It’s an odd thing to view certain men in in the public eye and what they put forward as ‘being a man’, seeing how society paints a portrait of what this should be. Reinforced by way of media, magazines, marketing and motive. Men have been groomed their whole lives just as women have, but for different purpose as we know. To be the providers, the protectors, fighters and workers, the head of the household with completely different expectations to those placed upon the opposite sex. Or at least that’s how it was. The requirements are changing it would seem.

But while that change occurs, it’s a bit weird and messy as the roles we have traditionally been bred for are no longer required. They don’t want women to be mothers and breeders anymore, they don’t want men to be soldiers, protectors or workers anymore. So the lines get blurred, the roles get redefined and moulded to be something different.

But the original purpose remains in the forefront of the social structure. Men want to lead; women want to breed. Those are the simplistic terms we were pretty much taught, with hormones and physiology backing it up to certain extent and driving forward that position, and is a very plain view of it. But as we know in real life, it’s obviously not entirely that simple because it’s by way of social engineering that those were the options afforded to each sex as time went on. If women didn’t marry or breed, they were called spinsters or singled out for it. Always made me think of the word spiteful, and I would then think of mean old women who hated others for having children and missed the boat of love and family. As I was meant to, they were portrayed as such in books and movies that way too. And men who never married? Well, they were bachelors living the great life, as was always shown and were often given great sympathy in these fictional portrayals for never having found a wife to love or settle down with. But a new twist on the whole set up coming into play now, on deciding you might not like the role you have been given, or the facade either, now being subject to change if one so wishes. And you know what they say, be careful what you wish for. Leading me to be reminded again of one of the lines near the end of the film in Weird Science, where they realise something after they tried to make the perfect woman (with hilarious consequences), and it seemed poignant. Where one of them said something along the lines of “We wanted to make the perfect girl, before we even knew what we wanted”. A little nod to the teenagers out there I guess who think they know themselves and what you want, based on what you think you should want from all the input you have taken in throughout your life. But with a bit of time and experience, it becomes slightly clearer. For some at least.

Although, on top of that there is an added attitude that sets the tone. Keeping up appearances and keeping up with the Jones’s – two sayings that that give away an awful lot about people and how society is set up. All based around ego and competition to me, but what they encourage seems to be something quite seedy, if not sinister, and seemingly just started out as being about Consumerism. To sell you materialistic things, give you a sense of competition if you didn’t have one, a sense of one-upmanship and of being better than others because of things you have. Spiralling ever further into thinking you are better because of the size of your house, or where you went to school, who your family is and so on. Or thinking you are less than someone because of those things, creating a strange ideal in people’s minds about what happiness is, or achievement, or of being acceptable in the ‘eyes of society’. I think of the saying ‘My dad’s bigger than your dad’ when it comes to how this plays out from a young age, as that is the classic line of one-upmanship used by people to highlight that process in action. You might know someone like that, you know the ones, who regardless of what you say or do, they did it first, or bigger, or better. And this is where society often seems like it has descended into a dick measuring contest, for men and women alike. Literally. Where everyone is so keen to be considered the best, or the top, or have more – but is that because they want it for themselves really? Or is it because they believe people think more of them like that, wanting to please ‘society’ and be what they think is required of them. Continuing the cycle of image and perception, because to be honest by now, I’m not sure we know any different…

(c) K Wicks

A reading of my article – Imprinting

(c) K Wicks