Dec 23 2008
Gender Myths, One for the Guys
Sometimes is can be tricky to explain to a guy why gender myths(a.k.a. gender stereotypes or false beliefs) are/can be a big deal. Partly this is because most of the gender myths we are taught as children continue to just seem plausible to us throughout life. The other is that myths about males are a bit more insidious than those about women. Women are characterised as weak, emotional, hysterical and erratic. Being characterised as strong, logical, laconic and herois doesn’t seem like such as bad deal (until you try to live up to it all the time without ever showing a hint of weakness).
It can be helpful to illustrate how gender myths can be unnecessarily limiting by reach for example from the past, and examples relating to the male gender. In fact there is one particular example that I have found to very effectively in getting the point across. I will illustrate it with some quotes from what was considered a rather progressive book about sexuality, circa 1912.
”…the growing man [up to the age of 25] needs the semen secreted to develop his own body. It is now recognised as a fact that the semen, if not dissipated, will be reabsorbed by the system and aid materially in the development of the body. Boys who waste this “elixir of life” during their youth do not develop as they should. The youth who practices masturbation … during this period of development is wasting energy he never can regain.”
That’s right, it was commonly believed that a male up to the age of 25 should (could) abstain from any emission. And what would happen if he did not? Well according to this author:
“…self-abuse has a weakening effect on the body … capable of producing the most serious of results, such as insanity, idiocy, impotency and sterility … Children who have developed the habit of self abuse usually sleep badly, become thin and haggard looking, peevish, nervous and excitable. Some even have convulsions. Older boys who are masturbators usually get a sallow look and hang-dog expression. They become absent-minded and lose their frank expression. The young man with this habit becomes overshy as he is conscious of doing something that should be condemned. Adult masturbators may show no signs otherwise than that they are cowardly and mean-spirited … He lacks the willpower necessary to succeed in any undertaking and drags through life as a failure.”
These days we joke about going blind or getting hairy palms. But this was a real basis for shame and confusion for boys who did what came naturally. They must genuinely have feared becoming a coward, pervert or weakling. In fact this belief lingers in certain subcultures to the present day. Young boys were watched closely, sleep on hard beds with light blankets on the understanding that being warm ’stimulates’ erotic desires–in fact if possible they were mean to sleep outside or at least with a window wide open. Using condiments on food was also considered dangerous and cold baths both a preventative and curative treatment. Children born to men under 25 are described as likely to be deficit and under-developed.
It may seem funny now, but I doubt it was at the time when many boys would have been ashamed of something they were told was, on a moral and scientific basis, abnormal. How would we know which of the beliefs we hold today might eventually be shown to be just as fallacious? It may seem easy to dispute the opinions in an old book (one that goes on to discuss ‘race suicide’ and the advisability of sterilising imperfect humans).
But irrational shame still lurks in the form of gender myths in our own day to day lives. We obsess about our sexual attributes, orientations, the strength or absence of libido, our appearances, our fantasies, what we view and read–and equally we are judgemental of others based on the very same things. It should be simple, really. There should be no shame where no-one is harmed. But false science and moralising convinces many people that what comes naturally to them harms themselves or others. And it is hard to sort truth from myth when another camp, especially on the online Wild West, will suggest any kind of abuse is actually normal and loving.
It may take a funny example to make the point. But gender myths limit how people behave and who they are, not just sexually but in every way. Some of these limits are beneficial and prevent selfish abuse or others, and some are arbitrary and perverse with a needless legacy of shame and self-loathing. The trick, as ever, is telling the differemce between the two. Or at least trying to.
* Quotes from Himself: Talks with Men Concerning Themselvesby EB Lowry and RJ Lambert (Forbes & Company, Chicago, 1912)
Let’s not forget that this medical moral crusade at the turn of the 20th century in the U.S. is what gave us the prevailing culture of male circumcision, a practice that has no real medical benefits. The genesis for the procedure was to diminish the pleasurable sensation of sex/masturbation in males to keep them from masturbating and “staying healthy”, as we just heard from the blog post.
Why has circumcision continued? You’d hear a myriad of reasons why, none actually grounded in reality. It was a practice that was started by superstitious nonsense and has continued unabated without any justification.