Boys Will Be Boys

What are we doing to our boys and men?There might be some solid explanations for why some men end up harming women. I'm not excusing men by the way. Any man who hurts or violates a woman is responsible for his actions. However, what I'm trying to say is that patriarchy is doing a disservice to men and women. This is actually about feminism, from a different perspective.When boys are very young they are taught to hide their feelings, not cry and they are not able to express their sensitivity. They are also not allowed to express their masculinity in a colorful way. For example, they cannot wear very expressive clothing or show a lot of emotion either negative or positive.From my experience boys compete with each other to show off who is the toughest of them all. They are also not kind to one another, boys beat up and bully other boys. If a boy likes a girl, he is taught by other boys to tease her. This sets up a paradigm at an early age of boys hurting girls in order to get their attention.According to Forbes, "We all live under patriarchy, which is a rigid dichotomy of gender roles. And we all know what the dichotomy is. Traditionally, men are supposed to be strong and feel independent, unemotional, logical and confident. Women are supposed to be expressive, nurturant, weak and dependent. One of the things I say about those traditional gender roles is they don't make anybody happy and they don't make for intimacy."Boys are also taught that they must like boy activities like sports and toys that are made for boys like toy cars and war figurines. They also play with water guns and other fake toys that are much like weapons. Boys start playing video games that are created especially for them where they are taught to be violent in order to win. They are also being exposed to very violent movies that depict men as violent heroes.At the same time that boys are learning to express themselves in a violent way, they are developing themselves sexually. It is no wonder that many make a connection between sex and violence. It is our culture that creates rapists, it is inherent in the way that we raise our boys. We are setting them up to think of the world like a violent video game that can only be won through force. This translate to rape and abuse in sexual encounters.According to The Body is Not an Apology magazine, "For men, it is seen as a necessity to seduce women (or other potential sexual partners) to the point that they’re encouraged to force other people into sex, with little to no regard for consent. When men are questioned about it, it often gets played of as 'boys will be boys,' or 'uncontrollable sexual urges,' or 'nothing that serious.'"It's no wonder that men think that violence will win the game of life. When these boys are very young men, many of them are sent to the armed forces, and there they suffer violence that they are taught not to be comfortable talking about. They then suffer from post-traumatic stress and other psychological disorders. War creates scars in men's minds and makes them think that violence is a necessary tool in life in order to be successful.Young men are also taught that they must financially and psychologically support women because women are too weak to do this for themselves. This creates stress in men because they feel they must be the breadwinners and they must be strong for women. This also has the effect of making men resent women.Men are told that they must provide for women and children and when they feel like they cannot live up to that, sometimes they become violent to those very women and children. Boys are taught that they deserve sex from women, that when they marry a woman they have essentially signed a contract that they can have sex with her at any moment that they want to. Marital rape is hard to prove because of this ideology. Rape, in general, is hard to prove because it is ingrained in our entire society that men have the right to receive sexual benefits from women.Men are also taught from a very young age that their relationship to other men is limited to camaraderie and should not become too emotional or it may start to be considered homosexual. Because of this, many men cannot confide in each other about their emotional needs. Men, sometimes solely rely on women to fulfill their emotional needs. When these emotionally crippled men do not get the emotional support they need from women, they again become resentful of them.We live in a society that gives the wrong messages to men. The notion that men have to be stronger than women makes it hard for men to allow women to rise in the workforce or in government positions. Therefore most of the higher positions in corporations and government are held by men. This means that men are making most of the important decisions about the world, including decisions directly relating to women.Men are also discouraged from staying at home with their children and helping to raise them. Stay at home dads are considered weak and not masculine enough in our society. This makes it difficult for some women who would like to progress more in their careers. If men had more of an option to stay at home and take care of their children, there might be more women in higher positions in the workplace.The same magazine mentioned above states that, "Rather than admitting faults or embracing vulnerability, men are told to 'man up' or 'stop being a p*ssy' in order to protect their precious masculinity, even if it means upholding harmful, destructive, and hate-filled norms that negatively affect those around them and, inevitably, themselves."The only emotion that men are taught to show in public is anger. Anger often translates into violence. Men are sometimes violent towards each other, but more often they channel their violence towards women. Strength and force are correlated in men's minds as a winning combination, that they must exhibit their strength by showing force."And I want men and boys to be strong and big-hearted and vulnerable and sensitive and confident and aware and heartfelt all at the same time. What we need are whole people," says a therapist in Forbes.All of this is obviously horrible for women. However, it is also limiting and terrible for men. It is not a good place to be in when you cannot express your emotional complexity in a safe environment. I am not suggesting that men are not responsible for their actions, I am only alluding to the fact that we as a society are creating monsters out of ordinary men.It takes a village to raise a child. Men and women both are raising young boys to become emotionally crippled violent men. This is hurting both men and women. It is obvious how it is hurting women, but maybe not as obvious how this is bad for men as well.Forbes puts it best by stating, "Insist on relationality in your boys, insist on strength in your girls, and insist on wholeness in your relationship with each other. And insist on wholeness inside yourself. You can be a man and cry. You can be a woman and speak up. We can step outside the frame of patriarchy. We don't have to be determined by it."Men are becoming emotionally stunted because they are not allowed to express themselves freely. Also, being violent does not make men happy, in fact, it creates a feeling of negativity within them. They know what they are doing is wrong, but they think they can't help it. Oppression hurts both the oppressed and the oppressor.They can help it. We can help them. We need to do this for both men and women.nina