The markets never fail to push this idea that ‘men are men’. However, as against the advert, the real men are a confounded lot. They ask, ‘what’s actually being a man and what’s so wrong being a man?’ The feminist psychologists are out with the jury, labeling modern man still being influenced by his ‘cave-man-gene’ and still not being in perfect tune with realities that the female world has evolved to.
The men are the confounded lot; they surely are when it comes to assessing their women. The men always have believed women are mysterious and this belief now has more elements of certainty. The men all over the world, especially in more urban-centric developed nations, where modern liberal culture has installed far more changes in women than men, find their women more mysterious. The men are confounded and ask why?
This is where the men go wrong and women probably say rightly that ‘men are men’. They should not ask ‘why’ but should always ask, ‘how’. Changes are evolutionary and when they happen, the smart way is to know ‘how’, never ask ‘why’. The universality and inevitability of change answers all ‘whys’. The solution is in knowing, accepting and appreciating ‘how’.
This cannot be avoided and wished away. Already too much damage has been done as the very important institution of marriage is withering because of this gender-misunderstanding. Surely, it is men who have to come around to the changes that are wreaking havoc on social fabric. Developed societies fear, as the divorce rate is already half the marriage rate, what is in store for future? That is, half the marriages are failing and that too in quick time. In addition, domestic violence and intimate relationship violence are hitting all time high figures. In urban spaces of most developing nations, the gender conflict has already well into initial gender war, with growing rates of crimes and atrocities against women.
There is a lot that has happened in the female world and that too very fast. However, the man’s intuitive nature and his instincts have not yet probably evolved in the same pace. Probably, it shall in future but currently it is in transition. It takes years of socialization for any minor change in one’s intuitive behavior pattern. Recent researches have confirmed, female evolution has been better compared to men.
The changes in the environment of females are all too drastic and men feel at loss because they do not know, often not willing to accept, how these changes happened and how to deal with them. Acceptance is the first prerequisite of any meaningful change in male behavior pattern.
Things have almost taken a U-turn for men. Until a few decades back, men would go to work and women folks would be in exclusive charge of the families and household. The men would face the rigors of the work place and when they would come back to home, they would expect their women to be nice, soft, sweet and caring. The women were their Wellness-Recharge Mechanism.
The men always said, ‘They can face the war with the world and still win it if their women supported them back home’. This has happened since thousands of years. Men seem to be still expecting the same as many young men are still seeing their mothers in the same old mould. It is part of their cultural mind and ingrained deep in the intuitive consciousness too. There is nothing wrong about expecting this. However, the evolution has added another equal face to this.
The women today are writing their success stories at work places. They are almost facing the same crisis and conflicts, which men faced since ages in the outer world of work and success. The women too are in huge need of a ‘Wellness-Recharge Mechanism’, which they had successfully provided to men for ages. They are now in a stage of life-living choices where they expect men at home to do the same for them. And why not? Home and family have always been this Wellness-Recharge Mechanism. The trouble is, as both men and women are now busy and successful in their respective work places, there is no one back home to handle successfully this age-old role of the wellness-recharge provider.
It has to be understood and accepted. Everyone, be it a male or female, has a limit to his or her goodness. You need a lot of goodness and wellness emotional intelligence at your work place for success and achievement. It is a two-way process. You give a lot of goodness and wellness at an outside environment only when you get it replenished by your family members and especially spouse.
We are now all nuclear families where the entire support system boils down to one person, the wife or the husband. Therefore, every wife and every husband has a lot of and exclusive performance pressure of being the replenish-agent of the precious goodness and wellness.
We all live in a very fast-paced and over-stressed life and living milieu. We are all starved for time. There is an epidemic level crisis of intimacies in relationships, especially between spouses, as we do not have enough leisure and rest. Already, a section of psychologists in America are warning of a huge crisis of ‘sex-less marriages’ and labeling it as cause number one for estrangements between spouses. The intimacy-starved relationships have triggered off the looming crisis of intimacy-anorexia.
Men need to be more proactive and rational in understanding the crisis as women are now in state of relative insecurity and big transition. This is so because they are up against the established norms. They may not right now understand the ‘process of evolution’ as they are more concerned in making a space for themselves in the universe of success and achievements where men ruled for centuries.
Men will have to be appreciative of the fact that the modern times are the times of reciprocal and equitable aspirations between man and woman. Men need to relook at women, their newfound personalities and their emotional as well as intelligence needs in the changed milieu.
This is just a simple case of understanding ‘how’ of an evolutionary reality of our times and just be a bit more appreciative. Both husband and wife need to talk on this issue. As men and women share their joint responsibilities at home, they must also take turns in being ‘Wellness-Recharge-Provider’ for each other.
And, as this happens, do also ensure that sex may be postponed between couples but intimacy must never wait. A daily dose of intimacy and that too a large one between couples is a sure wellness-recharge technique. Men are men, so they must take lead not only at work place but surely also at home.
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