Women should appreciate masculine virtues

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AdamPeter said:
I agree with Lookingforjoy. Most men don’t need to “prove” to their wives that they are men. Also…I’m an adult. I don’t need my wife to “set up” opportunities for me. I have initiative. I know when stuff needs to be done. I know my wife appreciates it. The article does seem a little patronising.
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Preach it, brother!
 
I agree with that ro an extent in that it often takes a man to teach a man, I have seen male friends in difficult situations (such as dating) felt I could only be of limited help as a woman and that they needed male advice from someone older and wiser. I also think more male teachers I schools would help boys who don’t have their father at home.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
There is something to be said for letting your man be a man. I don’t want to push my husband around or get into silly competitions or power struggles. I definitely didn’t want to date or marry a man that I couldn’t look up to and even admire.

But one thing my mom and (much) older brother always tried to instill in me is the idea that I should find a man I respect, but I can’t hold myself back to do it. I would become resentful, and he would feel patronized.

Rather than setting up opportunities to be impressed, just find a man who is actually impressive. My husband impresses me every day with his intelligence, success, humor, and unwavering kindness. But it’s authentic, and that’s what I held out for. If I had made myself less so that just any man could catch my eye, I would have regretted it.
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Now you sound like your on my side of our past arguements 😃
 
BlueEyedLady said:
Nope. Pretty unwavering, actually.😃
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I’ve said before I once heard a man argue that “deeds” and “works” were vastly different things.

You disagree with me for reasons similar in my evaluation of things 😛
 
JimG said:
I don’t personally know any men or women who generally view each other as natural adversaries because of gender. But I come from a generation in which nearly everyone I knew got married and stayed married. Now, divorce has become more popular and marriage less popular. One thing from the article that caught my attention is this:
“The saddest result of our increasingly fractious sex war is that young people seem to have inherited the dysfunction, and consequently, they are lonelier and less loved than any generation in recent history.” I wonder to what extent that is true.

I don’t usually read the comments below online articles. But I skimmed though some of the comments on this one. One from Phoebe said this:

“Men do not become men because women allow them to be. Men become men because they have fathers who model for them the proper role of men in families and society. It is impossible for women to do for men what only men can do for other males. Women need to get out of the way by the time their sons are ten years old and let the father now take over to teach his son how to become a man.
The problem with men not being men has little to do with anything women do or not do. It has to do with men being absent from families because of divorce, women raising boys to become good little girls, and women’s lib that has defined women’s role as for them to become more like men. It hasn’t worked. The remedy is to read St. Paul. …literally.”
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I don’t think I’d go so far as to call divorce “popular.” Common, yes. Widely-tolerated, yes. No, though: there are few who have been through one who’d be so foolish as to say they are “popular.” That is only the most flippantly unfaithful who think that way, the ones who only marry for the legal advantages (the social advantages having largely evaporated).
 
I personally suspect that “masculine virtues” and “feminine virtues” stuff is a wee bit heretical.

It’s not like the traditional virtues come in pink and blue versions–there’s just virtue and they’re all good for everybody.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
There is something to be said for letting your man be a man.
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I guess this is where I start to get confused because people use this to refer to letting their spouse use their natural gifts of leadership, strength, organization, whatever. But isn’t that just letting a person use their natural gifts, regardless of their gender? Why is it that when my husband is playing his guitar, he’s using a talent, but when he figures out our budget or fixes our car he’s “being the man?”

My husband and I have strengths and weaknesses that span the stereotypical gender spectrum (for example, I have some strengths that could be considered “masculine” and he has strengths that could be considered “feminine”), but we complement each other so well that we fit together like puzzle pieces. If we confined ourselves to only working on our masculine or feminine strengths, we’d miss out on so much of ourselves and each other.

I guess I’m wondering, where do you draw the line between nurturing natural talents and abilities, whatever they are, and encouraging your kids to “be a man” or “be a woman?”

And this isn’t a comment on Blue Eyed Lady’s comment, really, it’s just that the way she phrased it got me thinking.
 
Lookingforjoy said:
I guess this is where I start to get confused because people use this to refer to letting their spouse use their natural gifts of leadership, strength, organization, whatever. But isn’t that just letting a person use their natural gifts, regardless of their gender? Why is it that when my husband is playing his guitar, he’s using a talent, but when he figures out our budget or fixes our car he’s “being the man?”

My husband and I have strengths and weaknesses that span the stereotypical gender spectrum (for example, I have some strengths that could be considered “masculine” and he has strengths that could be considered “feminine”), but we complement each other so well that we fit together like puzzle pieces. If we confined ourselves to only working on our masculine or feminine strengths, we’d miss out on so much of ourselves and each other.

I guess I’m wondering, where do you draw the line between nurturing natural talents and abilities, whatever they are, and encouraging your kids to “be a man” or “be a woman?”

And this isn’t a comment on Blue Eyed Lady’s comment, really, it’s just that the way she phrased it got me thinking.
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Probably a big problem is that people spend so much tine articulating it. Just be natural and get out of your heads 🙂
 
Xantippe said:
Then we wouldn’t need articles about appreciating “masculine virtues.”
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Yes, and in reverse as well.

Unfortunately all it takes is one bad apple to spoil the bunch and we end up with what we have 😦
 
Sarcelle said:
I’m quite ditzy myself so I also don’t have to try to act dumb. I sometimes am dumb. Well, everyone has their moments.

I think acting dumb so someone else can feel good about themselves is condescending. Acting like yourself and treating others with respect is good. That goes for both men and women.

Anyway, I treat people I meet as individuals not as stereotypes.
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👍👍👍
 
BlueEyedLady said:
There is something to be said for letting your man be a man. I don’t want to push my husband around or get into silly competitions or power struggles. I definitely didn’t want to date or marry a man that I couldn’t look up to and even admire.

But one thing my mom and (much) older brother always tried to instill in me is the idea that I should find a man I respect, but I can’t hold myself back to do it. I would become resentful, and he would feel patronized.

Rather than setting up opportunities to be impressed, just find a man who is actually impressive. My husband impresses me every day with his intelligence, success, humor, and unwavering kindness. But it’s authentic, and that’s what I held out for. If I had made myself less so that just any man could catch my eye, I would have regretted it.
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Boom. Exactly. And, oddly enough, that’s what men want too.
 
Xantippe said:
I personally suspect that “masculine virtues” and “feminine virtues” stuff is a wee bit heretical.

It’s not like the traditional virtues come in pink and blue versions–there’s just virtue and they’re all good for everybody.
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I think there are two things that happen.

One is that we get too enamored with one virtue and start to discount its complement: for instance, we value mercy so much that we start to discount justice or count gentle humility so much that we forget to value firm courage. I think this is what is meant when people ask for greater appreciation of “masculine” or “feminine” virtues.

The other thing that happens, unfortunately, is that we want to make a certain virtue always look a certain way or we only want to see it in certain people. That keeps us from appreciating virtue, too: that is, because we don’t recognize the virtue when it doesn’t take the specific forms we think it has to take. When this happens, we resist seeing “feminine” virtues in men or “masculine” virtues in women.

As you say, while there are virtues that take more endurance or the willingness to yield and others that take more of a proactive attitude and an unwillingness to yield, for example, there aren’t virtues for women and virtues for men. All the saints are called to be examples of all the virtues.
 
EasterJoy said:
I think there are two things that happen.

One is that we get too enamored with one virtue and start to discount its complement: for instance, we value mercy so much that we start to discount justice or count gentle humility so much that we forget to value firm courage. I think this is what is meant when people ask for greater appreciation of “masculine” or “feminine” virtues.

The other thing that happens, unfortunately, is that we want to make a certain virtue always look a certain way or we only want to see it in certain people. That keeps us from appreciating virtue, too: that is, because we don’t recognize the virtue when it doesn’t take the specific forms we think it has to take. When this happens, we resist seeing “feminine” virtues in men or “masculine” virtues in women.

As you say, while there are virtues that take more endurance or the willingness to yield and others that take more of a proactive attitude and an unwillingness to yield, for example, there aren’t virtues for women and virtues for men. All the saints are called to be examples of all the virtues.
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My grandparents if I word them one way would sound extremely traditional.

If I described them with other attributes you’d near think them super modern.

The difference was they were natural in a time before social engineering as we see it today took hold.

What they did in reverse had a reason other than social movements or “victim mentality”

My Grandpa could not play sports bc a close relative died playing pro sports so his mom did not allow it.

My grandma liked sports and was a bit of a tomboy growing up.

For that example they were opposite in a sense but she liked sports ONLY bc she liked sports, not bc commercials tell her she discredits women if she doesnt.

My grandfather didnt play them not because being a man was bad but becasue of a close family personal situation.

This is natural.

The pushback of the modern engineering is a result of some time when their was some institutional influences against women.

But now it is hard to tell if a woman likes sports because natural or because engineering.

So now the opposite pushback.

Pit me in 1930 and I would think nothing negative of a woman doing sonething “manly”

2016 I see 90% chance she has a grudge and is engineered.

Also much debated here bc idk who ppl on CAF know in the real world… but there is much today to say almost all things male are bad unless done by a woman.

There in lies the often reverse pushback which sadly often gets just as insane. I came across a blab or two from men willing to make some kind of site. They are as insane as the feminists.

Idk what you fight for, if you form a group you get insane. The men are insane
The women are insane
People of each color are insane
Each religion are insane

Bottom line is people are insane 😦
 
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