all this free time? Oh, wait… look at that pile of leftovers! Let’s make a casserole!”
I’ve never been comfortable around other men, because of my experiences in school. The typical male practice of “ball-busting” feels like aggression to me. When I was younger, plenty of men subscribed to what I call homophobic McCarthyism, meaning gay until proven straight. Encapsulated in the movie Heathers - if you don’t have a brewski in your hand, you might as well be wearing a dress. And these days, my GenX demographic seems to be dominated by MAGA men (they may have been fans of Red Dawn and Rambo in their youth) and I’ve refused to grow a beard or goatee so I don’t get confused for one of them.
There’s another reason many married men may outsource their relationships to their wives. Men who grew up in controlling families often lack the interpersonal tools to balancing the competing requirements of his various relationships. Especially if his parents imply, or outright demand, that he put them first over his wife. Conflict-averse husbands might take the easy way out and scale back his outside relationships. That isn’t fair to their wives, not just because it throws the burden onto them of maintaining relationships with their husbands’ families, but also because it wrongly treats her as just as controlling.
“Especially if his parents imply, or outright demand, that he put them first over his wife.”
Oh, this one hits me hard. My husband’s mother passed away six months ago and not only is he feeling the freedom of not having to do many, many things for her (which I refused or passive aggressively ignored when she tried to get me to take them over) but he does so many more house chores despite having switched to a more time-consuming job. So many of our severe discussions (husband does not argue, not ever) early on revolved around me insisting that his first responsibility once we had a kid was to our little family, and if that meant Mom had to drive herself or pay for a service, that was going to have to happen. And I’m seeing him really bloom in being part of our town as well. I thought his whole thing with being taught to place her needs before his own or anyone else’s was unusual but I really appreciate your perspective here that it is not.
Im sure there are lots of individual reasons and variations. The male culture you describe is certainly not conducive to building healthy supportive relationships.