Wednesday, March 30, 2011

HOT SPOTS!

“Rejecting “the myth of masculine privilege,” psychologist Herb Goldberg reports in The Hazards of Being Male that “every critical statistic in the area of longevity, disease, suicide, crime, accidents, childhood emotional disorders, alcoholism, and drug addiction shows a disproportionately higher male rate”. But changes in the masculine role are so disturbing to so many people that the male who attempts to break out of familiar gender patterns often finds himself facing hostile opposition which can be readily and powerfully expressed in a formidable array of sex-biased term” one page 132.

“For whether males are told that fathers don’t make good mothers, that real men don’t cry, or that all men are rapists, the results are potentially dangerous: like any other group, males can be subtly shaped into what society keeps telling them they are. In Why Men Are The Way They Are Warren Farrell puts the matter succinctly: “The more we make men the enemy, the more they will have to behave like the enemy” on page 139.

page 142 “Would you feel safe entrusting your life to a doctorette? Alfre Woodard, who was an Oscar nominee for best supporting actress, says she identifies herself as an actor because “actresses worry about their eyelashes and cellulite, and women who are actors worry about the characters are playing.” Gender markers pick up extra meanings that reflect common associations with the female gender: not quite serious, often sexual.”

page 143 “If a woman’s clothing is tight or revealing (in other words, sexy), it sends a massage --- an intended one of wanting to be attractive, but also a possibility of an unintended one of availability, If her clothes are not sexy, that too sends a message, lent meaning by knowledge that they could have been. There are thousands of cosmetic products from which women can choose and myriad ways of applying them. Yet no makeup at all is anything but unmarked.”

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