Gendered Thoughts, Part II

If you haven't read Part I yet, go back and do that first.  It's short & I'll wait for you.  Ready...
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...Okay.  Here's the next piece!


The gender-vulnerability-based fears that women have are heightened by two factors: negative masculine gender norms and instructions given to women. The “male” behavior associated with the patriarchy/ hegemonic masculinity/ rape culture (also, read this blog and links from this post; all these are distinct, yet present similar concepts of masculinity) teaches men to act in a way so as to objectify and degrade women. This lesson should not happen. Women are taught a different lesson: how not to place themselves in danger. While this lessons are not, in themselves, bad, they teach women an awareness of vulnerability – so that it is difficult to tell what fear is a response to male behavior and what fear is learned from these instructions. Either way, the fear is there and it is real.

Because of this dynamic, a healthy male-female relationship must include the communication, “I am not a threat to you.” My guess is that we have tons of social cues mean to communicate this message and that it happens subconsciously. Small things: tone of voice, word choice, posture, gestures, and physical proximity – along with things less subtle, from choice of meeting location to explicit words. I read an article recently wherein the author attributed this meaning to chivalry (read to the middle of the article; you are looking for Christina Hoff Sommers, but the whole thing is a good read). Thus, its gestures assure a woman that the man, who physically could harm her, has no intention to. Like a handshake, they guarantee that he comes in peace and respect.

(I can hear the protests now: “But men did not actually respect women more in the days of chivalry! Those were the days of misogyny and chauvinism!” Or those just the voices in my own head? Either way, I am toying with the hypothesis that this exact hypocrisy led to the eventual demise of chivalry. Women killed it because they recognized its lie. Perhaps – perhaps – if it actually communicated this reassurance, women would not mind it.)

I feel a need to interrupt myself to offer a disclaimer. Learned helplessness is, for a very good reason, a concern for feminists. I am starting to feel that I might sound like I am feeding into it. Let me be clear: women do not need to rely on men to “rescue” them and are capable, in a variety of ways, of protecting themselves without male cooperation. They just should not have to.