Somewhere In The Land Of Singledom

Are females and males of the human species different, hence unequal?

There is much discussion and many thousands of books on this very subject. Several of them that come to mind are the Mars and Venus series.

This section discusses gender differences and their roots.

Males, Females and Equality

By today’s social standards, equality in the sense of the man and man or woman and woman vs. man and woman paradigms are, for the most part, different. There are those who believe that because of biochemical makeup, a man and a woman cannot be equal. I continue to find this when I talk to people of some authority on human behavior. Most are telling me indirectly and some directly that women will ultimately desire some form of leadership from their male counterparts, that this is the natural order of things. Men, on the other hand will be naturally aggressive and dominant.

While wanting very much not to accept this, I am sorely finding by countless experiences that this rule might have the possibility of being true. Even though a number of divorced women I talked to have stated: they left their marriage because they desired to no longer be under the dictates of their husbands, they still covertly or even overtly insisted on some form of male leadership from me.

Early on, I felt women did not like me because they didn't see that I truly wanted to be a friend with them and have an exchange of ideas as they would with their female counterparts. I felt this because they would often receive me with an attitude of unfamiliarity, adversarial fear, or an attempt at overt submission towards me. They would then seek what I thought were evil men but were in essence men who could and would exercise power over these women.

I now realized I was wrong in my assessment of the underlying motivations of women in dating and marriage.

My experiences are based in part on what women told me about the conditioning of their childhood, their dating experiences and their marriages. In the long run, they chose their domineering husbands. At the end of a relationship with me, they often belittled me simply because I would not be a husbandly person.

Incompatibility

It is acknowledged that there are other factors in being compatible with a person of the opposite gender such as personality traits, psychological conditioning, morality issues, behavior patterns, political and professional considerations and many other human characteristics such as upbringing and education. But humans are fairly adaptable as long as they do not have to give up that which gives them their purpose and fulfillment in life. In Chinese or Indian cultures where marriages are still prearranged, one finds this compliance to be the case.

Divorce

I believe that the current level of marriage difficulties can become much clearer when we shed light on this issue of inequality.

Though there are many arguments in this arena, I find it difficult to believe that the society as a whole is failing at marriage because of numerous pretexts such as changing times, television, the economy, immorality, evil, infidelity or mass numbers of people suffering from various psychological illnesses. Instead, I have derived what I feel is the answer from the discussions I have had with hundreds of divorced men and women over a 25-year period.

The ever-present recurring theme in failing marriages is that people got out of their marriages because they felt distanced or alienated from their spouses and they believed that the other was uncommunicative, different or mentally not there. When their divorce was finalized, they said they felt that they never really knew the person they were married to or they grew apart from each other.

I feel that these are only indicators for the present-day level of divorce and that it all lies in some kind of socialized inequality between men and women.

It has been said by many alternative theorists that people are not supposed to be married for life that marriage does have a limited life. They have said that since people live much longer, they change or evolve over time. But, these theorists vigorously discount the time spent, the knowledge and wisdom of familiarity earned over years of being together. It is the Insurance Information Institute^[9] longevity statistics that seem to prove that people need the benefits of a lasting marriage.

So, one could argue that this dichotomy between men and women in our society is a disparaging sign of much needed change in our culture and I think it is a subject that needs some form of clarification.

Definition: Equality

When describing equality, we think of an agreement of things being equal in dimensions, quantity or quality; likeness; similarity in regard to two things compared. But, when I talk about equality, I speak of two or more people who have the right and have chosen to be legally, morally, responsibly, spiritually, intellectually and emotionally equal. These are not quantitative judgments rather they are representative of a right coupled with responsibility. A woman has a right to be autonomous, but she also has the responsibilities that go along with this right. A man has the right to be free of responsibilities towards the woman, but he must respect her freedom as well. This concept describes a woman who chooses a man to be of mental and emotional equality to who in turn would do and be the same with her.

Inequality

When I describe inequality, I referred to the categorically accepted sexual norms that segregates men and women and sets up a considerable number of what I consider to be, unnecessary archaic expectations. Men are slated and prized for being strong, confident, proud and a leader. Women are sought after for their femininity, kindness, their ability to selflessly give, be caring, their physical softness and their motherly ways.

It seems that from this well-established gender prospective, men and women view life and each other through separate and distinctly different ways of thinking. Men and women have been taught to develop differing capabilities of solving problems, dealing with issues, being or not being emotional and a whole host of other personality attributes such as taste, lifestyles and entertainment. A glaring example is, men are taught to be technically inclined where as women are taught to be emotionally directed.

This antiquated custom of husband (leader) and wife (follower) still silently lives on within most marriages. The day of the nuptials often fines a man dressed in a black or gray suit whereas the woman is dressed in a long flowing white lace dress.

Also, it is a commonly accepted axiom that weddings are for the benefit of the woman seeking pictures and memories of the costly lavish Victorian affair, whereas a man could go without this extravagance.

It seems though, this concept of husbandry has lost its place in society. I find that most humans very much want to be equally free but just don't know how to be equal. With everyone rightfully demanding autonomy, the lacking husbandry, leadership or head of house now becomes the main cause of the disillusionment^[10] of marriages in this country. Because those men and women who do live together are fundamentally different and are heavily programmed for the patriarchic authoritarian model, they cannot come to any agreements because they think and feel so differently.  

Then to exist together and to cope with each other, the married couple has to compromise so much that they dumb themselves down while in the presence of the other. They often grow to accept being entertained by the simplest of things in life while not sharing the things each holds deeply, simply because it is not what the other knows or accepts. A well-known example of these differences is, the paired couple will often have differing tastes in fashion, sports, automobiles, movies, personal grooming and… so on.

This disparity is probably why most of society never develops any deep interests or avocations outside of their vocation. The modern-day couple seldom have meaningful passions for a variety of interests because they may feel that the other will be left out or will become alienated. In relationships where one or the other person does have avocations, they are often times in dominant submissive roles or are chastised for their interests.

The Fix

The solution or the fix does not become reality because most people are unwilling to change this his-her prospective due to deep routed norms. Also, these changes would take a significant investment in time and energy which most people would not want to undertake.

For example, women want freedom, yet deep within themselves they won’t accept the necessary responsibility that comes with this freedom. Men want women to stand on their own, yet these men feel this need to exercise their deep routed autocratic behaviorisms over a woman and so on.

The Days Of Old When Knights Were Bold

The roots of our American customs are often characterized by the dark ages when men went to battle while their women stayed home having babies and bringing up their children. During these medieval times, women were little more than slaves to their men and most only lived long enough to bear children who would in turn carry on the family name.

As most people know, we have long since left the dark ages behind and are well into the “modern era” where male humans no longer need to be strong and go hunt for food or do hand to hand combat. But what strangely still seems to be a part of our culture and is very unfortunate is that we have not done away with these Dark Age traditions of husbandry, weddings and autocracy. I had heard and read many times, many women using the phrase, A knight in white and shining armor to describe their desired mate.

The ERA

Though there was an attempt in the 1970s to enact legislation to add the Equal Rights Amendment for women to the constitution, it soon fell out of favor with most Americans and was forgotten. It appears that the traditional values of manhood are still being emphasized in various religious sects, most parental teachings and the broadcast mediums.

The Onion Center

The core of the problem is deeply ingrained within the unconsciousness of our culture are these concepts of his and her separatism. Even if men and women suddenly desire equality, because they have been brought up so differently in their thinking, it would be nearly impossible for two of the opposite gender to respectfully live together equally. This is because both would have to compromise far too much simply because the one’s prospective would be so unfamiliar and abnormal to the other. For two people to undertake this much change would be a daunting task. It is far easier to remain as they are.

The problem then becomes dealing with a poorly specified societal edict that says, men and women need equality. My generation was the first that saw this pronouncement and it was the women who wanted very much to believe in this concept. But, it was believed that men had no reason to change.

The dilemma is one of one half wanting change and the other half believing that they could not change. The situation then becomes more complicated because, in order for these concepts to be incorporated into the human psyche, it required extensive reprogramming. But, this is in contradiction with the propensity of humans disliking change.

To further understand this concept, one must think of our taught experiences as that of a concert pianist. The virtuoso performer has spent his life learning touch, tempo, pitch and methodology allowing him or her to speak with their fingers in much color, character and emotion. For them to change and to become a Mose Allison jazz pianist would be very difficult. They would feel righteously opposed and the change would be foreign.

Our virtuoso performance is what we have been taught. To change, we have to practice at it. To practice it, we must have a standard for this methodology.

This reminds me of a stupid joke…

There is this tall fellow standing on a street corner in New York City with a big bass fiddle under his arm. This little guy walks up and taps him on the arm and asks,

“Hay, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?”

The big fiddle player looks down at the little fellow and responds with annoyance,

“Practice buddy…Practice!”

The point is that people are finding that the wanting of equality is a far more fulfilling thing than actually having it. To truly be equal simply takes considerable time and lots of practice and people are not willing to spend this much time doing what it takes to be equal. As a consequence, they cannot be truly equal. Also, their children will follow their parent's roles and will not learn either.

The fundamental problem as relayed to me by many psychotherapists and other people of the helping professions is: the very philosophical basis men and women have about living life is so radically different and is as diametrically opposed as Christianity and Atheism or conservatism and liberalism.

The solution, contrary to the pop psychological writings^[11] of today, is not compromise, but to undertake this daunting task of relearning and restructuring^[12] a man and woman's thoughts and behaviorisms.

Examples are, men would allow more emotion into their lives. They would allow themselves to cry and to have tearful joy. They would also need to understand aesthetics, spirituality, etc. On the other side of the coin, women would apply the principles of logic, come to be able to solve technical problems, hammer nails and so on.

I know that for most of our society, this would be very hard, much less hard to accept. But, think of the joy of learning and knowing.

A man could sew curtains whereas a woman could build or remodel a house. People would begin to develop deep abiding passions for living, instead of being entertained by watching barbaric rituals of grown men trying to hurt each other, or women on afternoon TV milking the melodrama of life.  

There is no real biological reason that this cannot become reality. If we don’t do this, then most people will be condemned to either living alone or in the rigidity of a patriarchy.

It is my experience that the high divorce rate is a reflection of people with differing principles, viewpoints, outlooks, tastes, opinions, attitudes, methodologies, characters and mores. They really cannot be in a relationship as is describe as, “equal friends."  The only way that cohabitation in present day society can now be successful with these deeply embedded outlooks is in outdated dominant-submissive roles similar to that of an employer-employee relationship.

So, Why The Inequality

In this vast complication of human existence, it is hard to accept that the human being is itself an equation with thousands, if not millions of parameters and variables. Then it is even harder to accept that the merging or marriage of two humans is the integration of these two equations. It is, first, the fixed parameters that we must understand. Then we can go on and examine the derivation of the equation by understanding the set variables.

I think that the basic issue or parameter starts with the physical differences of man vs. woman. The word woman is a human with a womb, a place where new humans gestate and grow till the new life can sustain basic bodily functions such as breathing and eating. This is the place of conception of all of humankind since the beginning. It is found in one of the sexes but not the other. The female is required by nature to carry the child for nine months whereas the male has little to no idea of the pain and discomfort associated with this function.

This process of creating a human involves a very strong and sometimes overpowering need to have sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. This drive though stronger in the male, may override any sense of reason and is the main driving force that has kept the species of humankind alive.

As humans who have progressed from the primitive times, we have adopted laws governing the value of each human being, especially the youngest of us, who, by the way, still garners the most cherished status^[13]. This is the root of what creates a kind of dichotomy between man and a woman. A man can't get pregnant.

The primary: a man cannot have a child without a woman. A woman will ultimately bare the responsibility of the conceived child until birth and often times thereafter. A man can enjoy the act of sexual copulation within a woman and, except for his seed, can leave without a trace and never know if that woman has conceived a child. It is the force of law that desires to bind that man to his part of the responsibility of the conception.

It is these parameters of who bears and weans the child that has driven the mores we have in America today. It is the unchecked stimulated sexual drive in the man that can lead to sexual immorality hence a root of man and woman dissimilarity. Even though we have many methods of controlling conception or destroying the conceived human prior to birth, what still lives on in the psyche of men and women is this dichotomy of an uncommitted him wanting and an easily made pregnant her resisting. Couple this with her vulnerability of having to bear the child and we get the concept of this unequal paradigm that is the basis of inequality.

When we combine this with the biochemical and hormonal differences of men and women, we begin to see where it is believed that the sexes may indeed be different.

But, still I raise the question that these issues may not account for the total socialized differences between the sexes.

I do recognized that the sex drive to mate is very strong and that this has spawned an American version of a puritanical taboo that we still strongly accept today. This need to segregate the sexes at an early state of development is viewed as a protection of values we feel we need. Note. It is known that in Europe, this taboo is not nearly as strongly enforced.

However, in America, the teaching of this prohibition has kept men and women from intermingling during adolescents and early adulthood which added to these differences between the sexes.

Boys are taught to go go go whereas girls are taught to say no no no...

I wonder; if we are intelligent humans, why are the male and female of our species setting themselves to be the most different of any other living thing on the planet?  I strongly feel that it is the fanatical dysfunctional aspect of human behavior that desires to emphasize these gender differences to an extreme.

Role Modeling

The current accepted supposition among many psychotherapists is that the roles our parents played in our lives heavily influences our mate selection process. It is also said that most married couples of today had poor parental models for the opposite gender because of the distancing of that opposite sexed parent. Sons modeled themselves after their Fathers and vice versa. But because of societal taboos, daughters of the fathers seldom really knew their dads and as such could only go by the surface image of their father. These daughters then referred to their mothers for male issues. Yes, it was mom who ultimately had to mentor the children for life because dad was not really there. As a result, today’s married couple does not really know the opposite other.

Homosexuality

There are those who believe that the current insurgence of homosexual relationships is because of the human necessity for closeness and sexual gratification coupled with the desire for equal compatibility and like-mindedness. It is theorized that two psychologically healthy, easy to get along with people of the same gender could cohabitate with little strife simply because they are of the same mindset.

Transsexual

For whatever reason, since the mid-1960s, people have sought to change their physical sexual characteristics. In doing so, they have physically altered their bodies to be of the opposite gender. However, they have been socialized to be the opposite gender of their new sex. It is found that men who have change their sexual orientation become highly successful in the current women culture. This is because they were socialized as a man prior to their sex change and do not have the fears that normally socialized women have. Even though there was a strong urge to become a woman, they still have the benefits of being socialized in a male culture. The same can be said for a woman who changes her sexual orientation to become a man.

The benefits are derived when they seek an opposite mate of their new sexual orientation. They unconsciously understand their new opposites point of view. It has been found that these transsexual relationships last a very long time. Since successful sex changes started occurring in the late 1970s to early 1980s, no definitive data on this is available for lifelong relationships. However, a majority of the relationships that were and are formed on this new-sex perspective are still intact.

Sadly, A Lot Suffer Deception

I find it very sad that not only me, but a lot of people are sadly feeling they believe they are being deceived by their opposite. I have heard countless stories from both men and women about their former spouse. It seems that the average person in our culture is law abiding and does practice life virtues, until it comes to the marital partner. Here there is seemingly so much graft and corruption talked about that it is a wonder that these people are good at all. But, I feel that this is deception, not consciously on the part of the divorcing couple, rather from their unconscious teachings. It seemed that there was so much wrong; that the other went back on their word and is evil. Most of the time, not so. These are good people. It is simply because they got close to each other and found that the other was so different. Unconsciously, they felt that it had to be this way, that they had to be different. But consciously, they wanted friendship. The incongruity of mid-life crises, spousal abuse, adultery, neglect, anger, depression and degrees of homosexuality can sadly be traced back to these differences...

How Do I Qualify in Stating These Conclusions

From a quarter century of seeking, dating, courting and befriending many women, I discovered this rather disheartening phenomenon: women are more different than I had prepared for in my maturation.

Based upon my childhood-adolescent teachings and experiences while growing up in the family home, I expected to be an equal, a friend, a “pal,” or a buddy with the women I dated.  And, I came to believe that women also wanted equality and true friendship.

But, when my personality reflected this belief in my adult life, the women I associated with saw me as well… someone who must have been more different than what they were use to. I was received with unfamiliarity and often rejection.

It was when I played the subtitle role of leader, a father figure, a man with strength and confidence, women took notice of me, were attracted to me and wanted to be with me.

The problem with me being chivalrous was, I could not and would not keep up this act long enough to, shall we say, “reach the altar.”  So I decided after several disastrous attempts at being gallant^[1], I would just stay true to the doctrines I chose, hence be true to myself. The problem then became one of me being alone without intimate female companionship.

What Is Wrong

The following pages relate to this rather pronounced disparity between me and women and describes how I and others around me have been affected by past and current gender related inequalities.

Note on why I never married.

Though there is not an easy set single answer to issues in life, the following is some of my historically based beliefs and my explanation...

·   I’d like for it to be understood that I was not an advocate of husbandry^[2]. I know from bitter experiences that anyone much less a woman cannot have true freedom and acceptance, hence fulfillment while being ruled^[3] or overseen.

·   I feel that when I am with a woman, she cannot and does not really appreciate me as a person because she has been taught to be so different.

·   Finally, because I wanted to be on truly equal footing in a relationship with a woman, I felt that I never had a wide enough selection of people to choose a woman from who had similar desires and characteristics.

When I was in my late teens, I chose not to be a “strong male type” because of a childhood of oppression. I noticed from my experiences that differing degrees of domination affect the submissive person’s ability to be fully actualized^[5].

As a child I did have certain freedoms stemming from being provided for and not having to make decisions. But my ability to actually be free^[6] was ultimately blocked by the desires of the authority figures. Because of these experiences, I believed in the proven principles of freedom and being equal with a female friend, instead of having to provide for a wife that needed to be governed.

For more of an explanation, see: The Truth As To Why I Never Married

Is That Why I Never Found Anyone?

I am not going to say that I am less of a man because I refuse to be husbandly. Rather, I will say that I do choose and was naturally an equal with a woman. But, this woman would have had to have done as much work or learning (socialization) as I did, else it just wouldn't work. Being willing to change is half the battle, but she would have had to accept me as I am as she is changing. But, there are tens of thousands of subtle differences that, collectively, can lead to discomfort, for both of us.

So, am I being unrealistic...Is All Of This…Unrealistic?  <Click to continue...>

E 2002