Can't a boy look up to the character and actions of a woman, and vice versa? Do they also need to have other matching traits, like skin color, ethnicity or sexual orientation?
I have so called mixed-race children and it would be silly to limit them to aspire to be like historical figures that look like them, because I can't even think of one example.
However, a teenager in a society with gender roles is probably going to explore which of those they're going to adopt and which they're going to ignore. Could be they'll want to adopt a male gender role, in which case it's good if they've got positive examples of how to do that.
I grew up in and around factories - where I saw that skilled workers can be incredibly gentle, careful, calm, thoughtful and honest at the same time as being hard-working, providing for their family, and having a unquestionably male gender identity.
Women can model all those virtues - but they can't model them as a way of being a man.
If your teen wants to adopt a male gender role but the only examples they've seen are from the entertainment industry, they'll have a rather blinkered view.
The problems facing the two sexes are different and the expectations of them are different, at least in many societies. The expectations of a young man have been around self-sacrifice, self-control, and self-reliance, and looking towards female role models for cues on that would lose a lot of nuance particular to the male condition.
Women do not have the same physical capabilities of men in either size or strength, and so you're not gonna see the same modeling of restraint. Women have, by and large, a different way of processing emotions than men, and and so you're not gonna see the same modeling of how to handle things like intense anger. Women are rewarded for consensus and co-support in a way that men are not, so you're not gonna see the same modeling of how and when to step out of line and take your licks. Women do not have the same utility in things like warfare or manual labor, and so you're not gonna see the same modeling of patriotic duty or chivalry.
It's fine and well to have role models for other purposes, mind you--plenty of great examples of other qualities--but you can't look towards women for how to be a good man with the same efficacy you can look at men. The opposite argument is of course laughed at out of hand: nobody would seriously suggest that a young woman look towards men to learn how to be a proper woman.
If you find that laughable, perhaps we were raised very differently. The suggestion of learning "how to be a proper woman", as you put it, rather than "a good person" indeed suggests a degree of sexism that doesn't align with the values I embrace.
I believe, in life, girls can look up to men but boys do not look up to women. I suspect, but am not sure, that is built into the biology of each.
> I have so called mixed-race children and it would be silly to limit them to aspire to be like historical figures that look like them, because I can't even think of one example.
I agree. However, I think that we can make observations that show it does happen. E.G. the non-historical release of the Black Panther movie.
I don't really have any beef with gender roles, but sometimes the roles communicate simply antisocial behavior. One very easy example of this is the high rate of deadbeat dads in comparison to rates of single dads. And yea, maybe some people just shouldn't be around children, but once you observe how this passes down generations with your own eyes it's very difficult to un-see.
In these situations simply having a healthy adult that does align with gender expectations on some level, but not another level, that's an alternative can equip children to make decisions about their own life and how they want gender to figure into their own self-image and relationship to the community.
What I don't get is that Andrew Tate and Elon Musk are also, erm, not very masculine by the standards of many if not most communities here in america except in the sense of "thinking being an asshole is funny". Neither is Trump, for that matter. Something tells me that there are other factors at play here than just "masculine role models".
My sister and I were educated in a gender-agnostic fashion and neither of us fell into the trap of thinking that we must do this or that because of our gender. As a result, we each carved our own different path. I don't see why my children will be any different, unless their own peers indoctrinate them with arbitrary gender roles.
You can either get along with people or not, you can either communicate with people or not, it's really up to you. But this doesn't change the fact that kids will be raised in this environment, and it's our collective responsibility to care for them regardless of how you judge the parenting. That, or we collectively bear the consequences of shirking this duty.
Anyway, what is the idea of a role model if not a positive case of indoctrination? What are we even discussing here?
Unlike women, men don't have a say in the birthing process but are nonetheless saddled with the consequences. Unlike women, they have no recognized right to unilaterally relinquish parenthood and the costs associated with it. Being a "deadbeat dad" is the result of a lack of agency against the legal fiction of paternal obligation. It's not like these men would prefer to be deadbeats if availed the free choice of parenthood rather than the legal imposition of it. If there was a database of every abortion undertaken and every child given away by a woman, akin to the Federal Case Registry for child support, it would be evident that women are just as likely to be deadbeats as men.
> In these situations simply having a healthy adult that does align with gender expectations on some level, but not another level, that's an alternative can equip children to make decisions about their own life and how they want gender to figure into their own self-image and relationship to the community.
In a world of 8 billion people and countless permutations of social cohesion, it takes a severe case of naïveté or hubris to believe that "healthy" is or could ever be a well-defined term and not a moving target only a small proportion of people have the wherewithal to live up to. Gender expectations are all simplifications and fictions that often put people into neat little boxes without accounting for their individual circumstances. This has done more to harm self-image than build it, especially when people fall short of these expectations and later resent themselves or the world for their perceived inadequacy to fulfill standards they never consented to.
Men don't have any say in whether or not they have unprotected sex? No. You've lost me. Not a single absentee father I've ever met has accused their baby mommas of sexual assault. That would obviously be a wildly different situation than the general trend I'm describing. It's also hugely offensive.
If you don't want kids, you have a responsibility to not have unprotected sex. Take some damn accountability for your actions and accept the consequences.
When did anyone say anything about sexual assault? Sexual assault isn't the only way to violate an individual's agency in matters of parenthood. But since you brought it up, there have also been cases where a male victim was raped and still had to pay child support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermesmann_v._Seyer
> If you don't want kids, you have a responsibility to not have unprotected sex. Take some damn accountability for your actions and accept the consequences.
There's more to birth than just unprotected sex. If you're suggesting that sex necessarily implies parental responsibility, that's on you to prove. The law already recognizes that sex is not an agreement to parenthood for women. However, the law is incoherent and inconsistent when it comes to men, a number of whom may not even be the biological fathers of the children they're "responsible" for.
The say is in not having sex. You have the individual agency to pay child support. If you can't, people will call you a deadbeat dad. Sorry.
Why is that unacceptable to say to women, but acceptable to say to men? When people say that to women they call them sexist, but the same people say that to men themselves, so obviously there is sexism here.
I think if you accept that for men, you should accept it for women, and vice versa.
Because this is typically in response to allegations of rape? I haven't really noticed any stigma associated with this sentiment outside of that context.