Gender and Emotions

One way in which the patriarchy acts to the detriment of men is by robbing them of the right and the capacity to express their emotions verbally. From early childhood, girls observe their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and their female friends discuss openly and clearly what they feel and why they feel it. This is how we acquire the extremely important skill of verbalizing our emotions. Later on in life, we emulate our mothers' and aunts' example and create our own networks of emotional support. We learn to build a core group of people whom we can always turn to, call on the phone, email, and say, "I'm feeling really sad today, can we talk?"

Boys, on the other hand, are schooled to conceal their emotions as much as possible. "Boys don't cry,"  they are told from an early age. So in order not to jeopardize their gender identity, they learn to repress the emotions they experience. Sadness, grief, depression, loneliness - these emotions often don't get verbalized in many men's lives. They are taught to hold it all in, never show what they really feel because that would be unmanly. Few things are as bad for one's psychological and physical health as this stiff-upper-lipping through negative emotions.

At the same time, women who find it more difficult to verbalize what they feel also find themselves castigated by the patriarchal vision of gender. Women who lack the capacity of being as openly emotional as the patriarchal standard expects every woman to be are branded as unfeminine. 

This gender disparity in how well men and women can express themselves emotionally makes it more difficult for people in heterosexual relationships to get along and understand each other. This, of course, is one of the goals of the patriarchal system which is bent on turning gender relations into a constant war between men and women whom it positions to be so different as to come from different planets. Patriarchal media try to convince us that these differences in the ease with which men and women verbalize their feelings have to do with how differently our brains are "wired." This popular belief has been rejected by actual science more times than one can count. Still, many people choose to uphold it because their only alternative would consist of realizing how much they are being hurt on a daily basis by the patriarchal view of gender. Since that would simultaneously imply a rejection of the advantages that the patriarchy offers to both men and women who comply with its basic norms, many people are not prepared to do so and prefer to soothe themselves with platitudes about different "wiring" of their brains according to their gender.

Gender Relations in Russian-Speaking Countries

Mary was beautiful, with thick dark hair, huge, slightly protruding eyes, and a touch of condescension in her smile. At the age of sixteen, she married Zinovi Stolberg, an energetic, intelligent and enterprising young man. Three years later, in 1929, she gave birth to Klara and left her husband because he annoyed her with his opinions. Not his opinions as such since she never listened to what he said anyways but, rather, with his daring to express any opinions at all. 

                                                                                                          Michael Blekhman, Reflection

When I became a college student in Canada in 1998, I was shocked to see that male students spoke out and expressed their opinions both in class and outside of it. I was used to my male classmates sitting in the back rows of the classroom and giggling. My idea of men was that they constantly needed to be told what to do by women. Who would then have the task of putting right everything that inept, helpless men would inevitably mess up. My favorite sentence in dealing with men at that time was, 'We are going to do what I say, when I say, and how I say it.' And if you believe that this attitude made my romantic life problematic, you couldn't be more wrong. Nothing is easier than abandoning responsibility for your life to somebody who is willing to assume it, so there were crowds of candidates for the role of a man who is being bossed around by a strong woman. (I've changed since then, of course, and now resist all attempts of people to assign me the role of the boss of their lives.)

We are a culture of powerful, bossy women and immature men who never speak out. They just mumble. Obviously, not everybody is this way, but this trend exists and it is very powerful. So if you think that the quote I gave above is a joke or an exaggeration, think again. I knew Mary when she was a lot older but she was exactly the way she is described here. She was my great-grandmother.

You Know What Makes Me Sad?

That at least once a day somebody alights on my post My Husband Doesn't Help Me Around the House after entering something similar to the post's title into a search engine. I truly hope that after reading the post these women at least begin to consider how their way of thinking about household chores infantilizes their male partners and ensures that being female transforms them into permanent domestic slaves.

Dear female reader! Please remember that it isn't "my dirty dishes." It's "our dirty dishes." You male partner is not supposed to "help" you take care of your shared space, meals, laundry and groceries. He is supposed to take care of his own shit like an adult that he is. 

Please also remember that there is no better way to bury the sexual passion in your relationship than to be the person who always runs around with a mop while the other partner snoozes on the couch. Slaving permanently over housework will not benefit you in any way whatsoever. So instead of trying to figure out why he doesn't "help," simply stop doing more than your fair share. Just stop. 

Dorothy Seymour

I'm sorry for posting so much, people. I often resolve to stop inundating people with posts so often but there are so many things going on everywhere that are worth commenting on that I just can't help myself. This is a story that was brought to my attention by reader Patrick whose controversial comments we all appreciate. Thanks, Patrick!

The baseball lovers among us must have surely heard about Harold Seymour's seminal studies of this sport. I know nothing about baseball but even I have heard his name and know of his importance to the writing of baseball's history. Now it turns out that much of the research for all of the books and most of the writing for the last one had been done my Seymour's wife Dorothy, his life partner of 30 years whom he refused to acknowledge as a co-author. 

Dorothy contributed a lot to Harold's career from the moment they married. She was helpful in helping him get through the writing of his doctoral dissertation:

As a good '50s wife, she typed the 632-page dissertation in which Seymour traced baseball from a childhood pursuit of boys into a full-fledged business and American cultural centerpiece. Cornell University awarded him his doctorate in 1956, and the dissertation helped launch sports history as a legitimate scholarly pursuit. It grew into his first baseball history book, published in 1960.Dr. Seymour's wife knows now that she probably contributed more to that dissertation than the academic world would consider appropriate. In the preface, Seymour acknowledged "the help of numerous individuals and organizations."He did not mention Dorothy.

Everybody knows that being the partner of a person in the throes of writing a doctoral dissertation is very hard. Those of who who suffered through the process of researching, writing, revising and going nuts over the dissertation know how much we owe to those people who were by our side and put up with us in the process. Seymour, however, felt nothing similar. A wife for him was not as person. She was a convenient object who was supposed to produce and shut up.


The most frequent argument male chauvinists use to disparage women is that the entirety of human civilization was created by men while women just sat there twiddling their thumbs and sometimes managing to look pretty which only served to distract men from their all-important endeavors. I wonder how many of the great works of literature and scientific advances owe their existence to the silenced wives who toiled in the background and whose input was never recognized.