Boys and Guns (v2.0) and Beauty, Redefined -- Mothers Raising Boys as Girls

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Date Posted: 14:49:30 12/30/16 Fri
Author: Corey
Subject: Boys and Guns (v2.0) and Beauty, Redefined

I always enjoy Julie Wilson's posts. She is provocative and visionary, exactly what we need. This is a follow-up to her post of last July.

We have about one mass shooting a day in the US. The shooter is usually male, and the victims are usually perceived as weak - female, gay, or young. Male resentment becomes male violence, and the gun becomes the amplification device. In the mind of the shooter, eliminating the weak elevates the strong.

We have any number of intervention and behavior modification strategies available to address these issues, save lives, and reduce pain for all those concerned. But since they involve core values of sexuality and gender identity, we won't touch them. The results are obvious. Crime, mass incarceration, and widespread use of mood-altering drugs like Ritalin.

Ms. Wilson is correct - we have a huge societal problem with male aggression, and it is getting worse. To be fair, not all males are violent. But the attributes most often associated with maleness create a framework within which violence flourishes.

The problem is that we have forgotten how we raised girls in the 1950s. Most women who then sought post-secondary education attended career schools that taught administrative skills like typing and shorthand. But they also taught wardrobe planning, poise, charm, and office skills like coffee making. The notion was that a woman needed to create an image that was appealing to a man, and that she would only work until she married and became a housewife. Of course, many women rebelled against what they felt was a limitation on their growth potential.

But today, our economy is reversed from the 1950s model. We are now service-based, and the skills women naturally have (communication, collaboration) allow them to excel. Men, who by nature seek to dominate and control their surroundings, need a new behavior model. Hence male resentment - they feel as if their world has been stolen from them by people weaker than them, so they lash out as a way of re-establishing dominance.

The solution is to raise boys today as we raised girls in the 1950s. They need to be taught how to create an image that is appealing to, and supportive of, professional women. When they find this new identity, they will no longer try to re-capture their old one.

Redefining beauty is the key. Men love beauty. They eagerly admire beautiful women, and will pay handsomely for the privilege. But the male perception of beauty is flawed. Men perceive beauty as something to fight for and possess. Instead, they need to view beauty as something to achieve and share. Beauty is a lifestyle and not a commodity.

So introduce boys to beauty at a young age. The more they experience femininity and beauty, the more they will reject coarseness and violence.

Someday, if humanity survives our modern era, we will live in a barrier-free world. Decoupling our notions of feminine and masculine from birth genders will be a necessary step along the way.

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Replies:

Re: Boys and Guns (v2.0) and Beauty, Redefined -- Kelsey's mom, 18:01:56 03/19/17 Sun