Abandon4093 said:
You're giving his chauvinism way too much credence. His suggestion is that the world isn't all peaches and cream (as it so clearly was 100 or so years ago) because we aren't adhering to 'traditional family values'. He actually referred to our new outlook on gender roles as, and I quote "disgusting and perverse."
Yeah, and I'm quite happy to disagree with him on that without thinking that this, in and of itself, invalidates the position that the conventional gender division still exists and that sticking to it is a successful strategy.
Abandon4093 said:
On to your more valid opinions. Dandies and Fopps would like a word with you.
Traditionally it's not the ident of masculinity itself that women found attractive. But the suggestion of security it brought with it. By the opposite swing of the pendulum. Those who identified as being rich by wearing gaudy clothing and draping themselves in vulgar finery also brought with them the suggestion of security. Not through strength or masculinity but in wealth.
But I'd hazard a guess that actual attraction was as varied and unique back then as it is now. Even if social proclivities prevented such 'nonsense'.
This comment is interesting; it links in with modern day Bling and similar Status Symbol tropes. I suppose the very idea of high fashion has this connotation in either gender; someone who dresses well is presumed to have the disposable income to afford it. I take the point that the practicalities of a partnership often extend beyond character traits and people of both genders take this into account in such a way that tight conformity isn't strictly necessary.
But I can't shake the feeling that Dandies aren't great examples for men being desired other than for their masculinity, largely because they're a class that aggressively embrace the ideas of entrepeneurialism and competitiveness and flaunt the gains they make from said activities. Isn't that very manly indeed?
Abandon4093 said:
There's no completion of a whole because individually we're not really missing anything. We don't all share the same traits and idiosyncrasies and very often opposites do attract. But I think especially now, there's no accurate guideline as to what is feminine and what is masculine.
As I proposed, though, I think the reason this division is blurring and people are "missing" less is that much of the traditional functional social roles that mandated the gender divide have been usurped by the march of technology. Masculinity still sees the need to govern, build, regiment, acquire and triumph. Men before might have been the labourers and financiers, the clerks and the generals, and in such domains of life, particular skill sets and characters would have been seen as a vita part of doing good business. The softer skills to counterbalance that specialisation would be needed for social interaction outside of the workplace - this was something that the feminine domain would be able to assist with, and thereby making codependence more standard.
These things are still there in our culture. If you need confirmation, check out the magazine rack of your local newsagents.
But with the growth of free media, social interaction is much easier. With vastly increased levels of personal entertainment, it's also much less actually called upon. So the more social function that the counterbalancing skills would have served is less a specialisation of its own accord, and more something that integrates with broader professional practice and personal development. Thus men don't need women to cover this weakness for them any more. On the other hand, since there's less of a need for core manual labour, since computer development has caused a revolution in business organisation and financial transaction, and since military functions are (in theory) greatly reduced, the specialist masculine skill set also appears largely redundant. So women don't need men any more either to do the same work. (I'm using Woman and Man here as gender terms, rather than sex terms)
So we're agreed that a split in gender roles in current social structure is at best ambiguously specified. That doesn't mean there's similar ambiguity in culture.
