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msagaraI'm still chewing over the issue of 'settling'.
My mother, and my aunts, understand what the word "settle" means, but the colloquial phrase, as used by Gottlieb, and understood by both me and the people who posted on this thread here, was not familiar to them. They were, of course, expected to marry; they were, of course, expected not to have sex until they were married; they were expected to be good girls, and they had the usual contemptible and completely enraging words for the not good girls.
(My mother and I had a number of arguments, debates, and all-out screaming fights when I was a young teenager because she'd raised me to be relatively practical and relatively logical, and some of those phrases struck me as sexist, hugely gender-biased, and entirely unfair. My father would very quietly pick up the newspaper and head out to the living room when we talked about these things because a) he had no opinions to offer and b) the words could easily become incendiary.)
But my mother's generation didn't use the term "settling" in the same way. And it occurs to me that there are reasons for that, one being that women were not considered capable of their own upkeep away from their parent's house; marriage wasn't a matter of romantic love; it was a matter of necessity, like finding a job. This, by the way, is not the way it was ever presented to me; this is hindsight. It was important to my mother that we all marry for love.
Yes, that was a digression.
What I am still wondering, however, is why "settling" has no real male counterpart. I asked my husband about it, and he understands and recognizes the term -- but it's a term that women use, and they apply it to other women. So I asked him what the male equivalent was. There was some silence and some thought, and then he admitted that no male equivalent came to mind.
So I asked him why.
He said that men in general don't talk to each other about relationships or relationship issues; they don't talk about their marriages, their wives, or, once they're no longer teenage boys, their sex life. If they're talking about relationship issues, they're almost always talking to women.
So... why is this? Is it just the cultural context, that leftover conditioning that still requires women to be in relationships to be happy? Men are often lonely; is it just the social pressure not to talk about these things that prevents them from entering the same types of conversations, or are these conversations inherently pointless or boring?
My mother, and my aunts, understand what the word "settle" means, but the colloquial phrase, as used by Gottlieb, and understood by both me and the people who posted on this thread here, was not familiar to them. They were, of course, expected to marry; they were, of course, expected not to have sex until they were married; they were expected to be good girls, and they had the usual contemptible and completely enraging words for the not good girls.
(My mother and I had a number of arguments, debates, and all-out screaming fights when I was a young teenager because she'd raised me to be relatively practical and relatively logical, and some of those phrases struck me as sexist, hugely gender-biased, and entirely unfair. My father would very quietly pick up the newspaper and head out to the living room when we talked about these things because a) he had no opinions to offer and b) the words could easily become incendiary.)
But my mother's generation didn't use the term "settling" in the same way. And it occurs to me that there are reasons for that, one being that women were not considered capable of their own upkeep away from their parent's house; marriage wasn't a matter of romantic love; it was a matter of necessity, like finding a job. This, by the way, is not the way it was ever presented to me; this is hindsight. It was important to my mother that we all marry for love.
Yes, that was a digression.
What I am still wondering, however, is why "settling" has no real male counterpart. I asked my husband about it, and he understands and recognizes the term -- but it's a term that women use, and they apply it to other women. So I asked him what the male equivalent was. There was some silence and some thought, and then he admitted that no male equivalent came to mind.
So I asked him why.
He said that men in general don't talk to each other about relationships or relationship issues; they don't talk about their marriages, their wives, or, once they're no longer teenage boys, their sex life. If they're talking about relationship issues, they're almost always talking to women.
So... why is this? Is it just the cultural context, that leftover conditioning that still requires women to be in relationships to be happy? Men are often lonely; is it just the social pressure not to talk about these things that prevents them from entering the same types of conversations, or are these conversations inherently pointless or boring?
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-05 05:21 pm (UTC)I did 5 years of psych research with Dr. F. L. Geis on gender/role/status theory at U of DE. In her memory, I just conducted some quick "research" using my brothers/sisters and some of their friends as subjects. My siblings and I span over 25 years in age ranges. Not very scientific, but fun.
I made 28 people sit and read this whole thread using my cooking as a bribe (never ceases to amaze me what I can get folks to do for my chile and guacamole). In a nutshell, here's what I learned by age group:
30's - Women and men both understood the topics discussed, and related on some personal level to the posts contributed. Several women felt the need to emphasize that the whole "settling" concept had been overcome/broken. It was a lively discussion.
20's - Men and women framed their discussion in terms of "things they learned about in school" (i.e. history/social studies classes). It was mainly a discussion about "the past". Men were able to relate on a more current and personal level to the posts, especially the "zero-sum" communication. The only topic the women touched on at a personal level was the ticking baby time clock, and that almost immediately turned into a discussion about medical technology/health, and the differences between now and way back THEN (LOL - I so felt like a dinosaur serving food and drinks at the ripe age of 37 by the end of that night!).
11 to 18 - Let me sum it up with few quotes, "What are these people talking about?", "Why is this relevant NOW?", "Do they really still believe this stuff?", "Why does a man have to do the proposing; why can't I propose to someone?" (11 year old girl - from the mouth of babes comes wisdom as always...), and "I don't understand why people used to think these things." I sat back, smiled, and found this the most GLORIOUS evening of all!
Cheers to progress all :)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 02:52 am (UTC)Cheers to progress all :)
Thank you so much for sharing this! I think it is a snapshot concept, in that my mother's generation didn't have it so codified, either.