Societal Roles and Gender

    Being recently married has been one of the most exciting adventures of my life. I get to learn, grow, and see the world in ways that I have never thought of before. I care about my wife deeply and was very selective in the process of finding someone to marry. I chose to marry my wife because she demonstrated the characteristics that I was looking for in a future spouse and partner in raising children.

    One of the reasons why traditional marriage is often times so successful at raising children is due to the natures and traits of men and women. We compliment each other deeply, and bring balance to each other. Men often times are seen as less likely to ask for help (independent), spatially oriented, object focused, rough housing, competitive, and more likely to show physical aggression. While women on the other side are caregiving/nurturing, open communicators, relationship/people focused, detail oriented (seeing more colors and hearing more sounds), oriented (physically) by landmarks or where things are in relation to each other, and more likely to be verbally aggressive. Now, not all men and women are the same, but we see a pattern in behavior between the two genders.

    At a glance, it may seem like I just made a list of opposites that men and women have, but it is much deeper than that. Each parent has separate and distinct responsibilities as individuals, and their traits help them to complete theirs. Men often times are usually seen to provide, protect, preside over the family, while women nurture and care for the family. Looking back at those traits it seems obviously clear how each of them tie back into the usual role of a family.

    Now that brings forth the question, "If I don't fit these general roles, is there something wrong with me?" Often times, when a woman displays traits of a man, it is seen as an extremely positive thing. They are applauded by society and encouraged as progressing. This can be positive and negative for several reasons, but is highly dependent on the situation that it occurs in. I mean, personally, some of the reasons why I decided to marry my wife is because she shows some of both gender's traits. That is what I was looking for to compliment myself; I also show several traits from both genders. 

    On the flip side of how we see women who show masculine traits, we often see men who show feminine traits in a negative connotation. We seem to see them as lesser than other men, and tend to de-masculinize them. This is common not only in young children who make fun of the boys who are different, but also in adults! How sad is it that we bully men into being men! What woman wouldn't want to marry a man who is tender, kind, detail oriented, people focused, etc? The worst part of this, is the trauma that occurs because of the separation from certain social groups that these men face. Often times these men are chased away from being in social groups of their same gender. They are different, and in turn they are cast out. This creates a void in that man's life, because they are no longer accepted within their own gender group. This can cause them to crave that acceptance and subconsciously become confused about their role in society. 

    My invitation to all those who read this would be to stop, and help encourage acceptance and love towards all of our cohorts in life. It is to help those that might be different, to be accepted and love them for who they are. There is no reason why we need to put those men, who might be tender hearted, down and cast them from societal acceptance.