Sex & Gender Part II - Sissy boys and Buffy girls

I am of the opinion that the next big step our culture needs to make towards gender equality is the acceptance of femininity for men. We are now at the point where it's becoming increasingly tolerated for women to exhibit masculine characteristics and behaviors - full-time careers, competitive behavior, engaging in physical violence. In some areas it's even expected. For example, women who choose not to have a career and be "traditional" stay at home moms are looked down on by some. (I admit I've been guilty of this.) Of course we still a long way to go. Women who are assertive in their careers are still often labeled "bitchy" while assertiveness in men is seen as an asset. And let's not forget the myriad of sexist comments made about Hilary (including the infamous "nagging wife" comment) that play on stereotypes about femininity and masculinity.

That being said, it's still a lot easier in our current society for a girl to be a tomboy that a boy to be a sissy. Girls can now play with trucks, excel at sports, read comic books, etc. and not be seen as deviant. But most parents would discourage their boys from having dolls, learning to cook, playing dress up, crying when they get hurt, etc. (Many would think this means their son was gay –oh the horror!). Women can now be Buffy. They can kick ass and look great doing it. In fact, one could argue the butt-kicking, hot woman has become a pretty standard straight male sexual fantasy. So while it's certainly not acceptable for women to exhibit characteristics from the full range of masculine behaviors and attributes, things have certainly come a long was in the past few decades. However, an effeminate man is still a negative stereotype.

There are a few small signs that this is changing, though. First, obviously, are the tremendous strides the gay rights movement has made in recent years, and the increased visibility of individuals who do not conform to gender stereotypes. Also, there is a small but growing number of men in the U.S. who are choosing to be stay-at-home dads. I read an interesting article in the Washington Post a while back that claimed in 2007 there were 159,000 stay-at-home dads, which is around 2.7 percent of the total stay-at-home parents in the U.S. While this sounds low, the article said that number almost tripled in the past 10 years. On the flipside, even though we may see the men in this article as being egalitarian, they all make it clear that they still work at least part-time from home. None of them are true house-husbands. That probably would have been way too feminine to be acceptable.

Finally, there is the phenomenon of men taking their wife's last names when they get married. I couldn't find any statistics on this, but I was able to find quite a few anecdotal journalistic accounts. David actually told me he was willing to do this when we got married. My immediate reaction was to think he was joking, which shows how ingrained some of these traditions are in our society. I thought about the potential reaction to David changing his name, the teasing and ribbing he would get from his friends and colleagues (esp. men) who would make jokes about his masculinity.

Along those lines, this article about a man who took his wife’s name describes the chuckles he got at his wedding and the flak he took from his friends. The same article talks about another man who had people tell him to turn in his “man card” and ask what “sissy juice” he was drinking. Lovely. Compare that to the relatively mundane reaction I got when I didn’t change my name, as well as the total unquestioning acceptance from people if I would have changed my last name to David's.

There are legal aspects to gender discrimination of name changing as well. This article talks about a California man who had to jump through two years of fees, paperwork and bureaucratic red tape to change his surname to his wife’s. He finally took his case to the California ACLU who helped get the law changed in that state. The article goes on to say, however, that in over 40 states there is still no place on marriage license applications for a man to change his last name.

So my question is when do we get the Buffy for men? When will there be a male pop culture icon that can be a stay at home dad, do all the cooking and cleaning, take his wife’s name, but still also watch sports, love cars, be competitive, etc.? When will the stereotype of the “sissy” go away? Only then can we really achieve true gender equality IMHO.