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| just as it was... in the beforetime |
Men and women have always had different expectations for
one another. If we generalize the two genders collectively, it’s safe to assume that men
and women behave differently, in the aggregate, but to assume any given man or
woman was, at any time, anything like the aggregate, was quite often a huge mistake.
Student: Please tell me about the roles men and women played
during that time we now call: The Great Forgetting.
Teacher: Well, it was pretty simple, Grasshopper.
Men sought women who were primarily physically attractive,
and later would consider them as life partners if they also happened to like
the woman’s character attributes.
Women, conversely, usually sought men who were confident, strong,
socially dominant, talented, or had been perceived as being ‘good providers’.
Student: What about ‘looks and personality’, weren’t those considered
to be important qualities for women as well, when selecting a mate?
Teacher: Absolutely, but to a much lesser extent than with
men. However, your question should be more precise, what type of looks or
personality are we talking about?
Student: OK, like say… a nice guy!
Teacher: Oh no… that never worked well!
Nice guys usually got pegged by women, and put into their
‘Friend Zone’.
During that horrible era, in order to be selected for mating,
women demanded that the guy be emotionally unavailable, distant even, if he was
to ever have a hope of being considered desirable as a potential mate.
Student: Say what??!!
Teacher: Yeah, a man who showed his emotions, enthusiasm,
and affections up front, was often considered weak in the eyes of women,
especially those guys who showed it early in the courting process.
If a man was capable of concealing his emotions, women would
interpret him as being in control, and thus feel safer. If a man displayed his
emotions too openly, he was often viewed as being unstable, or incapable
perhaps, of ‘catching a woman’s fall’ if need be.
So unfortunately, the mantra among men of that era became:
“Ignore to Score”… and not just by ignoring the feelings of the woman in
question, but by ignoring their own emotions as well.
Student: That doesn’t make any sense… How was this possible?
Teacher: A man’s emotional development was supposed to be a
great prize, a magnum opus kept secret to him; only later to be discovered by
her.
Remember, emotion used to be perceived as being the opposite
of logic: a nasty bio-chemical inconvenience clouding one’s judgement.
Boys, in those days, had been socialized during their early childhood
not to emote too much, in order to be perceived by potential mates, later in
life, as being ‘strong’, ‘in control’, and ‘good providers’.
Of course, along with this programmed emotional disconnect
came another host of nasty problems: the proliferation of psychopathic
patriarchs and sociopathic narcissists. These guys usually rose to the top of
the social pyramid and wreaked bloody havoc in our world… and do you know why?
Student: Because their behaviour got them ‘laid’ more often?
Teacher: Bingo! You win a hundred pounds of spaghetti!
Imagine what would have happened if women had directed their
‘affections’ toward gentler men of lesser status, men who were merely street
people, janitors, or humble garbage collectors… instead of bankers, businessmen,
politicians and lawyers?
Student: Street people, garbage collectors? …Gggrrrroosssss!
Teacher: The world would have changed in a heartbeat, and
the so-called Patriarchy would have been no-longer.
Student: What was it about men’s emotions that had frightened
so many women?
Teacher: Most women didn’t even know how to handle their own,
let alone someone else’s.
So guys who were more openly emotional were often denigrated
for being too clingy or needy, possible stalkers, or potential rapists even… just
like what was being shown in the movies at that time, or on T.V.!
Student: But emotion is such an important part of the
spectrum of human existence; it hardly seems fair.
Teacher: Remember, our species was mostly comprised of damaged
goods; men and women each had deep seeded fears concerning the needs of the
opposite sex… yet ironically, they proceeded to reprogram each other using complex
methods of reward and punishment, in order to enforce a ruling paradigm that many
had so claimed to hate… and often with monstrous results, all this due to
the process known as: natural selection.
Student: Did this 'natural selection' process come from our
distant past, our animalistic origins?
Teacher: Absolutely… and this despite many strong opinions about
how men and women should behave towards one another.
Let’s face it, Grasshopper… It just took us a little longer to get out of
the caves than we’d thought it would.
The Dirty One
Village 5, Nova Avalon.
Year 17 P.T.E.
