Gender Identities

~ Clarissa

Somebody told me that in North America male identity is formed through competition with other men and female identity is formed through serving and pleasing other people. As a result, male identity thrives on being disliked (as a result of winning the competition) and female identity thrives on being liked.

I have no idea how much of this is true because I’m not North American. And we all know how badly I suck at pleasing anybody.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Clarissa

29 thoughts on “Gender Identities”

  2. That’s close but not exactly how I perceive it as a NAmerican who has trouble fitting into any group or conforming to people’s expectations (nb the following are what I perceive the traditional mainstream NAmerican gender stereotypes for many/most whites, not what I think should be). This is abbreviated and I don’t give supporting arguments for why I think this is, but I do have examples/arguments for just about all of it.

    male – competes with other men alone and in groups for status (as expressed by prestige and material rewards), should have principles but be ready to bend them to win, should not care what antagonists or those not in the game think of him but should care about what the men on his own side think of him and competition within the group should never be at the expense of the group. Can and should be kind when the occasion calls for it, but this should be from a position of benevolent strength and not to make people like him.

    female – open competition is discouraged but since the culture puts such a premium on competiiton it happens but almost entirely individually and women don’t compete in groups but within groups, most competition is covert and subtle and for relative status, should put principles before winning, should show concern for others and should work to make people like her, may also compete through a boyfriend, husband or (esp male) children and gain prestige through their accomplishments.

    There’s more but that’s a start.

    Once more, you really should watch Mad Men (starting from the beginning). The characters embody these principles in almost archetypal manner. One of the interesting sub-texts is that breaking the guy rules (and they all break some of them at various times) is bad for them while breaking out of the women’s rules is the best thing that happens to them…

    Like

    Reply

  3. I would say the Yankee male only thinks he thrives on being disliked. But if you were to really dislike him, rather than expressing the subtle envy he demands, you would throw his whole mechanisms into disarray.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I would say the Yankee male(Muster)

      So is that 1st generation Yankee male or 10th? Or is it All Yankee males? Im thinking I would like a definition of a Yankee male?

      Like

      Reply

  4. I was say that that’s not true at all. There is no ‘way’ of thinking for an entire gender on a landmass.

    I want people to like me and to receive compliments and other things.

    Like

    Reply

    2. Of course stereotypes and generalizations will not be true for every member of a culture. At the same time every culture in the world has gender normative stereotypes and these are often different in interesting ways.

      I’ll add that even limiting things to white people in the US there will be regional and other differences but there are strong patterns. For me, knowing about indiosyncratic or individual differences is worthless unless you know that the general patterns are.

      But then I tend to be an inductive thinker : gather data with as little bias as possible and once you’ve got a fair amount of it look for patterns and structure.

      Most modern thinking is much more deductive: form a theory and then look for data that supports it.

      When it comes to gender stereotypes I observe and then look for recurring patterns.

      Most other people form a theory (“gender roles are genetic and immutable” or “gender roles are infinitely elastic”) and then look for supporting evidence and ignore non-supporting evidence.

      Like

      Reply

      2. I agree about inductive and deductive thinking. I am also an inductive thinker, so as I say in one of my videos, my generalizations have a couple of decades of obsessive thought behind them. I’m not too impressed by people who drop by to assert that we can’t really know what we claim to know, or that it is just a “subjective” truth and therefore meaningless. As I say, we all have the capacity to be able to learn from our experiences. Babies necessarily have to learn that fire burns, that one falls from heights and those essential basics, but we should never really stop learning from our environment. Those who stop are lazy, in my view. They want to defer to authorities in the guise of science or their priest or — in rare cases — an academic authority. Or, more commonly, a politician. They are raving idiots and often self-assured.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE0XYY0UFcw

        Like

        Reply

      3. Seems like a lot of assumptions are made. That if there is dissenting opinion, it only exists because of flawed logic. This theory does not come close to explaining the reality that I personally observe, then there is something missing, wouldn’t you say?

        There are patterns, but I just don’t think this example is accurate enough to be useful.

        Though I’m curious about these tangents about superior thinking.

        Like

        Reply

      2. Do you mean the emphasis on athletics? The justification of the main sociologist who studied it seemed to be that it creates strong social bonds across class lines.

        Like

        Reply

      4. I haven’t come down on gender essentialism in my comment. I’ve simply a) said male identity is similar enough to status in peer groups to compare them b) offered that male status seems to be based on “competence”, which you can take as an empty construct if you wish. But it’s not completely empty because, as I mentioned, it’s restricted to fewer domains in early adolescence and gets to branch off later.

        Like

        Reply

        1. When I was growing up, male identity was based on the emulation of military cool. There was no particular measure of competence, but something akin to a relaxed attitude with regard to physicality. That was of course a situation that was wholly culturally determined.

          Like

          Reply

        1. Ok, I see. One problem is that American experiences are being held up as a normative standard underskirted by assertions about our biology. I find that rather sad, as it means Americans are not good listeners when it comes to other ways of doing things.

          Like

          Reply

      6. Hard to know who you mean is asserting that normative extension. The question was about North American male identity. That has scope over the ambiguity. A first order scheme would catch that, but not a second order symptomatic reading that tries to get outside the object language of the text.

        Like

        Reply

        1. Hard to know what you mean by any of the above, but I understand you are concerned with issues relating to north america and are at least trying not to generalize beyond what you claim to know.

          Like

          Reply

Leave a reply to David Gendron Cancel reply