The Gender Thread, vive la difference!

[GHT]

I'd say that a lot of men who come from single parent (which is typically only a mother) beat men that come from aloof father homes in the maturity department. Simply because they likely had to pitch in to help their family survive.

Well I wouldn't describe my father as aloof, assertive maybe and strong willed, but he loved his kids, all four of us. He raised us single handed and had to work. Mother left him a widower with four kids under the age of ten.
What you say about pitching in is so true. We survived because we all chipped in. I remember taking our washing to the laundromat because we didn't have a washing machine, I quickly learned the various solutions to add and when. My sisters learned to iron the clean laundry and we all learned to cook, although Dad was usually the chef. He was also the cleaner, the wage earner and as comforting as a mother when it called for it.
Dad survived mother by some 53 years, she died in 1956 aged 33, dad was 92 when he died, in 2009.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I've always gotten along better with men than women. Even so, I grew up in an apartment in NYC so I know nothing about fixing junk around the house. I welcome and seek explanations for certain basics. That doesn't make me Basic. As far as withholding "sexual favors", that was cringe-worthy to read! I don't view said acts in that light, and manipulating in that way is not something in which I engage. Sounds more like a stereotype.

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Jimmy, Jimmy.... isn't he the best?...love those times and ways and everything have no problem with the past here. None at all!

I bring my fiance his coffee in the morning and I have a hot homemade dinner on the table every night because I love to do it. I do it by choice and not because it's expected of me. If there were any hints of condescension or patronizing expectations that'd be a different story.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't think there's any one thing you can blame when a young man turns out to be a problem -- sometimes it's just the way it goes. I know of a young man in our area who had an ideal upbringing -- his parents cared about him but didn't suffocate him, his father was a lobsterman and commercial seaman -- which for those of you who don't know Maine is the "manliest" job possible here -- and was in all ways a well-respected man in the community who took care of his family and fit all the appropriate Good Man stereotypes. The kid grew up, his teachers all predicted a great and wholesome future for him, and then one day about six weeks ago, he beat his mother, his grandparents, and his grandparents' housekeeper to death with a baseball bat.

I know a lot of young men raised by single mothers who never did anything like that.

 

[Fading Fast]

My upbringing was, IMHO, old fashion. I had chores to do around the house (and I did them without being told twice) was expected to (not rewarded to) do well at school and the house revolved around my parents not me. I was told that a job meant you owed someone an honest day's work for an honest day's pay and that you'd start at the bottom because you have no experience. I am not exaggerating one bit about that being my upbringing or being explicitly told that about work - repeatedly and emphatically.

The downside was that it took me several years of work to realize that some bosses / managers would cheat / take advantage of me because I just, as I was taught, "kept my head down and worked hard." I had none of the entitled attitude talked about above, but again, there was a cost as well.

Even with those costs, I'm glad I was raised the way I was as, overall, it has served me well, especially once I learned to navigate the grey areas because the core values - hard work, give someone fair value for your pay - has served me very well. Even now, thirty-plus years later, those values, which have me greatly respecting every single client who trusts their money to me (I manage money), served and serves me very well as I've never had a compliance issue (corny, but "honesty is the best policy" keeps you out of trouble as a lot of moral issues aren't clear, but having the right loadstar helps) and a reputation for honesty that has kept me employed in a field that has an average career length of seven years.

I had both a mom and dad teaching me those values - mainly by implied expectations, but with the occasional lecture (not a give-and-take discussion where my "feelings" were taken into consideration) and by example - they practiced what they preached. My opinion, which could be very wrong, is that a single parent could have taught me that as well, as the key, IMHO, is that it was the clear and (at times) severe message and parenting that created those values.

But please understand, I am not saying that is a formula that would work for all as I know it is very hard to raise children, that the best efforts and intentions don't always work and, conversely, some great kids come out of some very troubled upbringings. So the above is not a recipe for others, just reflections from my life that seemed relevant to the thread.

 

[Frunobulax]

Well, if there's one thing we can generalize, it's that generalizations aren't always helpful!


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I can only speak as a dad who adopted two older kids (8 and 11, when we got them) from Russia. Some damage that is done to a kid at an early age can never be undone, no matter how many thousands of dollars and how many hours are spent in therapy or other remedial attempts. Substance abuse and criminal behavior can be taught at an unbelievably early stage of development, by either intent or neglect. As to how a young man will treat women, I still believe that the way that a small child sees his father treat women is the largest single influence. Having no dad around at all may actually be a lesser impediment than a father who is either abusive to women or expects women to wait on him hand and foot.

My own dad grew up without a mother: he was dropped off at an orphanage in the middle of the night when he was three and spend several years there. His own dad was a worthless drunk who consistently let may father down: promising to show up for a birthday and then getting stewed in some gin mill was a regular M.O. He tried his best as a husband to treat my Mom well, but nothing he did was ever good enough for her ever meddling family... and so she soon took on the attitude that he was to be- at best- tolerated as a necessary nuisance . They divorced after 29 years- but the marriage was dead long before that.

I can thank 12 years of Catholic schooling- and a terminal case of Catholic guilt that haunts me even in my current Presbyterian existence- for having a more (I hope, anyway) enlightened attitude about how to treat women than those of my father's generation. I worked for decades with female lawyers, female judges, and female clients, and the bottom line is that you treat others with the same courtesy, respect, and consideration that you'd expect from others. Sounds simple enough, and we all drop the ball occasionally in that regard ... but we get better as we strive to improve ourselves. Hopefully.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Most of the valuable lessons I learned growing up came from my grandmother:

1. Be nice to every dog you meet on the street, but don't turn your back on them.

2. Always remember to lock your seams, because if you don't the whole thing will fall apart.

3. Never throw away a paper bag. You never know when you'll need one.

 

[ChiTownScion]

And finally..

 

[hatsRme]

Wrong question. The most common problem with young men is the lack of a father figure. Don't blame Mom.

Agreed, Jim and @HadleyH1! Moreover, is it me, or has the father figure (in the US, at least) been caricaturized on TV and in movies to be less thoughtful and more of a buffoon, reduced to an almost marginal role in the family?

From another perspective, I'm trying to recall the words of a rabbi I knew years ago, who said that the Hebrew words for mother (eima, phonetically) and father (abba) have something of a different meaning, or "feeling" beyond the obvious. That is that "abba," or father also contains a connotation of a deeper respect, or recognition of the "mastery" of the father's role. I've always wondered about that comment, because the role of the mother in Jewish tradition is NEVER to be disregarded; they RUN the home.

 

[hatsRme]

And finally..

View attachment 92458

I wish that I had seen this before posting the above... THE END!

 

[LizzieMaine]

As to the caricaturing of fathers, this isn't a modern innovation in any way whatsoever. One need only consider the example of such dopey dads of The Era as Andy Gump (incompetent egotistical blowhard), Dagwood Bumstead (lazy emasculated office drone), George Bungle (clueless dupe), Henry Tremblechin (terrorized by his five-year-old daughter and his overbearing boss), Chester A. Riley (naive bumbling boob), Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (vain, pompous uncle) and Phil Harris (illiterate, conceited buffoon) to realize this is an old, old comedy trope.

The wise, understanding Sam Aldrich/Ward Cleaver/Jim Anderson type was always the exception rather than the rule, especially in the thirties and forties, when the "man of the house" was usually portrayed in comics, two reelers, and on radio as a henpecked ineffectual goof.

If you want to throw in men who were married but without children you could also add Charley Chase (who usually portrayed flustered epicenes who could never seem to do anything quite right), Leon Errol (who was driven to drink by whoever was playing his wife of the moment) and Edgar Kennedy (who was given no respect whatsoever by his wife, his mother-in-law, or his parasitical brother-in-law) along with such fictional favorites as Jiggs (constantly derided and physically assaulted by his wife), Barney Google (eventually driven from the marital home by a wife 'three times his size' for his shiftlessness), Wallace Wimple (dominated by his Big Old Wife Sweetie Face), George "Kingfish" Stevens (who could only escape from his miserable home life by hiding out at the lodge hall), Joe McDoakes (a weak-willed fumbling schlemiel) and John Bickerson (a splenetic whining jackhole.)

You could, if inclined, characterize this entire explosion of poor specimens of Manhood as popular culture's response to the increasing empowerment and independence of women thru the first half of the twentieth century. To a great many extremely insecure males, women getting the vote, working outside the home, forming unions, and taking no crap seems to have caused them to visualize themselves as being powerless and insignificant little nebbishes under the thrall of a nation of rolling-pin-swinging Maggies. After all, every single character mentioned above was created, written, and presented to the public by men born between 1880 and 1915.

 

[sheeplady]

Sitcoms and romantic comedies aren't good models for society. There's a reason they're fiction.

 

[Fading Fast]

As to the caricaturing of fathers, this isn't a modern innovation in any way whatsoever. One need only consider the example of such dopey dads of The Era as Andy Gump (incompetent egotistical blowhard), Dagwood Bumstead (lazy emasculated office drone), George Bungle (clueless dupe), Henry Tremblechin (terrorized by his five-year-old daughter and his overbearing boss), Chester A. Riley (naive bumbling boob), Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (vain, pompous uncle) and Phil Harris (illiterate, conceited buffoon) to realize this is an old, old comedy trope.

The wise, understanding Sam Aldrich/Ward Cleaver/Jim Anderson type was always the exception rather than the rule, especially in the thirties and forties, when the "man of the house" was usually portrayed in comics, two reelers, and on radio as a henpecked ineffectual goof.

If you want to throw in men who were married but without children you could also add Charley Chase (who usually portrayed flustered epicenes who could never seem to do anything quite right), Leon Errol (who was driven to drink by whoever was playing his wife of the moment) and Edgar Kennedy (who was given no respect whatsoever by his wife, his mother-in-law, or his parasitical brother-in-law) along with such fictional favorites as Jiggs (constantly derided and physically assaulted by his wife), Barney Google (eventually driven from the marital home by a wife 'three times his size' for his shiftlessness), Wallace Wimple (dominated by his Big Old Wife Sweetie Face), George "Kingfish" Stevens (who could only escape from his miserable home life by hiding out at the lodge hall), Joe McDoakes (a weak-willed fumbling schlemiel) and John Bickerson (a splenetic whining jackhole.)

You could, if inclined, characterize this entire explosion of poor specimens of Manhood as popular culture's response to the increasing empowerment and independence of women thru the first half of the twentieth century. To a great many extremely insecure males, women getting the vote, working outside the home, forming unions, and taking no crap seems to have caused them to visualize themselves as being powerless and insignificant little nebbishes under the thrall of a nation of rolling-pin-swinging Maggies. After all, every single character mentioned above was created, written, and presented to the public by men born between 1880 and 1915.

You can throw in "The Honeymooners" as Alice was clearly smarter than Ralph as was Trixie than Ed. And, overall, despite the bravado, both men were a bit afraid of their wives or at least tried to hide their stupid plans from them.

I am sincere in this, I'd have to think about your theory of why more before being convinced as it didn't seem (at least as regards "The Honeymooners") that there was a defensive or angry genesis to it - it was almost early pro-feminism in that both Alice and Trixie were presented as the smart, rational ones who kept the family running, but they were also kind not domineering or emasculating.

But again, that's just my take on "The Honeymooners" as I'm not familiar enough with your examples to comment.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it boils down to the difference between the 1930s and the 1950s. The early postwar era was a time of desperately trying to put the genie back in the bottle as far as feminism was concerned as part of the overall reactionary spirit of that time. The Boys were hard at work pushing the "back to the kitchen" theme -- which is throughly deconstructed by Elizabeth Hawes in her 1948 book "Anything But Love" -- and the overall "approved" image of women in popular culture was increasingly compliant and apologetic.

Even "The Honeymooners" was not immune to this -- it's instructive to compare the "classic 39" episodes everyone knows from 1955-56 with the earliest "Honeymooners" sketches done on the Dumont network's "Cavalcade of Stars" in 1951 with Pert Kelton as Alice. Kelton's Alice was in no way the firm-but-gentle type portrayed by Audrey Meadows -- she was as loud and aggressive as Ralph, and was far less tolerant of his nonsense. Where Meadows' arguments often took on a pleading quality, there was nothing the ieast bit desperate about Kelton's portrayal. Kelton was also eight years older than Gleason, and the age discrepancy came across in the way her Alice often treated Ralph as a backward, fumbling child.

Kelton lost her job after being blacklisted -- she had attended a meeting in support of the Hollywood Ten, and her name appeared in a May Day ad in the Daily Worker in 1948 -- and the situation led to a reevaluation of Alice's characterization. Audrey Meadows had the ability to portray her as smart and firm -- without being "too aggressive" or "masculine," which were among the Boys' complaints about Pert Kelton. Kelton also had a rough-edged grubbiness in the way she looked as Alice to go with her hard-boiled attitude, whereas Meadows' Alice, as mouthy as she could get, was always dainty, well-groomed, and ladylike in her appearance. Gleason, who had bitterly opposed Kelton's dismissal, objected to Meadows' hiring on the grounds that she was "too pretty" to be a convincing Alice, but was eventually won over.

There were a few real thirties-style women who managed to hang on into the fifties -- Eve Arden on "Our Miss Brooks" was clearly the intellectual superior of all the men she interacted with, and was in no way apologetic about it -- but by the middle of The Fifties most of this fiesty, tough-nut attitude had been bled out of pop-culture women and replaced by bland, smiling compliance. Audrey Meadows' sanitized Alice Kramden was about as far as a female character was allowed to go.

Interestingly, after the blacklist was broken in the 1960s, Kelton returned to "The Honeymooners," appearing as Alice's mother -- and in that role she gave full vent to the aggressive personality she had originally brought to Alice herself.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think it boils down to the difference between the 1930s and the 1950s. The early postwar era was a time of desperately trying to put the genie back in the bottle as far as feminism was concerned as part of the overall reactionary spirit of that time. The Boys were hard at work pushing the "back to the kitchen" theme -- which is throughly deconstructed by Elizabeth Hawes in her 1948 book "Anything But Love" -- and the overall "approved" image of women in popular culture was increasingly compliant and apologetic.

Even "The Honeymooners" was not immune to this -- it's instructive to compare the "classic 39" episodes everyone knows from 1955-56 with the earliest "Honeymooners" sketches done on the Dumont network's "Cavalcade of Stars" in 1951 with Pert Kelton as Alice. Kelton's Alice was in no way the firm-but-gentle type portrayed by Audrey Meadows -- she was as loud and aggressive as Ralph, and was far less tolerant of his nonsense. Where Meadows' arguments often took on a pleading quality, there was nothing the ieast bit desperate about Kelton's portrayal. Kelton was also eight years older than Gleason, and the age discrepancy came across in the way her Alice often treated Ralph as a backward, fumbling child.

Kelton lost her job after being blacklisted -- she had attended a meeting in support of the Hollywood Ten, and her name appeared in a May Day ad in the Daily Worker in 1948 -- and the situation led to a reevaluation of Alice's characterization. Audrey Meadows had the ability to portray her as smart and firm -- without being "too aggressive" or "masculine," which were among the Boys' complaints about Pert Kelton. Kelton also had a rough-edged grubbiness in the way she looked as Alice to go with her hard-boiled attitude, whereas Meadows' Alice, as mouthy as she could get, was always dainty, well-groomed, and ladylike in her appearance. Gleason, who had bitterly opposed Kelton's dismissal, objected to Meadows' hiring on the grounds that she was "too pretty" to be a convincing Alice, but was eventually won over.

There were a few real thirties-style women who managed to hang on into the fifties -- Eve Arden on "Our Miss Brooks" was clearly the intellectual superior of all the men she interacted with, and was in no way apologetic about it -- but by the middle of The Fifties most of this fiesty, tough-nut attitude had been bled out of pop-culture women and replaced by bland, smiling compliance. Audrey Meadows' sanitized Alice Kramden was about as far as a female character was allowed to go.

Interestingly, after the blacklist was broken in the 1960s, Kelton returned to "The Honeymooners," appearing as Alice's mother -- and in that role she gave full vent to the aggressive personality she had originally brought to Alice herself.

⇧ As always, a ton of good history and information. I remember Alice's mother as being a full-on battler with Ralph. I have no desire, nor the energy, to be in fight mode at home. As a kid and, now, as an adult, I never understood these truly fighting couples. Sure, I get that the occasional argument or aggressive banter or now-and-then grumpiness is part of almost any marriage - but the constant fighting (for a man, woman, don't care) would be an exhausting way to live. While not my first choice, there are divorce courts for a reason.

I'm glad you noted it, as while Alice (the '50s one) was usually on the calm side, usually nicely mannered, she could fire up her mouth now and again and did. She shouted down Ralph more than once - and but good. It's funny how your take is that the change in Alice (form the '30s to the '50s) was a way of reining in a more aggressive woman (and you have a solid argument, I'm not debating that), but as a kid who grew up on those '50s re-runs in the '70s, it just showed me a smart, more in-control and more mature woman married to an insecure, stupid loudmouth.

Sure, he might (by the wrap up) be shown not to be so bad, but one of the messages I took away is that this woman made a bad match for herself as she was the better person. Heck, when she tried to get a job, she did well and you knew she'd quickly out earn Ralph if given a little time on the job, which of course Ralph couldn't stand. But the pro-female lesson to me, even as a kid, was clear.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another good example of "softening up" a popular cultre woman in the postwar era was what happened to Lois Lane. In the comics, Siegel and Shuster had conceived her as a two-fisted, snappy-talking Glenda Farrell type of "girl reporter" who asked no quarter and gave none in dealing with male colleagues or adversaries. She was portrayed consistent with that original vision until the early 1950s, when she was reworked into a rather pathetic figure who spent most of her time mooning over why Superman wouldn't marry her and scheming to discover his secret identity. This, not the hard-charging Lois of the late thirties, is the Lois boomers grew up with in the pages of "Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane," a comic I always considered a weak sister, even though it was supposed to appeal to girls.

Lois went thru a similar gelding in other media. The radio Lois of the 1940s was a crisp, no-nonsense Rosalind Russell-like figure, and when the TV series began in 1951 under the supervision of the same producer who had handled the radio show, she was portrayed in the same style by film-noir veteran Phyllis Coates. But Coates left the series after the first season, and was replaced by Noel Neill, whose Lois was less assertive by far and more dependent on Superman to come to her rescue. Even as a kid watching these shows in reruns it was obvious to me that Neill was not playing the same character Coates had played, even though she was still called "Lois Lane," and I far preferred the original version.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I've seen that sort of remolding of a character outside of the man/ woman dynamic as well in sitcoms. And even with the same actor. Sometimes a character is a bit of a heavy, but the audience takes a shine to him and so they remake him as a likeable (if somewhat rascal- ish) "good guy" to keep him going past the original setting. David Proval played such a character like this on "Everybody Loves Raymond." He was originally a "heavy," the father of Ray's brother's Italian girlfriend, and had an almost sinister, organized crime quality about him initially. Then they brought him back and made him more "lovable" and the pal of the main antagonist's parents.

They did the same remake thing with John Hausmann's Professor Kingsfield character when they made "The Paper Chase" into a television series: he was more "loveable" than the austere, pedantic character that he was in the original movie. My personal shorthand for such a makeover is that, "... they did an 'Iago the Parrot' job on him." From the Disney Aladdin films: the parrot was such a scene stealer that they had to resurrect him in a more loveable incarnation in the sequels.

 

[Tiki Tom]

In almost any other forum, something called “the gender thread” would have rapidly devolved into an ugly contest between dedicated gender warriors. Imagine my surprise at finding a discussion about media archetypes, their sources, and how they evolved. No wonder I come here when the sensationalist MSM wears me down.

Makes me ponder the 20th century question of do the movies (and tv) reflect society or sew the seeds of change? Rhetorical question. Some of both, I guess, depending on the specifics.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All media is a product of the culture that creates it, but all culture is a product of the media it creates. Chicken, meet the egg.