Gender/marriage/feminism
TODAY, 27 September 2008
MEN IN THE 21ST CENTURY
-------------------------
Men have to do to the boys what women have done to the girls
Constance Singam
A RECENT survey in this newspaper highlighted the problem men here are
facing. It found that one of the reasons Singapore is seeing fewer
marriages is because men here lack confidence — that they are shy and
lonely.
There is a need, urgently I think, to figure out what it means to be a man
in the 21st Century.
Unfortunately the men — and more importantly, their sons—are not getting
much help from the larger culture or from their government. Consider the
most recent rejection of the call for paternity leave for fathers!
A friend who has a teenage son told me, rather angrily, that so much
attention is being given to girls to empower them that the boys are
suffering, confused and disempowered. I would argue that instead of
feeling threatened by the gains girls have made, society needs to study
the women's movement, its strategies and use them as a model for raising
boys.
Firstly, discussions of masculinity revolve around women's equality,
either as a curse or boon to men. Where some argue that the women's
movement has freed men from the straitjacket of traditional roles, others
blame it for depriving them of their identity.
Yet, the greatest threat to modern manhood may lie elsewhere — in the
denial about women's and men's changing roles and obligations, in the
public images, in the lack of life skills education for boys.
Secondly, all the messages, and indeed education, focuses on meeting the
needs of the economy. Even, I suspect, the debate on falling marriage and
fertility rates is driven by economic concerns.
Instead, public policies and education itself should be framed to take
into consideration the overall quality of life, the balance of the society
itself. Political discourse and public policy have failed the men. Issues
of work-life balance, marriage and fertility rate areaddressed to women.
I remember a young man, well-educated and charming, who told me that he
would consider the use of a match-making agency to find him a bride from
Vietnam. All he has to do, he said, is to pay the agency $10,000, choose a
bride from a selection of photographs and appear at the wedding. The
agency would make all the arrangements. Men like things made simple, easy
and arranged for them.
Fundamentally, the men of today are no different to the men of previous
generations. But they do have to change. Societal demands have changed.
After generations of advocacy on the part of the women's movement, girls
have learnt that they are capable of success in a man's world, that
anything is possible if they make up their minds about it. The girls got
the message. But the boys are confused.
Men have to do the same with boys as the women's movement has done for the
girls. As it is now, men don't even have the language to discuss what it
means to be male. They rarely address the consequences of living in a
culture where marriage and parenting — the basic processes that form the
foundation of all societies — are constructed as the responsibility of
women and where men are left out.
Finally, since it is the men who are making the decisions, men have to be
willing to care about the way boys are being brought up and advocate for
them. They should provide good role models: Men must be in the schools —
at the parent-teacher conferences, not just in school boards, in classes
teaching or just talking about their jobs, relationships, marriage and
parenthood.
Young men must take a stake and volunteer to coach, to counsel, to read to
kids. Fathers and community leaders must mentor a new generation of boys.
Our culture has to celebrate men who embrace their roles as fathers and
husbands. Women may still bear the greater burden of domestic work, but
there are men today who do more at home than their fathers did, and are
happy doing it.
According to an American Families and Work Institute study, the percentage
of college-educated men who said they wanted to move into jobs with more
responsibility fell from 68 per cent to52 per cent between 1992 and 2002.
A Radcliffe Public Policy Centre report released in 2000 found that70 per
cent of men between the ages of 21 and 39 were willing to sacrifice pay
and promotions in exchange for a work schedule that allowed them to spend
more time with their families.
Times have changed and are changing. Boys need empowering and education to
live successfully and happily in the 21st Century. Shy, lonely men lacking
in confidence is not good news for either men or women.
This is a call for action for gender equity.
The writer is a civil society activist who is concerned about gender
equity.
MEN IN THE 21ST CENTURY
-------------------------
Men have to do to the boys what women have done to the girls
Constance Singam
A RECENT survey in this newspaper highlighted the problem men here are
facing. It found that one of the reasons Singapore is seeing fewer
marriages is because men here lack confidence — that they are shy and
lonely.
There is a need, urgently I think, to figure out what it means to be a man
in the 21st Century.
Unfortunately the men — and more importantly, their sons—are not getting
much help from the larger culture or from their government. Consider the
most recent rejection of the call for paternity leave for fathers!
A friend who has a teenage son told me, rather angrily, that so much
attention is being given to girls to empower them that the boys are
suffering, confused and disempowered. I would argue that instead of
feeling threatened by the gains girls have made, society needs to study
the women's movement, its strategies and use them as a model for raising
boys.
Firstly, discussions of masculinity revolve around women's equality,
either as a curse or boon to men. Where some argue that the women's
movement has freed men from the straitjacket of traditional roles, others
blame it for depriving them of their identity.
Yet, the greatest threat to modern manhood may lie elsewhere — in the
denial about women's and men's changing roles and obligations, in the
public images, in the lack of life skills education for boys.
Secondly, all the messages, and indeed education, focuses on meeting the
needs of the economy. Even, I suspect, the debate on falling marriage and
fertility rates is driven by economic concerns.
Instead, public policies and education itself should be framed to take
into consideration the overall quality of life, the balance of the society
itself. Political discourse and public policy have failed the men. Issues
of work-life balance, marriage and fertility rate areaddressed to women.
I remember a young man, well-educated and charming, who told me that he
would consider the use of a match-making agency to find him a bride from
Vietnam. All he has to do, he said, is to pay the agency $10,000, choose a
bride from a selection of photographs and appear at the wedding. The
agency would make all the arrangements. Men like things made simple, easy
and arranged for them.
Fundamentally, the men of today are no different to the men of previous
generations. But they do have to change. Societal demands have changed.
After generations of advocacy on the part of the women's movement, girls
have learnt that they are capable of success in a man's world, that
anything is possible if they make up their minds about it. The girls got
the message. But the boys are confused.
Men have to do the same with boys as the women's movement has done for the
girls. As it is now, men don't even have the language to discuss what it
means to be male. They rarely address the consequences of living in a
culture where marriage and parenting — the basic processes that form the
foundation of all societies — are constructed as the responsibility of
women and where men are left out.
Finally, since it is the men who are making the decisions, men have to be
willing to care about the way boys are being brought up and advocate for
them. They should provide good role models: Men must be in the schools —
at the parent-teacher conferences, not just in school boards, in classes
teaching or just talking about their jobs, relationships, marriage and
parenthood.
Young men must take a stake and volunteer to coach, to counsel, to read to
kids. Fathers and community leaders must mentor a new generation of boys.
Our culture has to celebrate men who embrace their roles as fathers and
husbands. Women may still bear the greater burden of domestic work, but
there are men today who do more at home than their fathers did, and are
happy doing it.
According to an American Families and Work Institute study, the percentage
of college-educated men who said they wanted to move into jobs with more
responsibility fell from 68 per cent to52 per cent between 1992 and 2002.
A Radcliffe Public Policy Centre report released in 2000 found that70 per
cent of men between the ages of 21 and 39 were willing to sacrifice pay
and promotions in exchange for a work schedule that allowed them to spend
more time with their families.
Times have changed and are changing. Boys need empowering and education to
live successfully and happily in the 21st Century. Shy, lonely men lacking
in confidence is not good news for either men or women.
This is a call for action for gender equity.
The writer is a civil society activist who is concerned about gender
equity.
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