The Mind of the American Male

I have been thinking a lot about men lately. I have been reading books about raising boys. It’s been pretty eye opening. I never realized boys were so cruel to one another.

Then the other night I was driving home from my AA meeting when an NPR show came on about the “Mind of the American Male”. Even a couple of years ago, I would have thought, “Men own everything, and now we have to know what they think too?!” However, a little American male is now the center of my existence, and I was rather interested to know what men had to say for themselves. I drove around Boston listening to the program even though I had a sweet wife and ice cream at home waiting for me. (100% aside- Boston is not a fun city to just drive around in. Even at night. When I was young and living in Arizona, I would drive for miles. Those generous open highways! There was the beautiful desert and the dark sky that went on for days. A girl could really get her head together driving around Black Canyon Highway).

What really interested me about the program was that men seemed really anxious to join the discussion, and there were a lot of strong feelings expressed. However, the complaints struck me as kind of vague. There was the standard complaint that feminism has redefined the sex roles and now men don’t know what their role is. This is undoubtedly true. But wasn’t the height of the feminist movement in the 70’s. Like thirty years ago. You would have thought men would have figured something out by now. I think there has been some foot dragging.

There were discussion of girlfriends who had left them, and how hard it is to make a living. But nowhere in the discussion did anyone say something so insightful that I thought, “This is the heart of the matter.”

Now, I have dated men and women. In my judgment, there is little difference between them. And what is different gets exaggerated, my guess is for political purposes. I do think boys are raised in a manner that forces them to pigeon hole themselves into acceptable masculine personas. Just this year, I have observed boys being acutely discourage from expressing feelings and interests that would be considered unmasculine. I think some men take these lessons to heart more than others. Some men do this so thoroughly that they become dulled and completely cut off from parts of themselves. In some cases, the most interesting parts.

Comments left on my blog have been mostly from women, however, if a boy should happen to pass this way, I would be really interested to know your thoughts are on any of this. So please, consider this a written invitation to comment. Don’t worry if you are not a boy, I still would love to hear from you.

What it means to be a boy

I never realized how into gender people were until I had a baby. It starts in utereo. Once word got out that I was having a boy, my house started to fill up with baby blue onesies with footballs on them.

Now that he is a little older and beginning to show interest in things, I can’t help but feel that serious gender molding has begun. For instance, he is very interested in wheels of all sorts. He’s fascinated by them. If there is a toy with wheels on them, he crawls over to it and immediately starts maneuvering it. He likes to see things move. He turns the toys over to observe the wheels. He seems to be doing mini experiments like blocking the objects path to see what will happen.

Family and friends have observed this and delightfully exclaimed, “Look at that. He loves trucks!” They have shown their support by filling our house with plastic dump trucks.

However, I really think it’s the wheels and not the trucks that he is interested in. I think he would be just as fascinated with a pink Barbie convertible as with a Pick up truck. I have a friend who is in a wheelchair, and he seems just as interested in her chair as he does his trucks.

But boys liking trucks is socially acceptable, and I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t respond to their approval. I also have an inkling that our family and friends are relieved that a couple of lesbians are raising a boy who likes boyish things. I wonder if this is how gender imprinting starts.