Sunday, 11 November 2007
Being Male
This Depeche track is supposedly about football hooliganism. I don't think that's quite right. It's about women not understanding what men are. What's in us.
I support the feminist cause wholeheartedly, in fact I go further than some of my female readers are comfortable with. But that doesn't detract from the fact that one fatal error the feminist movement has made, is that whilst telling women to be women, it also insists men should not be men.
We carry a cross we can't admit to carrying.
And it comes out in nasty ways.
Since the Blues Villa Derby finished, I've been out and about- like all Blues fans, just to prove, we lost, but aren't beaten. You can't help it. It's male pride, pure and simple. They can cheer all they like, they won't drown out our chanting. It's pure tribalism, at its best- and worst. And yes, me, I'm sorry to say, I get caught up in it.
I only left the pub when things started looking dangerous. People were secreting glass bottles on to their persons. That tells you things are soon going to cross the line.
But this is men. This is who are. Hunters, fighters, battlers. That adrenalin is in us, because that is what males of our species DO.
There is no animal to match us, so let's face it, we are primed and ready every second, those urges within us that could make us beat the lion, are there.
And this is something women forget. Oh, childbirth is hard. Being male is harder.
We never get to use it all up, our drive, our energy, our aggression.
We are sucked up and used, our sole outlet being taunting the fans of another football team.
We never grow up, because they don't want us to. Who wants the adult male?
Who wants the adult male in all his glory, unconquerable, brilliant, invincible, the lord of creation?
Do the bastards really want to look down and see the seething mass that they govern as they are meant to be?
Snarling, muscles tensing, eyes looking forward with the gleam of the hunter, mind racing, pulse pounding, prepared to unleash his unique agility, his speed of reaction, his determination NEVER to yield.
And Man sleeps. He is harnassed, his energy used like a donkey, for the tiny few who get to be real men.
The rest of us get to feel like men on Derby Day. Like a kind of Medieval Christmas, with the Lord of Misrule.
I've already told Women this system represses their womenhood.
Well Guys, it's EMASCULATING US
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14 comments:
Then let it. If this is male emasculated, I don't male awakened.
An interesting point of view to be sure. Almost believable. But you are right, women don't get it because they don't ever feel like that themselves.
Would the crowd reaction have been the same if they had won or it had been a draw, I wonder?
Personally I would prefer to have a nice nap...
Crushed- I'm male- I don't feel a great need to go and start fights, indeed I avoid them! So am I a deformed man- or is this analysis too reductive.
Mature men don't feel the need to get wrapped up in mob mentality, perhaps you're focusing on younger men, and in that case younger women too feel the testosterone and surge of adrenalin that can lead to violence and 'excitement.' It's youth rather than gender.
What you describe is the frustration faced by boys in men's bodies.
Link.
Oestrebunny- But this is male twisted. The violence that accompanies these events is the result of it being the sole release most men have for their energy, their need to feel a sense of solidarity, to BELONG, to feel a sense of having a cause to fight for.
Men need that. This is why Fight Club is such a resonant film. It DOES say a lot about how we feel.
jmb- What most women don't quite get, is that men NEED to spend time in the company of other men doing solely male things, in a way women don't with other women.
It was actually the Villa fans doing most of the baiting, from what I saw. I'm sure there would have been an edge either way, there always is. Myself, i just prefer to keep it to the chanting and the shouting, but others of course take it beyond that.
Mutley- Ah, but it is true love. The love a man carries for his football time he will carry to his grave.
Gracchi- Well, indeed, I always avoid violence myself- fights are pretty stupid things. I've not been in a fight of any type since I was 19. But I also understand how the emotions carry some away.
During those ninety minutes only one thing is real. And it is a beautifully satisfying feeling. Within the crowd, you feel srangely free. You feel no fear, nothing else matters. Here you would die for the blues.
It's a powerful emotion- and one that you miss as much as Love.
The violence, I believe comes out, because most males fel caged in in the society we live in. We don't get to use up our hormones.
Helen- I don't know. Its that tribal instinct, that desire to bond with the pack, to not kow tow as all of us must do every day, to assert yourself.
The fact is, most men, given the choice, spend a substantial part of their time in male company, but sadly, mainly getting drunk. It is the only excuse we can think of.
Wofie- This is what our society creates. It doesn't really want adult males. Our society no longer has a way to use male energy for positive things, as it once did.
Men need to struggle, to feel the sweat on their brows, to embrace eachother like brothers after conquering an unsurmountable task.
None of us get to do that wearing suits and talking about targets and month ends and the like.
I think I know what you were meaning with this Crushed. I also like helen's statement that this post might better suit YOUTH rather than gender as well. Because I have often felt in my very female way - extremely aggressive an full of pent up frustration and that I could do some pretty violent acts.
Most of that was when I was a teenager and I had a lot of hormones. As do young guys.
Older men need an outlet though. My Gramps believed in boxing as a sport - you don't go making a jack ass of yourself in public and you can belt the shit out of something or someone in a 'safe' environment.
And then there's Italy at the moment where the rage against suppression of an adult male's natural instinct to control his own destiny can't be contained by the football arena and people are getting hurt. It is an inevitable energy and the increasing supression and humiliation by the powers that be only increase the force of the reaction against. Revolution, why not?
What most women don't quite get, is that men NEED to spend time in the company of other men doing solely male things, in a way women don't with other women.
Trust me, that is not true. Maybe young women don't but "mature" women (of any age) value their women friends very highly and do spend a lot of time nurturing those friendships, without men around.
I still think you have an interesting point about pent-up male energy with no outlet.
There is an amazing difference between young boys and girls. Boys seem to be almost bursting out of their skins with energy and are quite exhausting to rear in comparison with girls (ask your mother, if you had a sister to compare with).
I think playing sport as an adult, not just being a spectator, goes a long way to offsetting this need to prove oneself in a competitive physical way. Healthy too.
I don't like football either...
Crushed, try menstruating for 40 years - then you'll know what's hard. I just don't get this crowd mentality - in anybody.
Betty- We live in a very frustrating culture, so much to wind us up, day in day out, that most men really have no way to unwind, except the pub. And here, after a few drinks, people have to be careful. It can be a powder keg. I've sen work colleagues start on eachother after a few drinks
Its the meetings and the targets and the drivel and the travelling and the deliberate back stabbing- it gets to people. We leave work wound up. We lwork in ways that get the adranalin going, butwe never release it. Its bad for us, seriously, which is why it explodes at football matches and the like.
Paul- It certainly adds to my revolutionary ardour. Right now, I tend to soothe my pent up energy down the pub, mouthing off much the same stuff I do here (Well, a bit dumbed down, a bit more football and a lot more stuff about women and music) That does it for me.
But yes, should the revolution be coming, I'm a-ready.
jmb- Its the outlet, I think. I don't watch football for the violence- I stay clear of that, but I like to shout myself hoarse.
Paintballing is good, but expensive.
A good nights clubbing, to be honest, still does it for me. Six hours on the dancefloor, loving the room.
Mutley- Ah, Mutley. He knows not Love who no Love for football knows.
Welshcakes- It's that srength in numbers thing. You release yourself more with a crowd behind you.
We ARE pack animals, after all.
Whats very rewarding sometimes is to start a chant and it be taken up. Thats very empowering.
I just don't get it, I'm afraid.
And I guess I'm not supposed to... that whole gendered mystique thing?
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