Pro-Egalitarian

Men-opause, weighty decisions by suffering businessmen

What troubled me about the Stats SA 2011 Census form is that the name of the household head had to be entered first. Now in a home of equal partners, what do one do? Be that as it may ... the world is still predominantly run by men. "The top honchos ar mostly men, most north of 55" observes Caroline Southey aptly. Download Men(opause)_Suffer_the_middle-aged_businessman_Caroline_Southey_MG_Business_21-27October2011

In the case of women the menopause issue had been "flushed out following decades of debate, experimentation, medical research and billion-dollar hormone replacement therapy business. Not so with male menopause".

The problem is, suggests Southey "that these illutrious men do not even know they [might] have a problem ... or they do not want to know what it is". She elaborates about the telltale signs and remarks that the "consequences hardly need to be spelt out. Weighty decisions are being made ... on a daily basis by men suffering from some, if not all, of these afflictions. Ill-tempered and crabby [and egoisticly], they are deciding on matters ..."

"... there is a stong case to be made for middle-aged men in power to start popping pills or nibbling on some liquorice route. Or klep could be served at board-meeting tea breaks."



Attachments: Anxious - Avoidant - Secure

Attachment-type is considered a key to lasting equal relationships. Attachment theory, postulated by John Bowlby tested and further developed by Mary Ainsworth (née Salter) in the 1960-70ties, is enjoying renewed attention from Amir Levine and Rachel Heller in their 2011 published book -- covers below, US (left) and UK (right) -- which is promoted as dating manual:

 

The picture directly below presents a very crude, yet gender-bias, snap shot of adult attachment. By identifying your type of attachment you can work on your relationships is believed.

 
There is a 30 item romantic-attachment-style quiz available online from About.com psychology.

Download Anxious_Avoidant_Secure_Fairlady_Oct2011_pp84-86

Redistribution of feminine submission

"It remains to be seen whether feminism's greatest accomplishment was the liberation of women or whether it was redistributing feminine submission more equally between the gender" ponders Laura Kipnis (2003, 16 – footnote). Feminism is often credited (or blamed — pending on perspective) "for propelling out of the domicile and into the job market", however "economic downturn and stagnation of real wages" were most probably the key driving forces. Households became dependent on two incomes, not quite what women's liberation had intended.

Kipnis points out "that gender equity isn't necessarily synonymous with greater freedom; it can simply mean equality in submission". Women do in the 21^st century enjoy equal (to men) status as legal persons, marital and property laws were reformed, but how equal are the genders?

Kipnis, L. 2003. Against love, a polemic. New York: Vitage Books.

Why are the criteria for women often roomier than for men?

Wherein is the 'equality' vested if women often need to out perform and out smart men just to be regarded equal? Published poet S'kho Mkwanazi is reported to remark "Men have a natual, God-given power. For me as a women to have a voice, I must have a PhD, but a man doesn't have to have anything". Download A_change_in_mentality_Getting_Ahead_supplement_MG_28Jan_3Feb2011

The South African public Higher Education enrollments for 2009, reflected below, comprised 59.1% women (478 112 of 837 611) and 42.9% men (359 499). Graduate figures, the same year are, reveals an even better pass rate among women, namely 60.8% (88 054 of 144 809) versus 39.2% (56 755) of men. 

 
A change in the mentality of men and about men is necessary.

Not paternalism but maternalism

"The ends of maternalism parallel those of paternalism, that is, the maintenance of the servant in the role of a perpetual child. It is the means; the tactics employed which are different. The workings of maternalism are less overt in that a complex emotional dynamic develops between employer and employee." Alison Jill King (2007: 13) writes in Domestic Service in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Deference and Disdain (Hampshire: Ashgate). Paternalistic entails an authoritarian tendency that regards women childlike and unable to govern themselves.

She chooses the term maternalism because of the implied power and kindness dynamic, as well as the parent-child ideology underlying the relationship between madam and domestic worker. Maternalism often masks the exploitation, without comprehension for the circumstances, of the person rendering the domestic work. Based on King's research findings about relationships she opts for 'pseudo-maternalism', which she defines "a female relationship that is patterned along paternalistic lines that inverts characteristics of maternalism to enhance power and image of self in relation to 'the other'" (p. 16). The 'pseudo-maternalism' conduct is often manifested in patronising actions, which means to treat the domestic worker in a condescending way—suggesting an enactment of social or class distinction.

Women not to be blamed for their guy's POIS

Scientists reported a mysterious syndrome in which men come down with a flu-like illness after an orgasm. Women, relax! It is not you making him sick. His illness may be caused by an allergy to his own semen. A condition known since 2002 as post orgasmic illness syndrome, or POIS. Men get flu-like symptoms such as feverishness, runny nose, extreme fatigue and burning eyes immediately after they ejaculate, symptoms which can last for up to week.

Pois (as in the French for small/baby sweet fresh green garden peas = petit pois, pronounced pəti pwa) or pwah, there you've got it. [poi, pronounced poh-ee, is also a Hawaiian dish made of the root of the taro baked, pounded, moistened, and fermented].

Symbolic physical liberation & rebellion against prudery

A two piece garment invented by a French lingerie salesman, namesake of people evacuated for scandalous and dangerous atomic testing.

• An Atoll is "a coral island or series of coral islands forming a ring that nearly or entirely encloses a shallow lagoon. Atolls are surrounded by deep ocean water and range in diameter from about 1 km (0.62 mi) to over 100 km (62 mi). They are especially common in the western and central Pacific Ocean and are believed to form along the fringes of underwater volcanoes".
• "Bikini Atoll is one of the 29 atolls and five islands that compose the Marshall Islands". "In February of 1946 the Bikinians were asked to leave their atoll so that the United States could test atomic bombs there."

Source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Bikini1.gif

• Bikini Atoll (also known as Pikinni Atoll) consists of 23 islands surrounding a deep 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km2) central lagoon. After the displacement of the local inhabitants, 67 nuclear tests were carried out from 1946 to 1958, including the explosion of the first H-bomb (1952).
• Twenty-three nuclear devices were detonated on Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958 with a combined fission yield of 42.2 Megaton (Mt).
• On the morning of March 1, 1954, a hydrogen bomb, code named Castle Bravo, was detonated in the northwestern corner of Bikini Atoll. There was a flash of blinding light and a fireball moved to the sky at a rate of 300 miles an hour. The blast sent millions of tons of sand, coral, plant and sea life into the air. Three to four hours after the blast, atomic ash began to rain down on the people on the Rongelap Atoll and the Ailinginae Atoll which were about 125 miles east of Bikini. The Castle Bravo Nuclear Bomb Crater, the result of the largest nuclear explosion detonated by the United States, is clearly visible in the photo below.

Source: http://www.bikiniatoll.com/

The bikini became popular in the 1960s a symbol of physical liberation of women. In 2010, however, wearing a bikini is associated with anxiety, gruelling diet rituals and joyless physical exercise regimes—it became yet another set of rules for self-control. Read "The bomb-blast garment"—Download Bikini article by Laurie Penny, which was published in the Guardian as "Bikini Body, Anyone?"

How does she get it all right?

A question Nikiwe Bikitsha asks in article subtitled "in gaining the ability to 'have it all', women may have landed up losing most of it" (Mail & Guardian, 3-9 September 2010, p. 34, colum 'High Heels'). Download Nikiwe Bikitsha - Emancipation not so 'Jolie'

Nikiwe's sharing of her habit to watch other moms dropping kids off early mornings and pick-up routine in the afternoons, differentiating the working moms — wearing expressions of a hounded animal, from the stay-at-home ones — exuding enviable serenity, reminded me about Wendy Holden's (2005) The Wives of Bath.

Amanda, sacked because she once too often got her publisher-employer in trouble, on her flight home got carried away with the notion that children are fashionable. No sooner after she got home, she seduced Hugo and became pregnant. After having given birth she discovered the reality is far from glamorous and left Hugo with the new-born. Hugo battles and househusband and practically clueless as single-dad: with unfolding the pram-canopy in the rain getting soaking wet in the process; negotiating for parking space against guerrilla mums with battle wagons; Weetabix crusts on his collar; child-illness (e.g. conjunctivitis); etc.

The story is about four parents-to-be attending antenatal classes together and takes the reader on interesting paths.

Nikiwe's question "In the race to have it all, what have we lost?" reminds me about two other books:

1. Allison Pearson's (2002) I don't know how she does it draws to the conclusion, similar to Nikiwe's article that the modern professional woman seems to be a harassed and impatient women, where Kate takes a decision which saddened me.
2. Venitha Pillay's (2007) Academic mothers, a popularised version of her doctoral thesis about the battles of four academic colleagues, who are also mothers, in their career progression.

I firmly believe that if a couple decide to have a child or children, they must take a united decision to fully share the responsibilities and help one another succeed in other things.

No true love between resentful slave and frightened master

Fighting women, derogate women or dominate / trying to control women is part of the unconscious fear of men, wrote dear old Abraham Maslov way back in 1958. He added, "only as men become strong enough, self-confident enought, and integrated enought can they tolerate and finally enjoy self-actualizing women, women who are full human beings".

Maslov, A.H. 1958. Emotional blocks to creativity, 96-105. In Parnes, S. J. 1992. Source book for creative problem solving. Buffalo, NY: Creative Education Foundation Press.

[Originally published: Maslow, A H (1958) Emotional Blocks to Creativity. Journal of Individual Psychology, 1958, 14, 51-56.]

Female-initiated prevention of exchange of bodily fluids

Every womyn should be in the position to exercise her right to pregnancy prevention (control over her sexual and reproductive health) and to initiate protection against sexually transmittable infections (STIs) and sexually transmittable diseases (STDs). Due to biological vulnerabilities and deeply entrenched gendered power imbalances, women are at risk. Nearly two decades ago a Danish physician invented the female condom (FC), which has been available in Europe since 1992 and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1993. The launched of the female condom Care, provides women in South Africa since 1998 with a product of their own for protection during sex. However, for most South African women FC remains a mystery. Download Hunt_on_for_elusive_female_condom

The female condom is one of three barrier methods, a "technical term used for products that are aimed at preventing the exchange of bodily fluids (e.g., semen, vaginal secretions, blood etc) between people". The FC covers the inside of the vagina, and a man's ejaculate is collected inside the sheath or pouch, keeping the sperm out of the vagina. However, it is the only method that womyn may self-initiate or control. The other methods include male latex condoms and male polyurethane condoms—both dependent on the male-partner's willingness to make use of.

Barrier methods have been found to significantly reduce risks of STIs, including HIV, when used correctly and consistently.

The makers of the original female condom announced in 2005 achievement of a long sought after goal, the 2^nd generation (FC2), a female condom that is affordable and user-friendly. It has the same design, but is made of nitrile (which is not only cheaper to produce, but also more quiet when used) and large scale production began in 2007. A third version, the VA Condom Feminine—made of latex, has since been developed but is not yet FDA approved. The FC2

The Rape-aXe—the anti-rape condom—is a revolutionary product, developed by Dr Sonnet Ehlers in 2005. The idea originated from a rape victim's words: "If only I had teeth down there!" After witnessing the trauma and devastation of sexual assaults, Dr Sonnet Ehlers was determined to do something. Rape-aXe is worn like a tampon by a woman who wants to protect herself against rape.

When penetration occurs without the woman's consent, razor-sharp barbs on the inside of the sheath attach themselves to the man's penis. It is extremely painful and the Rape-aXe can only be removed surgically.

Unlike the film 'Teeth', about a myth-like female condition of “Vagina Dentata“ the Rape-aXe is real.