Do I ever think about anything else?

[judecorp]

So I was wondering this morning about the dominant culture, the dominant paradigm, The Man, what have you. I was in my Clinical Practice With Adolescents class and we were watching some educational program (which was actually rather good) called "Tough Guise," which was basically about how we socialize boys and men to associate masculinity with violence and aggression. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of "what you can do about it" information, which made it a rather depressing watch.

I don't usually like things like this. I tend to cringe away from anything that tries to offer "ways that males and females are different" because it makes me nervous... nervous that someone will be 'legitimizing' lack of equality. But since this one focused entirely on socialization, well, that's different. Of /course/ males and females are socialized differently in our society. That's one of the things I have a problem with.

So I got to thinking about the dominant paradigm. It occurred to me that the dominant paradigm is so rarely challenged because it is, for all intents and purposes, covert or invisible when issues that buck the dominant paradigm come up.

When one thinks of "race issues," one thinks of African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latinos/Latinas, Chicanos/Chicanas, etc. When one thinks of "gender issues," one usually thinks of wimmin's issues (and maybe transgender and intersex issues). And when one thinks of "sexual orientation issues," one thinks of GLBTIQQT-S and whatever other initials one can think of at the time. WHERE IS THE DOMINANT PARADIGM IN ANY OF THIS? We think of these "issues" and the dominant paradigm can continue to exist unexamined and unchanged because it doesn't directly come up.

Race issues include Caucasians. Gender issues include men. Sexual orientation issues include heterosexuality. But these things are not usually thought of when we think of "issues."

This is a serious problem, I think, and a major oversight. I will think more on this after I have Chipotle with Coworker Velma. I am so hungry that my lack of blood sugar is giving me major headaches and shakes. Whee!

Comments

[thespian.livejournal.com]

actually, I never said anything about women attacking men. Projection and assumption that I was not well aware that some of those domestic disputes were male on male is incorrect. So is your listing off all the ways men attack men, without acknowledging that some of those women are going to be victims of women on women violence. It is just as bad as my supposed 'heterosexism' to assume that either I didn't know this, or that it was an issue. My point was not about the gender of the perpetrators, but about the actions of the government in failing to provide support, for fear of losing the votes of the women who don't want to let men have shelters because there was 'no need', and 'men aren't victims in the same way', despite the obvious need that was seen (and yes, that's the way it worked). Women fought against the shelter for males getting funding, and they harassed the founder (as mentioned in the article), and eventually men lost that escape route.

That's sexism.