Last weekend I took my nephew to Mecca Mall to check the arcades and video games area. We had a good fun time. While wondering around what games they had, I came across this Boxing game. Here the player has to hit an attached ball as strong as he/she can. And there was a scale measuring the player's strength. The scale had some words that I found offensive for any one. Words such as "Sissy, Whip, Girl and of course Macho". I find comparing a kid’s strength with being a sissy boy or a girl to be intolerant and hurts the kid's self confidence. If a kid and especially when a boy fails to kick that Boxing ball strong enough, it gives him wrong ideas on how he is suppose to do and react and how he is suppose to behave with other men and women. This culture of enforcing Macho behavior can cause some confusion for kids when they become in in their Teens and Adulthood. It helps increase the ego in males (and I’m sure most women complain about that and agree with me in this).
I believe we should teach our kids tolerance and that people can be different. People can be Macho, strong, weak, healthy, sick, rich , poor, straight, gay, veiled, Muslim, Christian ,Jew, atheist. Teach them that females can be stronger than men, that females can be smarter than boys. We also need to teach our kids that a person is not judged by the way he/she looks but rather judged by their actions, decisions and good behavior.
Tolerance is the key
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6 comments:
I'd like to think I teach tolerance to my children. But I also have to teach them about the world we live in. We don't live in tolerance; to me it is universal--some use religion, politics, social class or gender to base their injustice, but I wonder how much of it is instinctive and we fight it by trying to overcome these base feelings.
Everyone tells me how free my country is, but I tell you that we are rigid and intolerant. And if we hit an anarchical state, it will come out.
I could write a blog alone on machismo--it doesn't bother me as I understand it; men are just as much victims of it as women. The only two men I have ever loved without complications were overtly macho--the secret was to let them feel safe enough so that they could take that mask off at the end of the day and be themselves, with all the contradictions males have to face today. I hope I make sense.
Wow this game is crazy! I'm use to the political correctness that pervades many things in American society so I sometimes forget how political incorrect the Arab World can be. Even the word "sissy" is considered to be rather...archaic. I hardly hear it at all. It's a term that was more widely used in the 50s to describe effeminate men. Macho-ism in America has gone through a lot of changes with the advent of feminisim. Now the "new" macho is the "metrosexual", a guy who is comfortable in his own skin without having to conform to rigid standards of masculinity. I don't like the term, but it sums up the current situation in American society.
However, Arab machismo is alive and well!
EOR, Men are victim, really? Thats the first statement from a female ;) I think we should blame mom's and the way they raise their kids especialy boys who treated as superiors and blame is not fallen on them when they do something wrong. This is a major issue in the Arab World that is cleary there in small towns and villages. Its better in the cities.
Madame Mansour, the game is not made in Jordan or the arab world, most probably in China. But yes we still have a problem in the arab world about being Macho and using words such as Sissy, Khalwal, Fag, etc...these things start at home and at school
Sure, men are victims--they can't be human. How many men are told to stuff their tears? How many are told that the only legitamite form of emotion is rage? How many men can't be who they are because they have to be what they are told to be?
I am sure that in Arab culture the male is priviledged. But please remember that in America, we are subcultures--Jewish, Italian, Mexican, rural Midwestern, Puerto Rican--I know these cultures the best and men are indeed taught as boys that they are superior to females, but at the same time, they carry the weight of the family. I had one brother--much older--he took care of me like a father, and I loved him like one, but he also had to be the MALE for everyone--my mom, my sisters, my aunts--my dad expected so much from him and even though he is a fine man and a great father, he disappointed my very macho father.
I can male bash with all the rest of them, but to blame men for their BS is like blaming a dog for barking. Yes, they (you) are wired differently from us females, but there are reasons that natural selection can explain for that. Sometimes the machismo gets too much: I love the expression "he's not a man". That is big among machismo--what makes a man. And the fact that they dwell on it so much means that they are insecure about it. I told one guy that I don't sit around and worry about being a "real woman." So men do have a burden that I'm glad I don't.
If mothers raise their sons to be little gods, it is because they have been told that AS FEMALES they have no worth unless they give birth to masculine children. This one I know all too well. Once I had a son, all sins in my parents eyes were forgiven! But then I got told how I was supposed to raise him. That never happened with the female children--my sisters especially were mad at me for having a son. Like I had a choice!
One more thing and then, I will leave you be--macho men are a real threat to others just in their very presense; society wants them that way and then when they are, they are bashed for it.. If you want me to qualify that, I will
There are many cultures including my own Latino culture where macho is everything for men. You can't cry, express your feelings, fears, concerns and so on because it is seen as dealing from a point of weakness. But how can problems be solved without these things?
It does start at an early age as you clearly saw from this game. And then it just gets bigger and bigger as time goes on.
"I believe we should teach our kids tolerance and that people can be different. People can be Macho, strong, weak, healthy, sick, rich , poor, straight, gay, veiled, Muslim, Christian ,Jew, atheist. Teach them that females can be stronger than men, that females can be smarter than boys. We also need to teach our kids that a person is not judged by the way he/she looks but rather judged by their actions, decisions and good behavior.
Tolerance is the key"
I agree 100 percent.
True, the Latin culture just like Middle Eastern encourages the Macho full of ego behaviour, thanks for the input Ricardo and EOR.
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