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Men--It's in Their Nature
The American Enterprise ^ | Sept 2003 | Christina Hoff Sommers

Posted on 07/31/2003 6:16:54 AM PDT by Valin

This past spring, my son spent a month in Israel with his senior class. Only one activity disappointed him. While camping in the Negev Desert, special counselors from a progressive-socialist kibbutz paid a visit and led the students through a sensitivity exercise. The students were told to walk out into the desert until they were completely alone. The counselors (mostly American-born) supplied them with a pencil, paper, matches, and a candle and instructed them to absorb the quiet calm of the desert, to record their feelings, and to “find themselves.”

The girls happily complied. Most of the boys did not. They scattered into the desert, quickly became bored, and sought out each other’s company. Then they threw the pencils and paper into a pile, and used the candles and matches to start a little bonfire. The boys loved it; the sensitivity trainers were horrified. They viewed the boys’ behavior as an expression of primitive violence—a lethal masculinity straight from The Lord of the Flies. Later in the evening, the students sat in a circle while the girls read their impassioned reactions to the “haunting loneliness” of the desert; the boys could barely suppress laughter—confirming once again the worst fears of the sensitivity trainers.

Gender equity experts in America’s schools, universities, government agencies, and major women’s groups would share the distress of the kibbutz counselors, having spent more than a decade trying to resocialize boys away from “toxic masculinity.” In a great number of American schools, gender reformers have succeeded in expunging many activities that young boys enjoy: dodge ball, cops and robbers, reading or listening to stories about battles and war heroes. A daycare center in North Carolina was censured by the State Division of Child Development for letting boys play with two-inch green Army men. The division director described the toys as “potentially dangerous if children use them to act out violent themes.”

Activities deemed “safe” by the gender equity experts and the teachers they inspire include quilting, games without scores, and stories about brave girls and boys who learn to cry. The goal is to resocialize boys, freeing them from male stereotypes, and, ultimately, to promote genuine equality between the sexes—which for the reformers means sameness. But decades of research in neuroscience, endocrinology, genetics, and developmental psychology, strongly suggest that masculine traits are hard-wired. There are exceptions, but here are the rules:Males have better spatial reasoning skills, females better verbal skills. Males are greater risk-takers, females are more nurturing. Boys like action, competitive rough-housing, and inanimate objects, and they are the one group of Americans who do not spend a lot of time talking about their feelings.

Try as they may, parents, teachers, and gender facilitators have not been successful in rooting out male behavior they regard as harmful.An “equity facilitator” tried to persuade a group of nine-year-old boys in a Baltimore public school to accept the idea of playing with baby dolls. According to one observer, “Their reaction was so hostile, the teacher had trouble keeping order.” And then there was Jimmy. At age 11, this San Francisco sixth grader was made to contribute a square to a class quilt “celebrating women we admire.” He chose to honor tennis player Monica Seles who, in 1993, was stabbed on the court by a deranged fan of Steffi Graf. Jimmy handed in a muslin square festooned with a tennis racket and a bloody dagger. His square may be unique in the history of quilting, but his teacher did not appreciate its originality and rejected it.

American classrooms are full of Jimmys. Efforts to change boys like Jimmy or my son and his bonfire companions will be difficult if not impossible. Nature is obdurate on some matters.While environment and socialization do play a significant role, scientists are beginning to pinpoint the precise biological correlates to many typical gender differences. A 2001 special issue of Scientific American reviewed the growing

evidence that children’s play preferences are, in large part, hormonally determined. Researchers confirmed what parents experience all the time: Even with counter-conditioning, boys and girls gravitate toward very different toys. (See the article by Iain Murray on pages 34 and 35, which lays out some of the new scientific findings on sex differences.) The entire anthropological record offers not a single example of a society where females have better spatial reasoning skills and males better verbal skills, where females are fixated on objects and men on feelings, or where males are physically docile and females aggressive.

In the face of what we know, it is altogether unreasonable to deny the biological basis for distinctive male and female preferences and abilities. Does this mean biology is destiny? As anthropologist Lionel Tiger (who is part of the male symposium beginning on page 24) says, “biology is not destiny, but it is good statistical probability.” There is still room for equity. A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness. The natural differences between men and women suggest there will never be mathematical parity in all fields; far more men than women will choose to be mechanics, engineers, or soldiers. Early childhood education, family medicine, and social work will continue to be dominated by women. Boys will prefer bonfires to diaries and any teacher who requires them to contribute squares to a quilt should brace herself for insensitive images of monsters, dangerous animals, and weaponry. The male tendency to be competitive, risk-loving, more narrowly focused, and less concerned with feelings has consequences in the real world. It could explain why there are more males at the extremes of success and failure: more male CEOs, more males in maximum security prisons.

Of course, boys’ natural masculinity must be tempered. Social theorist Hannah Arendt is believed to have said that every year civilization is invaded by millions of tiny barbarians—they are called children. All societies confront the problem of civilizing their children, particularly the male ones. History teaches that masculinity constrained by morality is powerful and constructive; it also teaches that masculinity without ethics is dangerous and destructive.

We have a set of proven social practices for raising young men. The traditional approach is through character education to develop a young man’s sense of honor and help him become a considerate, conscientious human being. Sociologists make an important distinction between pathological and healthy masculinity. Boys who exhibit aberrational masculinity define their manhood through anti-social and destructive acts; instead of protecting the vulnerable, they exploit them. Healthy masculinity is the opposite. Males who possess it—the vast majority of American boys and men—strive to be helpful and to achieve. They sublimate their natural aggression into sports, hobbies, and work. They build rather than destroy. And they do not exploit women and children, they protect them.

Efforts to civilize boys with honor codes, character education, manners, and rules of good sportsmanship are necessary and effective, and fully consistent with their masculine natures. Efforts to feminize them with dolls, quilts, non-competitive games, girl-centered books, and feelings exercises will fail; though they will succeed in making millions of boys quite unhappy. Dissident feminist Camille Paglia is one of the few scholars who values maleness: “Masculinity is aggressive, unstable, combustible. It is also the most creative cultural force in history. When I cross…any of America’s great bridges, I think—men have done this. Construction is a sublime male poetry.”

This sublime poetry has been unappreciated in American society for more than a quarter of a century. But that appears to be changing. The awesome display of masculine courage shown by the firefighters and policemen at Ground Zero, the heroic soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the focused determination and exemplary leadership of President Bush,Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and General Tommy Franks, have rekindled in Americans an appreciation for masculine virtues. Many courageous and even heroic women took part in all these endeavors. But fighting enemies and protecting the nation are overwhelmingly male projects.

The gender activists who fill our schools and government agencies will continue with their efforts to make boys more docile and emotional. But fewer and fewer Americans will support them. Maleness is back in fashion. And one reason is that Americans are increasingly aware that traditional male traits such as aggression, competitiveness, risk-taking and stoicism—constrained by virtues of valor, honor and self-sacrifice—are essential to the well-being and safety of our society.

Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of Who Stole Feminism? and The War Against Boys.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: christinahoffsommers; genderequity; waragainstboys
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To: holdmuhbeer; headsonpikes
metrosexuals..... Maybe I'm ignorant but what is that?.....holdmuhbeer

I assumed 'metrosexuals' were folks who liked shagging in those weird little Nash Metropolitans....headsonpikes

I seems that a metrosexual is what used to be called a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy).

Are you a metrosexual kind of guy?

61 posted on 07/31/2003 7:42:20 AM PDT by Polybius
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To: fr_freak
There's nothing I like better than to have morning cappucino on the deck whilst using the kids' 10/22 to blast those dirty little four-legged buggers when they poke their little noses out of their holes. Ground squirrels and horses don't mix. Whack! Right between their beady little eyes.

Does this mean that I'm not a SNAG - Sensitive New Age Guy? Do I get any points for the cappucino?
62 posted on 07/31/2003 7:44:21 AM PDT by Noumenon (Anyone can see a forest fire. Skill lies in sniffing the first smoke. ---Robert Heinlein)
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To: Exeter
Ladies, it's not our fault. It's the fault of that broken chromosone. We don't want to do the terrible things we do. We don't want to tell off-color jokes and make sexist comments and hit on women in bars and think about sex all the time. We hate it, really! It's that damn "y" chromosone. Pity us. We men are actually genetic victims. It's a living hell...

So does that mean we can sue somebody? (/sarcasm)
63 posted on 07/31/2003 7:47:23 AM PDT by Nowhere Man ("Laws are the spider webs through which the big bugs fly past and the little ones get caught.")
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To: holdmuhbeer
You need a GUN to pick off a squirrel at 75 yards? Sheesh.... Heh, heh, heh, Here, hold muh beer and WATCH THIS....
64 posted on 07/31/2003 7:48:02 AM PDT by Hatteras (The Thundering Herd Of Turtles ROCK!)
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To: RonF
Dodgeball. Ah, great game

Incredibly egalitarian, if you think about it. You always want to target the best kids first, rather than aiming for the slow, dumpy ones. I seem to remember most dodgeball games in my youth coming down to some of the slower kids, and having everyone else cheer them on at the end.

65 posted on 07/31/2003 7:48:11 AM PDT by Modernman
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To: Chancellor Palpatine
Its kind of like the basic line you can ask anybody who is helping out a boy scout troop - any outdoor camping activity will eventually have a session where the kids beat each other with sticks.

10-4 on that. Although there is another problem, these days. The "hip-hop" culture teaches the kids that they can't take any slight or minor defeat in passing. They have to retaliate to maintain their reputation, and not just in kind but in escalation. An accidental bump must be returned deliberately. A strong word merits a blow in return, a blow merits an assault with a weapon. It's not like the old days when a couple of kids could mix it up and then be done with it. I've had to step in and stop things and get adults involved where in my day we'd have just let the kids duke it out.

66 posted on 07/31/2003 7:48:27 AM PDT by RonF
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To: OhMike
My brother and I didn't need toy guns or real ones. We made our own things that went kaboom.
We used it for campfires and for clearing small brush.
Much to the consternation of our neighbors.

Later on, when we got older, we joined the military.
We signed up for field artillery.
67 posted on 07/31/2003 7:49:51 AM PDT by Darksheare ("I didn't say it wouldn't burn, I said it wouldn't hurt.")
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To: holdmuhbeer
I can ... skin a buck. ... Does that eliminate me from sissyhood?

Allow me to point out that in the Native American culture, and many other hunter/gatherer cultures, it was the women who had the job of skinning and preparing carcasses from the hunt.

68 posted on 07/31/2003 7:53:23 AM PDT by RonF
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To: Nowhere Man
Three ladies were walking down the street when they found a lamp. So one of the ladies rubs it and a genie pops out. "I will grant each of you one wish, and only one wish." So the ladies were thinking long and hard when the first lady says "I got it! I would like to be extremely smart."{POOF} This lady can read the dictionary like it was nothing, spell any word, and do math within seconds. The other two girls were amazed...so the second lady says "I want to be two times smarter than my friend."{POOF} Now the second lady was two times smarter than the first...she could speak five other languages, found the formula for nuclear fusion, and explain everything about our DNA. Totally blown away, the third lady says that she has it "I want to be two times smarter than both my friends put together."{POOF} She turns into a man. :-)

69 posted on 07/31/2003 7:57:33 AM PDT by philosofy123
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To: Polybius
I refuse to use that barabarous neologism.

Like most neologisms, it is a haphazard combination of Greek and Latin and it replaces a perfectly good, concise, already-existing Anglo-Saxon word: sissy.

70 posted on 07/31/2003 7:59:03 AM PDT by wideawake (God bless our brave soldiers and their Commander in Chief)
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To: Valin
And then there was Jimmy. At age 11, this San Francisco sixth grader was made to contribute a square to a class quilt “celebrating women we admire.” He chose to honor tennis player Monica Seles who, in 1993, was stabbed on the court by a deranged fan of Steffi Graf. Jimmy handed in a muslin square festooned with a tennis racket and a bloody dagger. His square may be unique in the history of quilting, but his teacher did not appreciate its originality and rejected it.
If he was going with the tennis player theme perhaps he should have picked Anna Kournikova. Perhaps that would have gone over better. :snicker:.

Yes, rules are rules:

More seriously, these "sensitivity trainers", like other socialists, are trying to fix their previous poison with worse poison. These types used to say that men needed to "get in touch with their emotions" or some such garbage like that. Never mind that for thousands of years, every single civilized culture has taught that part of the maturation process for a man is emotional control.

The "sensitivity" types tried to change that. Guess what? Men have different emotions than women. Women are more likely to get sad about things....men are more likely to get angry and lash out. Emotional control is not important? Hmmmm....increased levels of domestic violence, anyone?

Of course admitting this would be admitting that the result of thousands of years of cultural development was right and the touchy-feely types were :gasp: wrong. Can't have that, can we? So like the "doctors" of the Middle Ages, the solution is clear. Bring on.....:Monty Python voice: More Leeches!

-Eric

71 posted on 07/31/2003 8:08:07 AM PDT by E Rocc (:rant over:)
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To: Hatteras
"One of my wife's best friends is married to one of those "sensitive" guys. He didn't know the difference between a linebacker and a strong safety..."

"What a pansy!"

Well, obviously a linebacker is what you use to fill up half your fishing reel when you are fishing in small streams, that way you don't use up all your good line. A strong safety is one that won't allow your gun to fire unintentionally when you are running through the woods chasing bears.

72 posted on 07/31/2003 8:13:06 AM PDT by RipSawyer (Mercy on a pore boy lemme have a dollar bill!)
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To: Polybius
Checked out the link, took a quick inventory of my traits.

Nope. Ol' HOP ain't cut out to be a 'metrosexual'.

"Shopping with my mate as an enjoyed shared activity???"

They have got to be effing kidding!!!
73 posted on 07/31/2003 8:14:37 AM PDT by headsonpikes
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Comment #74 Removed by Moderator

To: headsonpikes
"Shopping with my mate as an enjoyed shared activity???" They have got to be effing kidding!!!

Shopping with mate goes in the same category as dancing - you do it, pretend to like it as a downpayment for the hoped-for "reward".

75 posted on 07/31/2003 8:18:10 AM PDT by Warren_Piece (Dont Panic!)
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To: Hatteras
He didn't know the difference between a linebacker and a strong safety...
 
I'm guessing he might be concentrating on the tight ends...

76 posted on 07/31/2003 8:19:54 AM PDT by Fintan (Shamelessly posting irrelevancy since 1998...)
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To: Chancellor Palpatine
"Its kind of like the basic line you can ask anybody who is helping out a boy scout troop - any outdoor camping activity will eventually have a session where the kids beat each other with sticks."

When I was a kid we used to have dirt clod wars, it was considered unmanly to throw one with a rock in it. Sometimes we had corn cob wars, a soaking wet corn cob can really hurt but once my older brother threw a whole ear of corn with the dry kernels and the shuck still on and caught me full across the mouth as I came around a corner of the barn. When I could talk again I told him that was cheating. Oh, for the good old days. Fifty years later and I can still sometimes find the small scars from all my childhood fun and games.

77 posted on 07/31/2003 8:20:02 AM PDT by RipSawyer (Mercy on a pore boy lemme have a dollar bill!)
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To: Valin
Y'all obviously haven't hung around a juvenile detention center much. Give me the boys any day. The girls are horrible little monsters who'd just as soon viciously attack anyone as to look at them.
78 posted on 07/31/2003 8:20:40 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn
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To: Warren_Piece; headsonpikes
Shopping with one's mate can be a chance to pull pranks and jokes.
My missus usually says she doesn't know me and wanders off letting me go where I want to wander until she's done shopping.
79 posted on 07/31/2003 8:21:13 AM PDT by Darksheare ("I didn't say it wouldn't burn, I said it wouldn't hurt.")
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To: Fintan
I concentrate on the cheerleaders.. with tight ends.
Forget the game, gimme the wimmen!
80 posted on 07/31/2003 8:22:28 AM PDT by Darksheare ("I didn't say it wouldn't burn, I said it wouldn't hurt.")
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