| The Grudge |
[Dec. 30th, 2009|10:38 pm] |
Talking to my neighbor Austin last night, I discovered he is one more in the list of those who think that women “hold a grudge” longer than men do. Trust me; I’m sure he is right. If we assume that this term is connected to a type of emotional response, and that emotional responses are linked to the female gender, and that this response may include feelings such as resentment, sadness, lots of yelling, passive-aggressive bitterness and victimization, then I agree with Austin: I think that women are able to hold grudges against men, and that they are not scared of holding them.
But I also think women are less worried about dwelling through their “grudge” and of talking to others about “their grudge” (friends, therapists, their mother, their father, ministers, support groups and whoever else wants to listen.) And that in the long run, these women who “hold a grudge” manage to successfully work their way out of it, strengthening their character in the process, even if it takes them time. I may be too optimistic, but I would like to think that this is mostly the case. So it may also be the case that “holding a grudge” the way women generally do, is better than ignoring the grudge and blocking it, or pretending the grudge is not there and focusing on other things instead, like men generally do. So Austin is right, but for different reasons than the ones he may assume. That is, the problem may be that men don’t know how to effectively “hold a grudge.”
This brings me, again, to my APA afternoon session of the day, the “Women in Philosophy” conference. Gladly, there was a feminist man in the Panel, Tom Digby, who was presenting a paper about the issue of Manhood. I think that his position may help to understand why it is that men don’t “hold grudges” as much as women do. Assuming that a “grudge” is a highly emotional, passive aggressive, reaction to a circumstance or event, predominately held by women, then men don’t hold grudges because they don’t react like women do. Instead, men, who are generally trained since boyhood to be less emotional, to “suck it up,” and to “quit acting like sissies,” are also socially trained to “suck up” the grudge. So Digby, fighting oppression from the other side of the gender sphere, argues that the conception of manhood is damaging to males. Here I can add that ignoring “grudges” may also, in the long term, damage our fellows of the other sex, and indirectly harm women. I’ll make my point shortly.
Digby in his book "Male Trouble" (2003) argues that our cultural ideas of manhood are deeply influenced by the idea of the warrior. This ideal is characterized by a though, hypersexual male who can selectively focus in a war zone, can suspend his capacity to feel compassion for others and can only express “manly” emotions such as anger (so feelings of vulnerability here, are not “manly.”) Because this is a cultural idea, it means that boys are not born fixed in masculinity, but are rigorously trained through youth, often through humiliation by other boys or peers, to be men. What is interesting about Digby’s argument is that he explains how empathy, compassion and the tendency to nurture are biologically grounded in both sexes, but males are more prone to give up these qualities as they strengthen their “warrior” tendencies instead. So what is at stake here is men’s mental and physical health. Digby uses an example of NFL players who are now dealing with PTSD issues and physical deterioration after having spent their best years knocking each other down, and recalling how suicide rates in males are larger than in females because they are powerless over their vulnerability. Also, Digby argues, a male trained socially to be a “real man” would, like a warrior, be unaffected by the suffering of others, because a warrior must suspend his capacity to feel anything for his enemy in war, as to kill him without any doubt. Showing compassion would make “the real man” a sissy, or “a woman,” which is derogatively, the opposite of a man.
Even though none of my male friends are really like this, which is why they are my friends, I do notice that the social sphere and even the media still, explicitly or implicitly, portrays manhood through the idea of “the warrior.” Although most guys are smart enough to challenge this conception, there are some notions that are still deeply embedded in their sociality. Which brings me back to my initial point: Men hold grudges differently than women do, but maybe they could learn something from women. Generally, men either suppress their feelings, having been trained since boyhood that vulnerability is not “manly,” or they reveal them through anger, which is the only “manly” form of expression. And intermediate between these two is harder to find for men, because since boyhood, nobody has taught them how to express their vulnerability, for example. Women on the other hand, can more easily express vulnerability because they where not socially trained under the “warrior” ideal.
So men’s potential happiness is delimited by this notion of manhood, embedded in them since youth, and constrains their capacity to care for themselves and for others. According to Digby, a male raised with a “warrior” sociality, is not only more capable of committing domestic violence to the people who love him the most, but also, is most likely to commit suicide unable to work through his feelings. In conclusion, if men are liberated from this social constrain, then women will be one step less oppressed. That is, if women are less prone to suffer domestic violence, rape, emotional abuse etc. by men trained under this “warrior” ideal, they will gain equality and more freedom. And the more equal are men to women, the better for feminism. So letting men express their vulnerability would involve changing the norms of sociality that train them into becoming men through the idea of “the warrior.” By getting rid of this "manly" ideal, women may suffer less abuse from men, less domestic violence, and thus, be one step less oppressed. And men may even be happier overall as a gender.
Moral of the story, let men hold a grudge as much as they want to, maybe even for as long as women do. But let them do it more effectively. Let them talk, cry, dwell, instead of getting angry about it or suppressing it. It would only contribute to the achievement of equality, and this, hopefully, benefits everybody. |
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