Story Time
Feb 20th, 2007 at 10:08 am by Maya
Amanda at Pandagon offers an excellent review of Stephen Ducat’s The Wimp Factor:
The book is an examination of the way that anxious masculinity is a driving force behind wingnuttery. It was interesting reading this book while I became the Bad Girl of the Week in the media, because I was reading the theory and living the practice. Ducat’s basic thesis is that boys grow up having a harder time than girls creating a positive gender identity, and therefore grow up too often to define themselves as Not Women, creating misogyny, war, etc. I think there’s little doubt that this is true, though the reasons it is true are in dispute. Ducat points to a number of factors, including the fact that child-rearing is gender-segregated, children are disciplined through abuse and the interesting idea that men suffer from “womb envy”. On the last point, Ducat has established some interesting evidence.
I plan to pick it up. I’m not sure I’ll agree on all points, as I know lots of woman-positive men who were also given a negative gender identity, disciplined through abuse, etc. But I suppose we all react differently to our situations, and whether or not we completely understand why we make different choices with the situations we’re given, the fact remains that we do. Should be an interesting read.
jung called this “Grace” i think. or if he doesn’t use that word, he does talk specifically about this; about how contradictory to all assumed outcomes a person can somehow avoid being ruined by ruinous circumstances. he doesn’t really have a psychological reason for it, but that’s what i like about Jung, his spiritual sense.
Hoo-ee! Just tried reading the interesting bits to “the man over there”. Got a lot of grunting in return.
Makes me think of a Tim Allen routine on “Best of the Improv”, where he says men shouldn’t talk, they should just grunt.
I’d better find this book.