Be forewarned, this is a vent. Or a rant. Or whatever you call uncensored verbal diarrhea heedless of "*gasp* you can't say that!"
No matter how much people in the present-day mock the supposedly antiquated sexism of 1950s US as codified in housewife manuals or even Wellesley education or embedded in marketing psychology, I look forward to the day, possibly never, when people in the future would be ridiculing and mocking today's society regarding male and female roles/responsibilities with equal fervor.
I'm so f*cking tired of being told or counselled that "men and women process things differently." I mean, sure, that's not untrue. The stereotypes are true to a certain extent: men are generally less thoughtful and attuned to nuance; more goal-oriented; longs for big goals and wild adventures; most bolstered by appeal to ego and praise etc...
Oh wait. Aren't some women that way too?
No, no, those kind of women are the minority of their penis-lacking gender. Women are generally more nurturing than men. They just think differently. Must be born that way.
BULLSHIT.
I paid for a voice lesson session on Tuesday, and discovered that in my more than a decade of performance-level choral and a cappella singing, that I have been breathing and exerting sound projection all wrong. Just one hour of instruction has made a vast improvement in my support, volume, comfort, and now also confidence in how I can sing a piece like Panis Angelicus. All the years that I wished I could have taken voice lessons--turns out I really should have.
But I noticed, as I was practicing Panis Angelicus today, that I could either focus on proper techniques in breathing and projection or I could focus on still trying to memorize the lyrics and melody. I couldn't do both at the same time, as whenever I really dwell on the song itself all of my bad breathing habits returned. So, I realized, I need to practice the proper techniques every day as my voice teacher instructed until that muscle memory is wired into me as a new habit.
And I can't help but wonder just how much of the way men function, like the way my husband claims he's trying his best to be an equal partner in running the household and raising the kids and yet once again today left me 60 meters away to wrangle the baby and try to record an event as expected by our son while he enjoyed our son's sprint race completely unencumbered (spoiler: I missed seeing everything during the attempted juggle and still failed to get adequate footage), is simply due to low expectations. Very low expectations. Nonexistent, really.
When people of the female persuasion are both subtly and overtly trained to be more considerate of other people's feelings and desires since they're, say, three years old, I bet one hundred dollars the majority of them would become fairly nurturing and knowledgeable about other people's emotional cues and needs by the time they're adults. It would almost seem like...hmm...maybe...it's just their nature!
When people of the male persuasion are encouraged with "boys will be boys" or their behaviors or lack thereof apologetically explained away with the "fact" that being more sensitive or considerate doesn't come naturally to males, I bet one hundred trillion dollars the majority of them would take advantage and enjoy that free ticket out of needing to do the emotional work in interpersonal relationships, without even realizing they've been given this pass.
Just like with my singing training, the muscle memory of emotional work takes effort. Or maybe I'm just not naturally a singer. Versus that opera singer who never needed any training. You know, the one that always rides onstage with her unicorn.
The next person to counsel me about my "high" expectation of guys pulling their weight in managing this world on a society, business, national, family, or individual level with "You have to understand that men are just not built that way" gets a punch in the face. Except I'm trying to be more loving and merciful, so maybe just a kick to the shin.
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