Where I'm trying to get to...

I am thinking that there is an opportunity for men and women to work together to better understand and appreciate the qualities of one-another’s genders. And I have a sincere hope that we are able to do so. The concepts I would love to get beyond are embodied in two quotes, below:

"Don't even try to understand women"
- anon

and

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."
- often attributed to Gloria Steinem, but actually originally written by Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician


I would dearly love to begin to understand women, and would like to feel that in the eyes a woman, we are, as a sex, less superfluous than the proverbial fish.

Some musing on men and women as we live through our 40s

I appreciate (I was going to say "understand," but perhaps that is claiming too much,) and have observed the fierce strength with which mothers prioritize their children ahead of all else. I have seen it in Becky, and also in other (female) friends. It's an amazing thing, and something that I think men have no equivalent to.

But for every Ying, there is a Yang. I think our roles as men and women are very different, and I think both are critical to our children, and ultimately, perhaps to each other. Women, among their roles, love, and protect and nurture... and I think we (men) have a role to play as well. To push, and dare and urge children out of their comfort zones (again among other roles.) I think that women sometimes see this an assault on their own efforts to protect... but I think there is a role for us (men) in teaching our children that life is not always safe, and sometimes you have to take chances and risks... and there will not always be a mom to turn to. Though, as a friend argued vociferously (and convincingly,) neither gender has a monopoly on bringing those qualities to parenting.

And I am beginning to think that we (men) may also have the opportunity to play a role with women of our age as they move beyond being mothers. Perhaps it will be a chance for them to re-discover and re-define themselves AFTER being mothers. Maybe that re-definition is one where women become happy with themselves because they are fed up with trying to live up to men’s expectations.

A sad commentary on men, if we drive women to a place where that is their preferred resolution. And sad for us (men), as we ultimately loose the potential opportunity to share and participate in helping (or at least be privileged to watch) as a woman re-defines and/or finds her new (or original) self. How sad it would be to have a beautiful flower rise from the warm earth after being asleep for so long, and have no one to remark upon or share the beauty of that new growth and awakening.

OK, so I guess I'm a hopeless romantic. Maybe I haven't been kicked to the ground enough times to have it beaten out of me. A friend I know has spoken of wanting to be accepted and recognized as a fully independent woman, and to be valued above all for that... and yet she also says she want a knight in shining armor to appear. A complex conjunction of wishes, and yet in many ways it might embody much of what I am beginning to think women our age may be grappling with.

I wonder whether (perhaps) life can encompass both wishes. God knows, many women our age have proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that they CAN and DO live independent lives and raise their children well. The (selfish) question in my mind it, have they truly resolved what role they want a man to play in (and beyond) that complex situation? I wonder whether (and, if I'm honest, hope) those who would answer "none," may be denying human nature, and (perhaps) something buried deep within their own womanhood.

At the same time, I think that men must proceed with both deep respect, and some degree of caution (and a good sense of humour,) and be ready to laugh at the foibles their own sex, and the nutty situations that men and women put themselves in.

I was reminded recently of, and love, the old Greek story that goes something like:

- the Gods were bored, so they created men and women for their entertainment, and then they gave them (men and women) love, and watched as they pleasured and hurt each other with it... but then they gave men and women the gift of laughter, and it softened the hurt of love, and strengthened the pleasure of it. And the Gods saw that it was good, and they took on human and other forms (remember Leda and the Swan?) to try it out.

I suspect that myths sometimes are timeless and survive, because they capture, and articulate, some fundamentally true element of human nature.