I also consider it to be one of the most damaging, not only for its immediate effects but also for how dreadfully easy it is to fall into this nasty little trap.
One that has been on my mind recently involves menopause... sort of.
I have the greatest respect for how difficult it must be to go through menopause. It's a very tricky transition for a woman to go through. The body starts throwing around new signals, it stops transmitting other signals, and a feeling of a door slamming shut pervades over the woman's life.
Some women welcome it. Some embrace it wholeheartedly. Others dread it, feel their life is ending, rail and rant against all those things they didn't get to do. It's like a glimpse of mortality and that glimpse can bring out the best or worst in a woman - often it brings out both.
There are cruel jokes about regarding menopause. Thankfully those are few and far between nowadays - in my experience, at least - and the matter is dealt with in a far more mature way by what seems, to me, to be the majority of the adult Western world.
But here's the thing, right.
There has been, for as long as I can remember, a stereotype regarding the male equivalent of menopause: the mid-life crisis*. And from what I can tell that 'humour', which in many (I'd say most) cases borders on outright ridicule, has not abated.
I'm thirty-five years old and I wonder, sometimes, if I'm not having an early mid-life crisis. The majority of what I've read about the phenomenon seems to apply toy life right now and let me tell you, the transition I'm experiencing - from an energetic, youthful, whip-thin man with a full head of hair to that of a balding, pudgy man wondering where his energy, potential and zest for life went - is not an easy one.
So I've been thinking about men's issues recently and having a poke about on the net. Everything I remember from my time as a young man and the majority (though not all) of what I'm finding when I look now approaches the mid-live crisis - referred to sometimes as 'male menopause', adding to the image that it's a somehow feminine thing to experience - as if it were some big joke.
Here's where we get people saying, "Look at how much ridicule has surrounded menopause! Look at how much women have suffered in general! See how long it took to get even close to equal rights for women, and in many (perhaps most) places we're still not there!"
All of those things are true. But get this.
Knowing how much it hurts to have those serious issues in your lives denigrated and ridiculed should be cause for you to understand what men might be going through when they suddenly turn around and think, "My life is a lie, and I don't have enough time to fix it." Where's that vaunted feminine sense of compassion now? Curiously absent.
This isn't - at all - a universal thing, of course. Some men (I count myself as one) are very compassionate regarding the changes and struggles our sisters, mothers, aunts, nieces, spouses and daughters suffer through. Likewise some women are very understanding when it comes to men who suddenly find themselves completely reevaluating their lives.
But as a global society it seems mostly the case that menopause is slowly gaining respect and the mid-life crisis isn't.
This is hardly recent, either. Read on. You'll like this.
In the 19th Century a papyrus was discovered, officially labelled Papyrus 55001, also known as the Turin Erotic Papyrus. It is severely damaged and remains the only erotic work to survive from Ancient Egypt; its existence seems to insist that it wasn't the only one of its kind.
It's been described as 'the world's first men's mag' and features two sections. One is of a procession of animals in humorous pursuits, including the playing of instruments. The other is of a variety of men with ridiculously oversized genitalia in various pursuits with attractive young courtesans. There's alcohol, the insinuation of drug use and plenty of sex.
Many of these are men who are balding, paunchy and clearly old. The whole work has an overtone of humour to it. It's meant to be funny. It's certainly sexy, and the courtesans in question clearly make solid use of one guy's oversized manhood before carrying him off (presumably home).
While it's been suggested that it's a men's magazine (effectively) I would bring to your attention that the majority of men in such works, both historically and in modern times, are young and fit. This guy clearly isn't either of those things. He's old, he's fat and he's balding.
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| Sketch from the Turin Erotic Papyrus |
Let's leap forward to the current day.
For those who pay attention to such things, pornography is making leaps and bounds. For a long time now the concept of older women being attractive has been actively upheld by this oft-denigrated industry. Don't get me wrong, the porn industry still leaves a lot to be desired, but if you jump on your favorite browser and gave a quick look you'll find a hell of a lot more 'cougar' sites (older attractive women Getting It On with young, fit men) than the male equivalent.
Women are often seen as losing their attractiveness when they get older, whereas men aren't seen as 'losing it' until much later. That's absolutely true. But there is a much broader scope of avenues in which the attraction of post-menopausal women is being reclaimed than there is for men.
Either way, attractiveness isn't the point of my post, it's just a side-note. The point is that while menopause is quite rightly being given more respect as a life-changing event these days the mid-life crisis is not.
Men are seen as pathetic cradle-snatchers, callously trading in their older wives for younger models, objects of ridicule and scorn. There seems precious little compassion spared for this very delicate and vulnerable time in the life of men who, much more often than not, have been taught by both men and women that it's not okay to feel vulnerable, it's not okay to have doubts and concerns, it's not okay to be weak.
This is a double-standard. And it's not okay. It's not excusable by citing reams of facts about how poorly women have been treated over the years. Two wrongs actually don't make a right.
If nothing else, look at it like this. The man you see is struggling, and all of his social conditioning is screaming at him to not show he's struggling. All of those little unspoken rules as to what constitutes a 'real man' have left him I'll-prepared for what he's now experiencing and it's a chance to show a bit I'd heart, to help him see that what feels like the end of his life doesn't need to be.
If ever an adult male, as mired in society's tar as anyone, is likely to change his values this is It. This is that time.
Are you going to teach him that the world has nothing but scorn for him, to be callous, to withdraw in self-defence and not to care about others, or are you going to help him learn that society's manacles don't have to stay on for life?
* = By 'mid-life crisis' I refer specifically to male experiences thereof. I know that women experience mid-life crises as well as men but, again, while there is ridicule abound for women experiencing it there is a great deal more likely to be found some respect and compassion, particularly when compared to men experiencing the same thing. I am certainly not advocating less respect for women. It simply pisses me off when that same respect isn't given to men, and people make excuses as to why that's 'acceptable' when it's friggin' not.
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