On Male Consciousness

 

Is this controversial? Male consciousness tends to be externally oriented, linear, and focused on a goal, direct and explicit in expression.

Life is full of variety, more than we know or recognize. Male consciousness tends to manifest in male bodies, and female consciousness tends to manifest in female bodies. But both can exist in each. Often, one predominates. But the potential is there.

If you think about it, you have seen female consciousness expressed in a male body, and male consciousness expressed in a female body. Furthermore, sometimes even strong males display a female side to their consciousness, just as occasionally females display a strong male side to their consciousness.

Let’s focus on the characteristics of male consciousness.

Symbolically, male consciousness tends to be a line, while female consciousness tends to be a circle.

It seems nature exhibits these symbols in male and female anatomy. Both male consciousness and female consciousness have positive virtues while being quite different.

Here’s a humorous video about one characteristic of the male consciousness. The video is called IBM – Keep It Simple:

Male Consciousness: External, Linear, Focused, Direct, and Explicit

Male consciousness tends to focus on the external world.

Men gravitate toward:

— external activities,

— sports and politics,

— tools and electronics,

— cars and machines,

— mechanisms and wireless controls,

— building things and taking them apart,

— model ships and airplanes,

— remote-control cars, airplanes, and helicopters,

— playing soldier, shooting guns, fishing, hunting, running around, and being rowdy.

Many men find joy in putting together complex electronic equipment, and then mastering the complexity of a sophisticated remote control. They can love the competitiveness of sports, memorizing baseball statistics, reciting a litany of background data on players and teams, their history, and wins and losses.

Males tend to be goal-oriented problem solvers. This is an evolutionary advantage that is useful when they need to hunt for food or protect their family or community.

They like to solve problems and fix things. They love to achieve goals and win.

When men speak as boys, they may tend to be too direct and unsophisticated. They need to be “civilized” into being more aware and sensitive to the effects their words have on others.

Male consciousness tends to be relatively simple, playful, and action-oriented. Self-reflection, consideration of feelings, and examination of inner motivations are rarely the male default setting. Often those behaviors need more attention.

Once a high school graduating class was taken on a camping trip in the desert. A creative writing teacher decided to lead the students on an exercise to develop their imaginations, to make them more sensitive.

They were given notebooks, pens, candles, and matches. The instructions were simple: Walk a short way into the desert, find a place alone, and proceed to “discover yourself.”

What did the girls do? They followed instructions.

What did the boys do? Since the assignment baffled them, they gathered together, piled up their notebooks, lit them with the matches…

…and started a bonfire.

In Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, the author tells a story that illustrates, in a funny way, one key difference between male consciousness and female consciousness.

A young man and a young woman have been dating each other for many months. One evening while he drove her home, she says, “You know, as of tonight, we’ve been together for six months.”

Silence.

She begins thinking that what she says bothers him, that perhaps he thinks she’s placing some kind of obligation on him, pushing him into something.

And he’s thinking, Wow. Six months.

And she goes off examining their relationship and her motives, where they are going… Marriage? Children?

And he’s thinking, Six months. That means we met after I took the car in for service, and…wow, look at the odometer. I’m way overdue for an oil change…

And she’s thinking about what he might want from the relationship, issues of intimacy and commitment, and…

He’s thinking about how he may have been ripped off by a car mechanic…

And she’s thinking, He looks mad…Perhaps I said something too soon…

When the two of them start actually talking again, is it any surprise that the young man essentially says, “Huh?” while she’s trying to explain that she didn’t mean anything by what she said.

My synopsis cannot do justice to the original story. Dave Barry’s book is very funny precisely because, as outrageous as it sometimes is, he bases his humor on some very true and fundamental differences between male consciousness and female consciousness.

Male consciousness tends to be, and expects others to be, explicit. Male consciousness is not naturally responsive to subtext. (I’ll talk about that in another post.)

A Note about the War Against Boys

In the United States, a disturbing trend is happening in public schools. Competition and risk are frowned upon, while the value of feelings is elevated. Games like dodge ball and active recess activities are being eliminated.

Natural boy-based behaviors are labeled “aggressive” and anything aggressive is deemed bad by definition. Culturally, there appears to be a concerted effort to stigmatize all playful use of guns. Zero-tolerance policies punish boys for pretending to have guns. Even drawing the picture of a gun or forming one with your hand can result in suspension or expulsion.

Here are more stories just from 2013:

A 10-year-old boy in Pennsylvania was suspended for using an imaginary bow and arrow. An 8-year-old Arizona boy was threatened with expulsion because of his drawings of ninjas and Star Wars characters, and his interest in zombies. A 7-year-old boy in Maryland was suspended for chomping a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. A 6-year-old boy in Colorado was charged with “sexual harassment” for kissing a girl.

(Search the Internet for such stories. They are legion.)

Increasingly, boys are seen as defective girls.

When male consciousness is denigrated in full, the results can be catastrophic. That male energy will come out, in unexpected and inappropriate ways.

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason that there are so many boys in men’s bodies is that these boys never went through a rite of passage to change their picture?

Girls have a natural biological event that ushers them into womanhood.

What do boys have?

They used to have fathers who took them hunting or camping, or did something that ritually ushered them into being a man. An adult male with adult male responsibilities.

How often these days is that particular rite of passage missed?

In the US, we live in an age that attacks traditional male practices that initiate boys into men.

What are the consequences?

Boys in men’s bodies. Boys who do not know how to appropriately channel male energy. Boys who are expected to behave in the civil ways that come much more naturally to the female consciousness.

In short, males become confused about their roles in society.

If you question these statements, ask any woman not immersed in academic studies.

Check out an in-depth C-Span interview with Christina Hoff Summers.

Boys are under attack for being boys. Why? What better way to undermine a society than ensuring that adult males stay boys on the inside?

Published in Education
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  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Mark Alexander: What better way to undermine a society than ensuring that adult males stay boys on the inside?

    Indeed. The bar mitzvah is a great example of what used to be everywhere. The boy becomes a man and responsible for himself. There were similar rituals in ancient Rome and other places.

    A few centuries ago, a boy would be apprenticed at fourteen (or so) and start learning his trade.

    Also a few centuries ago in the British army when the child of an enlisted man turned fourteen, he could sign up with the regiment or go find himself a different life. The regiment was no longer responsible for him (or her), unless he signed up. (For the girls, they could marry a soldier or get out.)

    While these might seem harsh, life was harsh. Somewhere along the way, we invented adolescence, and then we invented extended adolescence. It’s a crime against those living it and society at large.

    • #1
  2. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Another male-female difference is that men are visually stimulated, while women are emotionally stimulated.  It could explain why a man can get into looking at porn while a woman can bury her nose in a good bodice-ripper . . .

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    What society is doing to boys is a travesty. It is destructive, immoral, and hateful, and I don’t know if there are any concerted efforts to stop it. I love the fact that men and women are different. My husband and I have learned a lot about the other sex and we are definitely different. Although those differences are perplexing, we get better all the time at checking out our impressions, and it’s amazing how far off our assumptions can be. But we’re doing better.

    • #3
  4. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Stad (View Comment):

    Another male-female difference is that men are visually stimulated, while women are emotionally stimulated. It could explain why a man can get into looking at porn while a woman can bury her nose in a good bodice-ripper . . .

    Perhaps.

    In my case, I am aurally stimulated. Sound and music are the tops. I’d rather be blind than deaf.

    My wife, on the other hand, is visually stimulated. Perhaps that’s why she has photography equipment everywhere, and produces videos for start-ups. In fact, right now, at the age of 70, she is remotely producing video shoots and edits for a biotech firm that is going IPO. She is putting in 14 hour days that exhaust me. (I’m about 5 years her junior.)

     

    • #4
  5. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Stad (View Comment):
    while a woman can bury her nose in a good bodice-ripper . . .

    Uh . . . no.

    • #5
  6. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Another male-female difference is that men are visually stimulated, while women are emotionally stimulated. It could explain why a man can get into looking at porn while a woman can bury her nose in a good bodice-ripper . . .

    Perhaps.

    In my case, I am aurally stimulated. Sound and music are the tops. I’d rather be blind than deaf.

    My wife, on the other hand, is visually stimulated. Perhaps that’s why she has photography equipment everywhere, and produces videos for start-ups. In fact, right now, at the age of 70, she is remotely producing video shoots and edits for a biotech firm that is going IPO. She is putting in 14 hour days that exhaust me. (I’m about 5 years her junior.)

     

    I should have said, “sexually” stimulated in addition to “visually” and “emotionally” . . .

    • #6
  7. Addiction Is A Choice Member
    Addiction Is A Choice
    @AddictionIsAChoice

    Mark Alexander: Increasingly, boys are seen as defective girls.

    If so, then the “dangly-bits” are birth-defects; protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    • #7
  8. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    • #8
  9. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    All of us.

    • #9
  10. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    Stay tuned for Female Consciousness, next week.

    • #10
  11. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    • #11
  12. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    What utter nonsense. Since no one else here is commenting on it, I’m just going to jump in.

    In the IBM video you linked, the guy without the shaggy hair says at one point:

    “quark the paradesium inputs”

    And that’s completely made up. How do they get away with this stuff?


    The rest of the post? Spot on. I got yelled at awhile back on Facebook for writing a post titled “Man Up America” that called on people to stop being pansies about COVID. (It might have included the word “pansies” as well, now that I think of it. A disproportionate number of my posts do, these days.)


    Ask yourself: when was the last time a guy just wanted to talk about how he felt about something, and the woman he was talking to kept trying to solve his problem? It took me years to learn to sit silently, and to repeat to myself that “she isn’t asking me to fix something, she just wants to share.”

    I love women, love the way they think, love the way they look — and thank G-d quite frequently that I’m a man and life is simple, easy, safe, uncomplicated. And that I can pick up heavy things.

    • #12
  13. She Member
    She
    @She

    Mark Alexander: Is this controversial?

    Not in my book. Vive la différence!

    Just as long as there is one.

    • #13
  14. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    . . .

    Ask yourself: when was the last time a guy just wanted to talk about how he felt about something, and the woman he was talking to kept trying to solve his problem? It took me years to learn to sit silently, and to repeat to myself that “she isn’t asking me to fix something, she just wants to share.”

    I love women, love the way they think, love the way they look — and thank G-d quite frequently that I’m a man and life is simple, easy, safe, uncomplicated. And that I can pick up heavy things.

    Y’all may have seen it before, but It’s Not About The Nail is a classic on this point.  It’s less than 2 minutes long.

    • #14
  15. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Maybe this is why most of the rioters have been young men.  Male, competitive, active, linear, goal oriented, when not acculturated and socialized comes out as destruction and aggression.  Whouda thunket.

     

    • #15
  16. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Yay, men!

    #TeamDudes

    #Repealthe19thAmendment

    • #16
  17. JoelB Member
    JoelB
    @JoelB

    @arizonapatriot You beat me to it – the nail thing.

    • #17
  18. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    . . .

    Ask yourself: when was the last time a guy just wanted to talk about how he felt about something, and the woman he was talking to kept trying to solve his problem? It took me years to learn to sit silently, and to repeat to myself that “she isn’t asking me to fix something, she just wants to share.”

    I love women, love the way they think, love the way they look — and thank G-d quite frequently that I’m a man and life is simple, easy, safe, uncomplicated. And that I can pick up heavy things.

    Y’all may have seen it before, but It’s Not About The Nail is a classic on this point. It’s less than 2 minutes long.

    Got ahead of me. That one comes next week in Female Consciousness.

    • #18
  19. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):
    Got ahead of me. That one comes next week in Female Consciousness.

    That’s okay; it’s worth repeating! And someone may have missed this post.

    • #19
  20. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    All of us.

    So, I’m kinda like the guy in It’s Not About the Nail when I get that complicated answer to the yes/no question. The conflict starts when I say “you didn’t answer the question I asked” and it’s all downhill from there.

    • #20
  21. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Mark Alexander:

    Check out an in-depth C-Span interview with Christina Hoff Summers:

    http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/316041-1

    Your link doesn’t seem to be working.

    Try this link.  I think it’s the one you had in mind — a Dec. 2013 “In Depth” interview.  I’m not completely sure, because there are several interviews of Hoff Sommers at the C-Span site.

    • #21
  22. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    Is this really just a female trait? My husband often responds without answering my question. Maybe it’s because he’s an engineer and wants to be thorough. I’m actually pretty good at yes/no, unless I anticipate getting a “why” back.

    • #22
  23. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    Is this really just a female trait? My husband often responds without answering my question. Maybe it’s because he’s an engineer and wants to be thorough. I’m actually pretty good at yes/no, unless I anticipate getting a “why” back.

    Susan, is that a “yes” or a “no?” ;)

    • #23
  24. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Any men here ever get complicated answers when asking the women in their lives yes/no questions?

    Is this really just a female trait? My husband often responds without answering my question. Maybe it’s because he’s an engineer and wants to be thorough. I’m actually pretty good at yes/no, unless I anticipate getting a “why” back.

    Susan, is that a “yes” or a “no?” ;)

    Smarty pants!!

    • #24
  25. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander:

    Check out an in-depth C-Span interview with Christina Hoff Summers:

    http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/316041-1

    Your link doesn’t seem to be working.

    Try this link. I think it’s the one you had in mind — a Dec. 2013 “In Depth” interview. I’m not completely sure, because there are several interviews of Hoff Sommers at the C-Span site.

    Corrected. Thank you!

    • #25
  26. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Pam and Bill Farrel wrote an enjoyable book “Men Are Like Waffles; Women Are Like Spaghetti” in which they emphasize how men can (and do) compartmentalize their thinking and feeling (waffle boxes), while women connect everything with everything (every strand of spaghetti touches every other strand of spaghetti on the plate). 

    • #26
  27. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    I have to get my own copy of Charles Murray’s latest book, Human Diversity.  I checked it out of the library and read it, early last year, but now I find myself wanting to cite it and not entirely trusting my memory.

    I believe that one of the male-female differences that Murray documented related to memory.  Women have better memory for peripheral details of past events, while men are better at remembering the gist of a past event.

    I did find a quick source for this — a 2018 paper by three USC researchers (here), which is consistent with my recollection of Murray’s book.  Part of the text is pretty funny, in the definitions portion (from p. 5-6 of the link, internal citations omitted):

    Gist and detail memory are defined as follows; gist refers to the information central to the event, or, “any fact or element pertaining to the ‘basic story’ that could not be ‘changed or excluded without changing the basic story line'” while detail refers to peripheral information that has no bearing on the context of the story line.

    This seems to imply that women do a better job remembering irrelevant things, while men are better at remembering relevant things.  Perhaps this is just a male perspective.  :)

    From an evolutionary or adaptive perspective, it’s hard to see why this male-female difference would persist.

    Interestingly, in this USC paper, the authors reported that the male-female difference only occurred during the high-female-sex-hormone phase of the menstrual cycle, and that women using hormonal contraception performed similarly to men.  (This is on pages 8-9 of the pdf.)

    This hormonal explanation would provide an adaptive or evolutionary explanation for the difference.  Lower female ability to remember the “gist” of past events is a disadvantage, but may be a negative consequence of the female hormonal cycle, which is quite essential to reproduction.

    Take this with a grain of salt, as it is only a single paper.

     

    • #27
  28. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I have to get my own copy of Charles Murray’s latest book, Human Diversity. I checked it out of the library and read it, early last year, but now I find myself wanting to cite it and not entirely trusting my memory.

    I believe that one of the male-female differences that Murray documented related to memory. Women have better memory for peripheral details of past events, while men are better at remembering the gist of a past event.

    I did find a quick source for this — a 2018 paper by three USC researchers (here), which is consistent with my recollection of Murray’s book. Part of the text is pretty funny, in the definitions portion (from p. 5-6 of the link, internal citations omitted):

    Gist and detail memory are defined as follows; gist refers to the information central to the event, or, “any fact or element pertaining to the ‘basic story’ that could not be ‘changed or excluded without changing the basic story line’” while detail refers to peripheral information that has no bearing on the context of the story line.

    This seems to imply that women do a better job remembering irrelevant things, while men are better at remembering relevant things. Perhaps this is just a male perspective. :)

    From an evolutionary or adaptive perspective, it’s hard to see why this male-female difference would persist.

    Interestingly, in this USC paper, the authors reported that the male-female difference only occurred during the high-female-sex-hormone phase of the menstrual cycle, and that women using hormonal contraception performed similarly to men. (This is on pages 8-9 of the pdf.)

    This hormonal explanation would provide an adaptive or evolutionary explanation for the difference. Lower female ability to remember the “gist” of past events is a disadvantage, but may be a negative consequence of the female hormonal cycle, which is quite essential to reproduction.

    Take this with a grain of salt, as it is only a single paper.

     

    I notice something like this between my wife and me. Maybe the men remember the meaning of the event while the women are inclined to remember the players and whatever might attach to that.

    • #28
  29. The Scarecrow Thatcher
    The Scarecrow
    @TheScarecrow

    There’s that great joke that I won’t reproduce here, because you all know it. The one where they meet for dinner, and the women detects that the man seems distant, maybe unhappy. She then in her mind goes through a descending series of guesses about his state of mind, as she makes a series of conversational openings, each one subtley waved off. 

     

    It ends with her thinking, this is it, we’re finally breaking up. I’m a failure!  Then we visit inside his mind, and of course it’s: sigh – effing Yankees.

    • #29
  30. Paul Stinchfield Member
    Paul Stinchfield
    @PaulStinchfield

    Mark Alexander: Boys are under attack for being boys. Why? What better way to undermine a society than ensuring that adult males stay boys on the inside?

    I seem to recall, from 25 or more years ago, that Tammy Bruce, who was once a president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW and was on the national board, remarked that in her experience many of the feminists she met and worked with in NOW did not just want equality but actually hated all men and wanted harm for them. And nearly all of them were radical leftists.

    • #30
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